Year: 2022

Noveil

Origin: CA | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is Noveil?

Noveil is a video based dating app for Generation Z college students that uses machine learning to match users. We created Noveil because we noticed several problems in the dating industry such as superficial dating practices, lack of women’s safety, and poor success rates for actual relationships. Our platform solves these issues by allowing users to speak with one another via video chat for 3 minutes before they decide whether or not the would like to match with this person.

Company Leadership

Michael Allotey

cEO

Michael Allotey is an LA native who graduated from the University of California , Irvine in 2021 with a B.S in Computer Science and Innovation. He has experience as an engineer at Amazon as well as Investment banking with Goldman Sachs. He is passionate about technology and how it can be used to improve the quality of life.

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Kendrick Barefield

Co-founder

Kendrick Barefield grew up in Bakersfield, CA and graduated from University of California, Irvine with a Bachelors degree in Mechanical engineering in 2021. His industry experience includes Engineering design with Lucid Motors and Thermal engineering with Masten Space Systems. Kendrick has committed to giving back to the community, serving on the board of the National Society of Black Engineers and participating as a mentor in the 100 Black Men of Orange County.

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MOODEAUX

Origin: GA | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is MOODEAUX?

When the world commands you to shrink, we say do the opposite: Flaunt How You Feel.® As a clean fragrance label rooted in the scientific connection between scent, memory and emotion, MOODEAUX® turns accessorizing your mood into mindful self-care and “luxury” into a lifestyle —  all minus any harsh alcohol, weird chemicals or unnecessary dyes. It’s through this attitude, along with our unique blends of drool-worthy accords and skin-nourishing ingredients, we’re changing the game forever. Welcome to a new era in beauty.

Company Leadership

Brianna Arps

founder & cEO

Brianna Arps is a former editor-turned-marketing expert whose passion for people, storytelling and all things beauty finally led to the birth of her very own “brand-children” MOODEAUX® and Black In Fragrance.™ In the same way as her bold sense of style, Brianna wears her emotions like a badge of honor — navigating through life by the simple motto: Flaunt How You Feel.® A St. Louis native, she’s known as an outspoken, charismatic big thinker working to make the world around her better — starting with perfume. Brianna holds a bachelor’s degree from the world’s first School of Journalism seated at the University of Missouri.

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MARSfarm

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is MARSfarm?

There is a technological revolution occurring in the agricultural industry to ensure that humans will be able to sustainably feed our growing population in a changing climate. For over a century, U.S. farmers have learned the technical skills they need from vocational programs in secondary schools. Teachers working in these agriculture programs are desperate to bridge the growing disconnect between the technology being used in the industry and what is accessible to them.

MARSfarm brings ag-tech into the classroom by providing a platform for agricultural educators to give students early exposure to emerging industry practices and problems. Countertop-sized greenhouses designed for the classroom are the enabling hardware of this platform. Our software provides the ability to execute control sequences (called “recipes”) in these greenhouses and remotely monitor them. Consumable kits consisting of seeds, fertilizer, etc. are paired with “recipes” designed in partnership with pioneers of emerging agricultural technologies. This combination of equipment, software, and consumables will ensure that educators are always teaching industry-relevant skills that lead to valuable career education.

Company Leadership

Peter Webb

cEO

Peter Webb began his career working first as a database administrator and then in a business development role at Hussmann Corporation. Peter has also consulted for The Open Agriculture Initiative at the MIT Media Lab and served as the Director of Indoor Farming at The Yield Lab Institute where he mentored several startups in the IN2 program.

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Drew Thomas

coO

Drew Thomas comes from a background in engineering, manufacturing, and career technical education. After experiencing CTE training firsthand at Ranken Technical College, he spent his career programming CNC machines to serve the aerospace industry. This led to consulting opportunities for Quip and a teaching position at TechShop, a maker-space formerly in Cortex.

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JAKAPA

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is JAKAPA?

JAKAPA measures, trains, and tracks soft skills. Bad soft skills are the #1 reason someone will be fired, and bad manager soft skills are a top reason why great employees quit. JAKAPA helps businesses improve their productivity and decrease turnover by providing data-driven answers to 3 of our client’s critical questions about training and engagement:
1. Are my company’s employee development initiatives actually working?
2. How can I help my employees improve their soft skills outside of training and feedback sessions?
3. How do I catch employee development disengagement early so I can intervene before it becomes permanent?
We achieve this using reliable and validated assessment technology, daily soft skill challenges, and an actionable dashboard. JAKAPA gives management and individual employees data clarity around their real-time strengths, weaknesses, and engagement metrics.

Company Leadership

Gavin Pringle

cEO

Gavin Pringle got his entrepreneurial start when he noticed a lack of focus on soft skills in traditional education. This alarmed him due to his experience managing successful teams as a Navy Submariner. Gavin was inspired to found JAKAPA when he learned that bad soft skills are a top reason for employee turnover. He wants to help every business focus on improving their employees’ soft skills by providing frequent measurement, training, and tracking.

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Lisa Riegel

coO

Dr. Lisa Riegel is the chief designer for the Skill Builder Challenge Platform in JAKAPA. She is an internationally sought-after thought leader for program improvement and leadership development. She feels her life experiences as a recruiter, educator, administrator, state-level education policy maker, workforce development consultant, and leadership coach have all led to the development of the JAKAPA platform.

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Keara Pringle

ctO

Keara Pringle is an engineer and project manager. She is an agile project management enthusiast that has taken numerous engineering projects from ideation to full commercial release. Keara is passionate about JAKAPA due to her experience working in Corporate America and seeing what poor soft skills can do to team performance. She wants to help businesses develop stronger corporate cultures through better soft skill training and hiring practices.

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HIVE

Origin: IL | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is HIVE?

HIVE is a remote patient monitoring company devoted to improving medication adherence and reducing unplanned readmissions for the 3 million patients on home infusion therapies. These patients self-administer long-term IV medication under the remote supervision of their clinician. The problem is that clinicians don’t have good options for monitoring their patients to make sure they take their medication safely and correctly. For example, of the 3 million patients prescribed at-home IV antibiotics, 20% are readmitted, and each readmission costs $80,000. Clinicians currently call every patient, a process that is time-consuming, subjective, and ineffective. HIVE has developed the only device to solve this problem. Our patent-pending IVsight smart catheter leverages a simple mechanoelectrical sensor that wirelessly reports objective medication administration data in real-time, so clinicians can make informed treatment decisions to prevent costly and dangerous readmissions

Company Leadership

Joe Beggs

cEO

Joe Beggs is a St. Louis-based entrepreneur with expertise in the development and commercialization of medical devices and regenerative medical products. While a biomedical engineering student at Washington University, Joe founded two medical device companies, HIVE and GenAssist, gave a TED Talk on the science of business, and completed internships in venture capital, neuroengineering innovation, and laboratory research. Joe has been named a Top Innovator under 25 by the St. Louis Business Journal, won the Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award from WashU, and raised over $600,000 for both HIVE and GenAssist.

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Glen Kleinschmidt

c0O

Glen is a Dual-Degree Engineering graduate who holds a BS in Biophysics from Elon University, and both a BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering from Wash U. ​He has extensive prototyping and product design experience and has worked with a variety of medical device companies and their products. Glen leads product development and project management at HIVE, collaborating with people across many disciplines to ensure HIVE not only meets its milestones, but actively creates oportunity for growth.

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Sai Dodda

cmO

Sai Dodda is a PharmD graduate from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy (STLCOP) and he received a BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences from STLCOP. Sai has clinical experience with home infusion therapy patients as well as knowledge of drugs and therapeutics. Sai also has publications in infectious disease centered on health outcomes and market research. He is currently pursuing a Masters in Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy with a concentration in Applied Pharmacoeconomics. At HIVE, Sai works on planning, implementing, and maintaining business operations and clinical development activities.

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Jake Eshelman

computer engineer

Jake is a Dual-Degree graduate with a BS in biochemistry and biomedical engineering from WashU. His focus is on bringing innovation into the med-tech field through software and hardware solutions. Jake took a leave of absence from a MS of computer engineering program at WashU to join HIVE as a full time embedded software engineer and tech lead. Since joining he has lead development of HIVE’s technology platform in conjunction with key contractors in preparation for an upcoming clinical trial at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

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HabiTerre

Origin: IL | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is HabiTerre?

HabiTerre is an ag and geospatial technology company specializing in environmental and productivity modeling for food and agriculture.

Through a suite of advanced, patented technologies, we generate insights such as farm management practice history, farmland productivity, in-season crop yield forecasting, and water and nutrient use efficiency, all of which ladder up to a holistic understanding of farm production systems and their environmental impacts. These capabilities form the foundation of our ability to quantify things like GHG emissions and carbon sequestration accurately, scalably, and efficiently.

Our truly unique System-of-Systems approach leverages Model Data Fusion to seamlessly integrate numerous data streams at high geospatial and temporal resolution to calibrate and constrain our models. Backed by industry-leading research and development and published literature from founder Dr. Kaiyu Guan’s lab at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, the underlying technology powering HabiTerre’s quantification capabilities is second to none in terms of ability to scale while providing highly accurate and verifiable data that starts at the field level.

Company Leadership

Dr. Kaiyu Guan

founder & science lead

Dr. Kaiyu Guan is HabiTerre’s lead scientist and a Blue Waters Professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Kaiyu’s lab produces research and technology at the forefront of the ecohydrology and remote sensing fields in agriculture, using satellite data, computational models, field work, and machine learning approaches. He founded Habiterre to solve the real-life problems of large-scale crop monitoring and forecasting, water management and sustainability, and global food security.

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Nick Reinke

CeO

Nick brings a lifetime of experience in agriculture, from his family farm in North Dakota to working with farmers and agribusinesses for over a decade in crop insurance and ag finance. From there, he went to work on ag sustainability, earning his MBA from Johns Hopkins University and joining Truterra, where he acted as Soil Health Services Lead and helped the team launch one of the first and largest ag carbon initiatives in the US, working with partners across the entire ag value chain. This work prepared him to lead HabiTerre with a deep understanding of ag and related sustainability metrics.

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Grab My Bag

Origin: GA | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is Grab My Bag?

Grab My Bag is a luggage delivery service from airport baggage claim to the traveler’s requested location. The press has been calling them the “Uber or Lyft for luggage.” Here’s how it works: Travelers book a “GRAB” through their website by entering a few details about their trip. Then Grab My Bag tracks their flight, & dispatches a “GRAB-ber” to grab, secure, and deliver their checked bags to them when they land, so that they can immediately exit the airport after deplaning.

Company Leadership

Emory Reignz

founder & cEO

Emory Reignz is a professional SAG-Aftra Actress and former professional cheerleader (aka Ice Crew Girl) for the L.A. Kings. She is an entrepreneur who holds her MBA in Accounting & Finance, and has over 17 years of experience in Finance & Operations. Her work with the Tuskegee Airmen as their National Spokesperson piqued her interest in aviation interest. She is a member of Airport Minority Advisory Council (AMAC), and a certified MBE, DBE, ACDBE, WOSB, and EDWOSB.

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Flora

Origin: IL | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is Flora?

Flora was born from pains of horticultural hopelessness: Aabesh De, the Founder of Flora, was killing every single plant in his line of sight. The last straw was when his mother gave him a rose bush plant to babysit: The rose bush withered away in a week.

Aabesh was frustrated that there wasn’t an accessible, easier way to learn about houseplants and gardening, while connecting with other plant parents along the way. Surprised that there wasn’t a “heart monitor for your plants” in the market, started tinkering around with numerous moisture and light sensors in late 2020, and invented the Flora Pod.

He eventually developed the Flora iOS app for launch in July, 2021, which has now grown to more than 125,000 users from more than 190 countries! Flora has now grown to a talented, plant-obsessed, rock-star team of 30 individuals committed to one singular mission: To save as many plants as possible and commit to fighting the climate crisis through connecting millions of people with nature.

Company Leadership

Aabesh De

founder & cEO

A first-generation immigrant and globe-trotter, Aabesh is driven by a lifelong sense of curiosity.

He founded Flora from this applied curiosity, inventing the Flora Pod and developing the Flora iOS app from his frustrations with horticultural hopelessness. He taught himself mobile development (primarily in Swift), and found his calling in building useful, mission-driven products for thousands of people. He previously worked at Microsoft and Etsy, and is now dedicated to saving as many plants as possible and committed to fighting the climate crisis through connecting millions of people with nature.

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Disco!

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2022 | Status: Active

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What is Disco!?

Disco! (timetodisco.com) is a web platform that enables consumers to explore and book curated group events on demand across a variety of industries. As the category leader of automated group experiences, Disco! is disrupting the traditional event planning process to remove the friction between consumers and businesses and make group events accessible to all. For local businesses, the platform enables entirely new revenue streams, reduces labor costs and connects businesses to great customers.

Disco! offers real time booking across all industries and business types with a “curated” look and feel that consumers desire. With the continued growth of our end to end planning features, consumers will be able to utilize Disco! to seamlessly coordinate all details with their group, encouraging repeat bookings.

Company Leadership

Brittany Dwyer

founder

Brittany Dwyer’s background in the event and hospitality industry combined with her passion for connecting people through memorable shared experiences was the force behind launching Disco! She has over 7 years experience leading large software development initiatives at a startup, digital agencies and a large corporate company.

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