Wayfarer

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

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What is Wayfarer?

Our Knowledge-as-a-Service interactive platform helps libraries prevent resources from collecting digital dust.

Patrons don’t think about the “resource” they need. They think about the problem they need to solve. The Wayfarer helps libraries translate resources into problem-based, patron-centric micro-tasks that are then compiled into curated paths on discrete topics (“Find a Job” or “Start a Business,” e.g.). The patron selects the Wayfarer path that solves her problems and follows the steps along the path.

The Wayfarer uses AI, smart questions, customized UX, and micro-action tracking to provide a personalized experience and connect patrons to resources like never before. And the discovery element helps connect the dots between resource topics. The platform is available in multiple languages and helps to bridge the digital divide.

Wayfarer is currently in 13 library systems nationwide reaching a service-population area of 4.6 million patrons, including Missouri patrons in Kansas City, St. Charles County, and Joplin, as well as Houston. It also recently won SBA’s veteran-owned business of the year award.

Company Leadership

Chris Daming

Co-Founder & CEO

Chris is the co-founder and CEO of Wayfarer. Prior to Wayfarer, Chris spent 4 years in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. Afterwards, he got his J.D. and LL.M. at Washington University, and practiced law serving entrepreneurs.

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Jorik Ittmann

Co-founder

Jorik is the co-founder and COO of Wayfarer. Originally from the Netherlands, Jorik has founded one medical tech company, and he helped lead another in a successful exit to a publicly traded firm.

Queritel

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

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What is Queritel?

Committed to helping independent business owners compete and win, Queritel’s cutting-edge omnichannel retail point-of-sale (POS) solution—Figozo —equips SMBs with the ability to reach more customers both in-store and online while maintaining the level of personalization that makes them stand out.

So, how does it work? Figozo helps retailers set up cloud-based catalogs that are updated in real-time so they can have an accurate view of the products they have available, whether they are selling in-store, online, at a flea market, farmers market, or all of the above. With Figozo, merchants can build their online store, configure a slick POS device for in-store and on-the-go transactions, plus offer multiple payment methods, including Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and gift cards, to provide a seamless customer experience. The platform can also keep track of inventory and send updates to team members or key stakeholders (like brands) about items that might soon be out of stock, helping retail merchants efficiently track and manage supplies.

Company Leadership

Shani Bennett

cEO

Shani Bennett is the co-founder and CEO of Queritel, a data analytics engine for independent retailers. Prior to Queritel, Shani was a senior analyst for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. Shani Bennett is passionate about human and community development. Shani loves to watch cooking shows and designing logos for imaginary companies.

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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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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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DenScore

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

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What is DenScore?

DenScore is a data-driven digital health company that helps consumers make smarter decisions about their oral health care so they receive higher quality, more personalized and affordable dental treatment. DenScore provides dental claims insights to Medicare Advantage plans, insurance carriers and health systems so they can steer members to the most desirable dentists in their network to reduce dental plan costs and member disenrollment. DenScore also offers a web-based application that helps enrollees, employees and uninsured Americans understand their dental symptoms so they’re better equipped to navigate their dental care needs. DenScore’s application benefits users by helping them manage their symptoms, avoid unnecessary dental care, reduce out-of-pocket costs, minimize non-urgent dental-related ER visits and much more.

Company Leadership

Kyle Gernhofer

Co-founder & cEO

Dr. Kyle Gernhofer is DenScore’s co-founder and chief executive officer. After graduating from the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, Kyle treated thousands of patients in the Navy and private practice. While on active duty, he received the Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medal for leading a humanitarian exercise that provided medical care to communities throughout Southeast Asia. In private practice, Kyle was consistently recognized by his patients and peers as being one of San Diego’s top dentists. Kyle started DenScore to help people make smarter decisions about their oral health so they can live healthier and happier lives.

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Charlie Hubbard

Co-founder & cdO

Charlie Hubbard is DenScores’s co-founder and chief data officer. He graduated from Iowa State University with an MS in Computer Engineering and has been practicing data science for over 8 years. Charlie uses his passion for machine learning and big data analytics to ensure that DenScore’s performance-based metrics enable clients to gain deeper insights about their dental provider network. Charlie is inspired by DenScore’s unique approach for harnessing the power of big data to improve oral health outcomes for millions of Americans.

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Dataplant

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

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What is Dataplant?

Dataplant is a sentient customer analytics platform built on procedural generation technology that arms customer success professionals with the tools they need to drive business objectives and customer outcomes.

Founded by two data scientists who traveled the world building data science programs for customer success organizations; DataPlant is on mission to democratize customer analytics for the untapped market of B2C and small to mid-size businesses. DataPlant’s empowers companies to execute like never before by combining human and machine learning intelligence in a truly novel way. Customer analytics as we know it will never be the same!

Company Leadership

Samuel J Cummings III

Co-founder & cEO

Proven data science executive and team lead with 10+ years of predictive analytics experience at B2B SaaS companies. Won the CS Inspire award as an Enterprise CSM at LinkedIn in 2021. Also served for 2 years as Director of Implementations at Indeed Inc.

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Mithelesh Kumar

Co-founder & ctO

Mithelesh has close to 10yrs of experience in product development, SaaS ecosystem, Machine Learning, programming, Statistics, natural language processing,, conversational analytics and sentiment analysis.
He has delivered multiple revenue generating successful SaaS product features and tons of machine learning solutions, managed team of data scientists, mentored 100s of data science learners via liv classes.

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Inventora

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2021 | Status: Active

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What is Inventora?

Inventora is a simple inventory management and planning software for small handmade businesses, and other businesses that manufacture their own products in-house. Dianna and Jeremy started building Inventora in late 2020 because Dianna was unable to find anything viable to manage her inventory across raw materials and finished products for TERRA (her other business which makes candles and other handmade products). Inventora opened up for public use in February 2021, and has quickly grown to a household name that is highly recommended in the handmade industry.

Company Leadership

Dianna Allen

co-Founder

Dianna traveled to more than ten countries before returning to St. Louis to start TERRA (candles & home fragrance) in 2019, and then Inventora at the end of 2020. She is a talented design & marketing mind, and has grown both of these brands from zero to a cult following.

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Jeremy Blalock

co-Founder

Jeremy moved to St. Louis in 2019 for an Arch Grant at a previous company (Adalo), but after leaving the company, he decided to stick around, and started Inventora with Dianna. He’s an engineering leader who has lead large teams and built ambitious projects, not the least of which is Inventora—a whole inventory management and ERP system for small handmade businesses.

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Nebula Media Group

Origin: PA | Grant Awarded: 2021 | Status: Acquired

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What is Nebula Media Group?

Nebula Media Group is a full-service website and content accessibility consultancy for small and mid-size businesses. From WCAG to ADA compliance, our ‘accessibility-as-a-service’ platform combines people, technology, processes, and legal expertise to help attain and maintain true accessibility for our clients. Let’s build a more inclusive web, together.

Nebula Media Group was fully acquired by CurbCutOS in February of 2023.

Company Leadership

Will Bubenik

Founder

Will Bubenik is a St. Louis native and has three siblings with intellectual disabilities. Seeing his siblings struggle to use the internet showed him that it wasn’t that his siblings weren’t able to access the world…it was that the world was made inaccessible to them. Nebula was born from that experience. Will is an avid sports fan and a proud Temple University alumni, having professional experience with Special Olympics International and the Philadelphia 76ers. Ask Will about Philly sports!

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Be a Part of the Movement

We champion extraordinary entrepreneurs to create positive change – for St. Louis and for the world. Join us by applying to our Global Startup Competition, becoming a financial supporter, volunteering your time or amplifying our message.

InfraLytiks

Origin: IA | Grant Awarded: 2021 | Status: Active

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What is InfraLytiks?

InfraLytiks has the main goal of “Making Data Meaningful”. We specialize in data analytics, Machine Learning and development of custom software & automation platforms for productization. We also own and operate a suite of geospatial and Artificial Intelligence products including Verified Data Analytics, Automated Inspections, InfraVIEU, InfraDrone & LiDAR NOW.

Company Leadership

Akash Vidyadharan

Chief Technology Officer

Akash Vidyadharan leads full stack project and product development at InfraLytiks for 5+ years. He holds a BS & MS in Aerospace Engineering and a M.Eng in Systems Engineering from Iowa State University.

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Kevin Prendergast

President

Kevin Prendergast is the President of InfraLytiks and leads business development, sales and marketing. He also has 35+ years experience in leading insurance, software and healthcare companies as President and CMO roles.

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Tyler Carter

Chief Operations Officer

Tyler Carter leads operations and administration at InfraLytiks and has 5+ years of experience in business development, administration and company operations. He holds a BS Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration from Iowa State University.

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Be a Part of the Movement

We champion extraordinary entrepreneurs to create positive change – for St. Louis and for the world. Join us by applying to our Global Startup Competition, becoming a financial supporter, volunteering your time or amplifying our message.