oneKIN

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

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What is oneKIN?

oneKIN is a mission-driven, retail-tech company, and we are singularly focused on providing small businesses creative technology solutions to help them increase their visibility and grow sustainably. Our hyper-focus on small business is very deliberate. We believe that they harness the collective resourcefulness, creativity, and genius of their respective communities. By providing them tech-enabled solutions to grow, we are empowering them to effect widespread socio-economic change.

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Company Leadership

Marvin A. François

ceo & Co-Founder

A former Wall Street banker turned self-taught engineer-in-training, Marvin is incredibly passionate about building and investing in disenfranchised communities, and leveraging technology to disrupt the invisible market forces that exacerbate the wealth and opportunity gaps. He completed undergraduate studies at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management where he studied Finance; and later completed graduate studies with a focus on public finance, policy, and economics at New York University.

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jennifer gomez

CmO & Co-Founder

Prior to oneKIN, Jennifer helped brands and startups leverage data and creative storytelling to reach and build authentic relationships with their consumers. She was a marketing force behind some of the biggest brands, multimedia marketing campaigns and global influencer-led projects in recent years including sports & media giants like Major League Baseball and Time Inc., to beauty giants like L’Oréal and NARS, Sephora and more. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from Brown 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.

Another Reality Studio

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

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What is Another Reality Studio?

Another Reality Studio (ARS) is a St. Louis technology startup that creates immersive and interactive extended reality (XR) applications for a variety of industries. Their mission is to be on the cutting edge of AR/VR and 3D application technology to work with a wide range of startups to Fortune 100 companies. ARS is driven by this growth to create a fun work environment that interesting clients and talented employees are attracted to. They develop custom XR applications utilizing the powerful Unreal Engine and Unity development platforms.

The Looking Glass platform is a custom 3D web application that makes design review easier to understand and always accessible to build trust for architecture end clients. It was uniquely developed by ARS to transform complex architectural drawings into a simple to use virtual walkthrough 3D space. Anyone can explore what future environments will become for use with any device, at any time, without direction.

Company Leadership

bradly martin

ceo

Brad Martin is CEO/ Founder of ARS and one of the top-rated AR/VR developers on Upwork. He leads a local developer meetup, been involved with an XR grant at Mizzou, & is AR/VR technology advisor for T- Rex & DisruptED. He specializes in new technology, project management and ideation for clients and industries. Brad is the creator of Looking Glass & has worked as associate architect at a leading St. Louis Architecture firm. Brad’s skillsets includes: Unreal Engine, Unity, AutoCAD, Autodesk 3DS Max, Google SketchUp, Revit, and HTML.

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mauricio espin

CtO

Mauricio Espin del Rio is the CTO & Co-Founder of ARS and leads the R&D/ development team. He is a senior programmer with over 15 years of IT, 3D Modeling, Animation, UI and Unreal Engine developer experience.

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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.

Imanyco

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

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What is Imanyco?

A real-time speaker diarisation and transcription app that transcribes and color-codes each speaker’s dialogue separately to help deaf people enjoy group conversation without wondering who is saying what.

Company Leadership

SaÏda Florexil

ceo & Founder

Saïda Florexil is profoundly deaf. She uses American Sign Language and lip-reading to communicate with others. Saïda is a deaf advocate who focuses on improving communication accessibility for the deaf community. Saïda received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Supervision Management from Palm Beach State College and a Master of Science in Business Administration in Entrepreneurial Management from Lynn University.

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Involved Industries

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.

WayLit, Inc.

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2019 | Status: Active

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What is WayLit, Inc.?

WayLit is a platform for employers to manage and track immigration initiatives for their foreign national employees. WayLit helps employers save time and resources associated with immigration and provides transparency to the employees.

Company Leadership

Raj Singh

CEO

Raj came to the US as an international student and studied at Missouri S&T. He has over 11 years of experience in the tech industry, successfully running companies and teams.

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Satya Mishra

CTO

Satya studied in the US as an international student at Purdue University. He has over 17 years of technical experience building products and services.

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Involved Industries

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.

MakersValley

Origin: NY | Grant Awarded: 2017 | Status: Inactive

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What is MakersValley?

MakersValley is an online B2B platform that connects fashion brands to a network of highly-vetted, truly Italian apparel and apparel accessories manufacturers.

Company Leadership

Tiffany Chimal

COO and Co-Founder

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Alessio Iadicicco

CEO and Co-Founder

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Babajide Okusanya

CTO and Co-Founder

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Involved Industries

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.

Helper Helper

Origin: MO | Grant Awarded: 2016 | Status: Active

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What is Helper Helper?

Helper Helper is the developer of a collaborative community application designed to connect students to meaningful volunteer experiences. The company’s community service application coordinates and tracks student volunteer hours and simplifies the organization efforts for volunteer coordinators.

Company Leadership

Krista Clement

President and Founder

Krista has a B.S. from University of Michigan and a Masters of Educational Leadership and Masters of Business Administration from Saint Louis University. She previously worked as a teacher in St. Louis Public Schools through Teach For America. Krista was the Saint Louis University Business Plan Competition Winner in 2013.

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Involved Industries

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.

S4

Origin: Argentina | Grant Awarded: 2016 | Status: Active

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What is S4?

S4 is an agri-management platform designed to improve agricultural yield and manage agricultural risk. The company’s platform offers data analytics as well as decision-making tools to improve agricultural production processes and protocols, enabling clients to improve their agricultural planning.

Company Leadership

Diego
Steverlynck

CEO

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Involved Industries

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.

Mentor Spaces

Origin: IL | Grant Awarded: 2015 | Status: Active

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What is Mentor Spaces?

Mentor Spaces is a virtual mentorship company for emerging Black and Latinx professionals that helps companies scale their diversity and inclusion efforts while advancing the careers of underrepresented minorities. The Mentor Spaces platform, which is currently used by more than 10,000 emerging Black and Latinx leaders, allows corporate mentors to communicate with prospective employees in career interest-based groups making it easier for companies to find, hire and retain diverse talent. Companies use Mentor Spaces to build a diverse talent pipeline, improve retention, and enhance corporate culture.

Company Leadership

Chris Motley

President and CEO

Chris earned his degree in History from Columbia University in 2003, and holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Before joining Better Weekdays, Chris worked with 1888 Mills and Eagle Capital Solutions, and was named by the Chicago Scholars as a member of the Top 35 Under 35.

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Kunal Parbadia

VP of Operations

Kunal earned his degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010, and brings his consulting experience to Better Weekdays, having previously worked for Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services and Accenture.

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Fredric Mitchell

advisor

Fredric earned his degree in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2004. Before joining Better Weekdays, Fredric worked with Phase2 and Orbit Media Studios, Inc. and brings nearly decade of experience in web design and web programming to his work with Better Weekdays.

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Involved Industries

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.

Rovertown

Origin: IL | Grant Awarded: 2013 | Status: Active

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What is RoverTown?

RoverTown develops tools for c-stores to build amazing customer relationships.

Company Leadership

Jeffry Harrison

President

Jeffry earned his degree in Business Administration- Finance and Entrepreneurship from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2012. He brings experience serving as the former SIUE Student Trustee on the SIU Board of Trustees and Vice President for Students on the Phi Kappa Phi National Board of Directors. Jeffry is also a 2015 Pipeline Fellow.

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Mike Philip

Chief Executive Officer

Mike studied Information Systems Technologies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He initially founded and bootstrapped RoverTown while in college. Mike also currently serves as a Board Member at the SIU Student Innovation Incubator.

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Michael Rzeznik

Chief Technology Officer

Michael earned his degree in Information Systems Technologies from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2012. He is experienced in 13+ programming languages and has written over 2.5 million lines of custom code for RoverTown.

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Involved Industries

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.