Dispatches from the MIT $100K Pitch Competition: Round 2

Last week, we attended the second round of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition: Accelerate. Accelerate is the second of three rounds of a pitch competition hosted by MIT each winter. As part of the event, ten startup finalists present their technologies in a 90-second pitch.

This year, the showcase was hosted via Zoom. Read on to learn about this year’s finalists!

(1) Candelytics (Technology area: Aerospace and Defense)

Candelytics is a 3D analytics and LiDAR startup that has partnered with a Department of Defense research lab to change how maritime law enforcement is conducted. Drawing from extensive experience in military and engineering, Candelytics uses 3D visualization and object recognition to search for illegal drugs, weapons, and human trafficking activities. 

(2) Floe (Technology area: Energy & Environmental)

Floe is a cleantech startup that is building a smart solution to damaging ice dams. The company’s machine learning IoT deicer system uses environmentally-friendly, non-toxic antifreeze fluid to efficiently remove ice from buildings. Additionally, the platform’s IoT system collects year-round data. This data can then be sold to companies seeking longitudinal trends to maintain their facilities more efficiently. 

(3) Gaia AI (Technology area: Energy & Environmental)

Gaia AI uses solar-powered autonomous drones to tackle climate change. The company has developed drones that plant AI-powered germination pods that promote reforestation and carbon sequestration. These drones enable LiDAR-powered computer vision to provide valuable insights that can help create intelligently designed forests. 

(4) Go-Aut (Technology area: MedTech)

Go-Aut is a digital health platform that supports children with developmental disabilities. The platform’s online assessment helps primary care providers detect developmental disorders in children before the age of 3. By combining familial and environmental risk factors with a child’s progress on cognitive functioning tests, Go-Aut empowers parents and physicians to support children as early as possible.

(5) Harvest (Technology area: Fintech)

Harvest is an online platform that is revolutionizing the loan industry. The platform groups loan-seekers into homogenous groups such as “law students” or “medical students.” Using these groupings, students can regain collective bargaining power in student loan negotiations. This eBay-style bidding model simplifies the communication process between groups and lenders to support a new way of borrowing money. 

(6) Human Dynamics (Technology area: Computer Science & Robotics)

Human Dynamics is building automated solutions to tackle sanitation demands in the food manufacturing industry. Combining LiDAR, thermal scanning, and machine learning, the company has developed engineered drone robots that reduce our reliance on human labor. This solution offers a faster and cheaper solution to food sanitfation.

(7) KANO (Technology area: Life Science)

KANO addresses the major manufacturing bottleneck in the production of cell and gene therapies by engineering mass DNA production processes. Using phages and bacteria as ssDNA biofactories, KANO facilitates the scaling of innovative nucleic-acid-based therapies.

(8) Osmoses (Technology area: Energy & Environmental)

Osmoses is developing a membrane technology for the industrial separation of water and natural gases. The company uses molecular filters to replace existing energy-intensive separation methods. This method provides a cleaner solution that simultaneously purifies natural gas and captures carbon to tackle climate change.

(9) Project Prana (Technology area: MedTech)

Project Prana is an emerging medical device startup that is committed to expanding emergency ventilation capacity. Their primary product, iSAVE, can be retrofitted onto existing ventilators to support the personalized treatment of two patients simultaneously. They also have a remote monitoring app that provides ICUs with individualized data for each patient. This solution provides a much-needed safe and reliable solution to the global ventilator shortage, which has been especially prevalent during the Covid-19 crisis.

(10) ProtectEd (Technology area: Aerospace and Defense)

ProtectEd builds bookcases that provide critical protection against violent attacks in a matter of seconds. Their patented bookcase design easily locks into place in front of the doors to classrooms, government buildings, or religious institutions and can provide a physical and ballistic barrier in the event of a violent attack. The bookcase is a simple and easy-to-use solution to provide security without a fear-invoking militarized appearance. 

The competition at this year’s Accelerate was fierce! In the end, Go-Aut won the $10K Audience Choice Award. Meanwhile, Candalytics, Human Dynamics, and Go-Aut made it to the final stage of the MIT $100K Competition, Launch.

Launch will take place later this spring. Then, the first-place team will win the coveted $100K prize. Stay tuned!

Interested in learning about more emerging technologies in a specific technology area? Check out some of our past blog posts on topics like Chemical and Materials, Biopharma, MedTech, Green Chemistry, and Cross-Sector Technologies aiding in the fight against Covid-19!

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Congrats to the finalists and winners!

Leave a Reply

Close Menu
en_USEnglish
ja日本語 en_USEnglish