Mass Innovation Nights 118

January 17, 2019

Mass Innovation Nights features startup companies from around Massachusetts. This month’s Mass Innovation Nights was hosted at Workbar in Burlington. This month’s event included fewer tech companies that usual – the Boston startup scene is pretty tech-heavy – but I still attended because this month’s location was convenient for me and I enjoy supporting the local startup community.

Mass Innovation Nights 118: Workbar in Burlington, MA

After about an hour of networking, during which attendees chat with the exhibiting companies, the presentations begin. Brief presentations by the “Expert Corner” experts are followed by presentations from four startups selected in a pre-event vote on the Mass Innovation Nights website. And, at the end of the evening, awards are given to the winners of at-event voting (during the networking hour) by attendees.

The “experts” of the evening were representatives from Workbar and East Boston Savings Bank and presentation and confidence coach Linda Ugelow. The presenting startups were Candorful, Del Sur, Sweet Mobility Cane Wraps, and Aveyo. At-event winners were Del Sur, Aveyo, Lawn Serv, and A Cloud of My Own.

Following are brief overviews of the ten startups featured at MIN 118. As I generally point out, these are quick, high-level overviews, and they’re based on the MIN website and handouts, brief conversations at the event, and presentation. If you find one of these companies interesting, please investigate for yourself. I include links to help out, and their websites usually have contact information.

Smarketing Connect helps connect local startups and small businesses with sales and marketing experts to helping build sales and marketing programs for everything from branding to driving revenue.

NanaGram is a service that will print and ship monthly your digital photos to whoever you select. You submit via text or e-mail, and your nana gets your pictures.

Del Sur is a Lowell, Mass.-based company that make Argentine-style empanadas with all-natural ingredients. You can currently purchase at farmers’ markets or online, and they hope to have their frozen empanadas in grocery stores this year. Yes, the samples Del Sur brought to the event were delicious.

Sweet Mobility makes Cane Wraps that allow people to decorate their walking canes. The primary goal is to make people more self-confident and willing to use their canes. I’m a big fan of the bright reflective wrap that makes people easy to see while out walking. There are also other bright decorative colors. They include a protected personal information label. And they’re easy to wrap around your cane.

Designer Irina Gorbman’s IG Moda creates limited edition designer leggings, tops, dresses, and accessories from meditative artwork. The company slogan of “Wear Art – Recharge From Within” describes the company’s philosophy.

Candorful connects military veterans and spouses with experienced interview coaches to help them practice for job interviews. While many of those taking advantage of the service are transitioning to civilian life, it’s open to all veterans and their spouses.

A Cloud of My Own is a device that helps secure your smart home devices from hackers.

Aveyo Spoonable Avocado is a creamy avocado snack. A way to get the health benefits of avocado with the convenience of yogurt. Also, delicious. They’ll be in stores soon and are available in three flavors: vanilla bean, strawberry, and “super cocoa.”

Lawn Serv sells lawn subscription boxes. It starts with a soil test, from which Lawn Serv creates lawn kits specifically tailored to your yard. Then, each month, a box arrives with all of the lawn care products you’ll need for your yard. It’s priced comparably to purchasing those products from your local home improvement store but without the hassle of driving to the store to pick them up… and with the advantage of being selected specifically for your yard.

Recipi is a free tool that helps small businesses improve their web presence. Easy to use, like just following a recipe.

Conclusion

As always, I’ve done my best to accurately portray the exhibiting companies and their products based upon the pre-event materials and the conversations I had with attendees. You can find company information also by following this link and then clicking on the “Vote Here” tab of the MIN 118 web page. Or follow one of the hotlinks I’ve provided to the companies’ websites.

Mass Innovation Nights 115

October 15, 2018

Mass Innovation Nights is a monthly startup showcase that features Massachusetts startup companies. This month’s Mass Innovation Nights was hosted by Boston Scientific and Brownmed and held at District Hall in the seaport district. Appropriately occurring during WE BOS Week, the theme for the evening was Women Founders.

Mass Innovation Nights 115: District Hall in Boston, MA

Mass Innovation Nights begins with an hour to network, grab food from the buffet, and visit with exhibiting startups at their display tables, providing attendees with an opportunity to converse with the companies in attendance while snacking on food provided by the event sponsor. Then the presentations begin, featuring the evening’s host, the “Expert Corner” experts, and the four exhibitors who win a pre-event vote on the Mass Innovation Nights website. At this event, in addition to sponsors and experts from Boston Scientific, Brownmed, and Hidden Gems, a representative from the mayor’s office spoke, as the event helped kick off WE BOS week, celebrating women founders in Boston.

Presenters as a result of the pre-event voting were Folia Health, IV SafeT, Aavia, and Astarte Medical Partners. Awards are also given based on at-event voting (during the networking hour) by attendees. At-event winners were Aavia, Folia, Allergy Amulet, and PionEar Technologies.

As usual, when I attend one of the startup showcase events, I’ll provide a quick overview of the featured companies based on information available through Mass Innovation Nights (website and handouts), the four presentations, and my conversations with some of the company representatives at the event. My observations will generally be very cursory. If you’re interested in additional detail about some of this month’s showcasing companies, you can follow the links I provide for more information.

Allergy Amulet is a device (that can be worn; hence: “amulet”) that can be use to test food for allergens at the point-of-consumption, within seconds.

Astarte Medical Partners has established a patient safety and compliance software solution, NICUtrition, via software and predictive analytics, that is designed to be used by hospitals to improve safety when feeding preterm infants. The company’s goal is to assemble information and provide solutions to promote gut health through a child’s first 1,000 days.

Mightywell‘s Might MedPlanner is a small, easy-to-carry-along case that discreetly organizes your medical supplies. This is the most recent product from Mightywell, as it continues to extend its line of medical products. Mightywell’s first product, the PICC Perfect PICC line cover, was showcased at MIN 81 nearly three years ago.

CareZooming connects healthcare professionals to allow them to share knowledge, allowing new clinician discoveries and best practices to be duplicated elsewhere throughout the medical community.

Fluid-Screen‘s bacterial sorter uses system-on-a-chip technology to help identify bacteria within 30 minutes. Per my discussion at Fluid-Screen’s booth, a couple early uses for this technology would be in the pharmaceutical world to detect contaminants in food and drinking water supplies.

Folia Health has an app allows families to track health observations in three minutes per day. It can then be used as a resource for the community of families who need that information. Folia Health’s initial area of focus is cystic fibrosis.

IV SafeT is an improved IV with an improved luer lock. If you’re in this field, please click through to look at the details yourself, but the website does note that this works especially well for preemies and infants because of its reduced size. (IV SafeT’s presentation did a great job of explaining the significant improvement, but I’m afraid I won’t do it justice via text.)

DocFlight is a company that connects Chinese patients with custom, personalized treatment from American doctors, including nutrition plans, telemedicine, a personalized drug prescriptions.

PionEar Technologies‘ tympanostomy tube is designed to reduce the risk of unnecessary surgeries and repeated ear infections in children.

Aavia is a pocket-size smart device and accompanying app to help ensure birth control pills are taken “on time, every time,” as the company’s slogan says. The device automatically detects which pills have been taken (or not) from the typical blister pack and connects via Bluetooth to a phone app.

The WatchRx Smartwatch for Seniors helps seniors manage their prescriptions, while also giving caregivers and healthcare providers access to this information. I first encountered WatchRx at a Boston New Technology showcase in May 2017.

Also at the event was Microscopic Art, a company that sells (“cells”?) cool science-themed décor, apparel, and accessories.

Conclusion

As always, I’ve done my best to accurately portray the exhibiting companies and their products based upon the pre-event materials and the conversations I had with attendees. You can find company information also by following this link and then clicking on the “Vote Here” tab of the MIN 115 web page. I’ve also included hotlinks to the each of the exhibiting companies’ websites so you can get information beyond my brief introductions.

It was, as always, a pleasure to see some of the emerging companies on the Boston area’s startup scene. I’m already looking forward to next month’s event.

Mass Innovation Nights 114

September 13, 2018

Mass Innovation Nights features startup companies from around Massachusetts. This month’s Mass Innovation Nights was hosted by MathWorks in Natick.  The theme for the evening was AI, robotics, and clean tech.

Mass Innovation Nights 114: MathWorks in Natick MA

Mass Innovation Nights begins with an hour to network, grab food from the buffet, and visit with exhibiting startups at their display tables, providing attendees with an opportunity to converse with the companies in attendance while snacking on food provided by the event sponsor. Then the presentations begin, featuring the evening’s host, the “Expert Corner” experts, and the four exhibitors who win a pre-event vote on the Mass Innovation Nights website.  Presenters as a result of the pre-event voting were The Robot Wand, Reason8, Kestrel Agritech, and Proximie. Awards are also given based on at-event voting (during the networking hour) by attendees. At-event winners were Proximie, WaveSense, Kestrel Agritech, and The Robot Wand.

As usual, when I attend one of the startup showcase events, I’ll provide a quick overview of the featured companies based on information available through Mass Innovation Nights (website and handouts), the four presentations, and my conversations with some of the company representatives at the event. My observations will generally be very cursory. If you’re interested in additional detail about some of this month’s showcasing companies, you can follow the links I provide for more information.

Altaeros helps provide remote wireless access to rural communities and other hard-to-reach locations via its SuperTower, which looks like a blimp. (See picture; demo table balloon, obviously, is not actual size.) Tethered and able to be raised and lowered – to top off the helium, for example – it serves as a wireless antenna covering an expansive area.

WaveSense uses ground-penetrating radar to allow self-driving vehicles to more easily navigate roads in inclement conditions – where road markings may be obscured by snow, for example – because it allows the vehicles to know where the roads are based on the geological (and man-made) features beneath the road.

BluCloud‘s “Gateway Blu” makes analytic data available anywhere anytime by transporting that analytic data cellularly. I first encountered BluCloud back in May at a Boston New Technology showcase. Because I had met them before, I didn’t spend time chatting with BluCloud at this event, but you can read my much more detailed account in this summary I wrote about the BNT event in May. If I had found time to chat with BluCloud, I would have asked how their customer penetration has progressed since then, since they already had a few customers and a lot of locations connected this spring.

Reason8 is an app that takes meeting notes for you. In addition to transcribing the meeting, the app summarizes the meeting and provides a list of what it determines are likely action items; more advanced features continue to be in development. Reason8 is currently designed to target notetaking at in-person meetings.

Quinncia is an AI-based interview preparation tool geared toward university students. I previously learned about Quinncia at the Boston New Technology showcase in February.

Electrona Robotics‘ Pilotfish remote submersible is a reasonably priced option for shooting HD video underwater, designed as an option for those who require remote underwater filming that in a relatively robust format at an affordable cost.

Kestrel Agritech is a drone-based crop monitoring and pest detection system that uses thermal imaging to help detect, analyze, and notify farmers of pests so farmers can take targeted, quick action.

Southie Autonomy‘s The Robot Wand is robot-agnostic software that creates a platform to control robots using verbal commands and gestures. This can be useful in areas like material handling. During the Q&A at the end of the Robot Wand presentation, its presenter noted that current markets where this is in high demand include heavy manufacturing and test kitting (e.g., 23 and Me)

Yobe Inc.‘s VISPR is able to identify speakers’ voices in high noise environments. On the VISPR website, it is described as a “voice identification system for user profile retrieval.”

SkyMan Unlimited is a team of FAA-certified remote pilots who fly drones (“unmanned aerial vehicles”) for commercial and industrial clients.

Proximie is a platform for the healthcare industry. It is designed to facilitate collaboration and remote assistance via augmented reality (AR).

3D Educational Services (3DES) is a low-cost robotics kit geared toward 7th and 8th grade. It is meant to help bring robotics into the classroom and help inspire students’ interest.

Conclusion

As always, I’ve done my best to accurately portray the exhibiting companies and their products based upon the pre-event materials and the conversations I had with attendees. You can find company information also by following this link and then clicking on the “Vote Here” tab of the MIN 114 web page. I’ve also included hotlinks to the each of the exhibiting companies’ websites so you can get information beyond my brief introductions.

It was, as always, a pleasure to see some of the emerging companies on the Boston area’s startup scene. Next month’s Mass Innovation Night will be MIN’s 5th Annual Women Founders event. Sponsored by Boston Scientific (with supporting sponsor Brownmed), Mass Innovation Nights 115 will be held on Monday, October 15th at District Hall in Boston.

Mass Innovation Nights 113

August 8, 2018

This month, Mass Innovation Nights was back in the suburbs, this time in Natick. Hosting by Middlesex Savings Bank, MIN113 took place at The Center for Arts in Natick, frequently referred to as TCAN. This even was one of the less tech-heavy rosters of companies (which I note because this is a tech blog, after all), a little atypical because the Boston area is home to so many tech startups, but the featured businesses are always interesting, and this month was no exception.

Mass Innovation Nights 113: The Center for Arts in Natick (TCAN) in Natick MA

Mass Innovation Nights begins with time to learn about the exhibiting startups by visiting with them at their tables. This is followed by presentations from the host, the “Expert Corner” experts, and the exhibitors who win a pre-event vote on the Mass Innovation Nights website.  Presenters as a result of the pre-event voting were TechScreen, Chocolate Therapy, Delete All My Data, and wiseHer. Awards were also given based on at-event voting. At-event winners were Bodega Bag, Miles2share, Chocolate Therapy, and WiseHer.

Here’s my quick run through the companies in attendance; you can follow the links for more information about them.

miles2share is a ride-sharing program. Its app available for both iOS and Android devices. I like the fact that miles2share works with you to create a “circle” of potential ride-sharers rather than just pairing you up for individual rides.

PetsEmpower is a non-profit that facilitates providing foster homes for pets during crises. Because when in a domestic violence situation, it’s important not to have to worry about your furry family members.

Loco Coffee is a new spin on coffee. It’s a preservative-free cold brew that includes coconut water in its can o’ coffee, which the company notes adds sweetness without the necessity of adding sugar. I’ve now sampled the drink and, indeed, it is a little sweet. The coconut water also seems to help the drink finish smooth.

Delete All My Data is a service that actively and aggressively pursues the removal of its customers’ data from data brokers’ databases?

TechScreen is a SaaS product that improves IT recruiting.

wiseHer is a platform that connects women with experts who can provide advice needed in business or in life in general.

The Bodega Bag is a bag the allows people to carry groceries on their backs. Up to 20 pounds of groceries, the company advertises.

Chocolate Therapy is a Framingham, MA chocolate shop that specializes in producing (and selling) chocolates and hosting events (chocolate-making, team building, birthday parties, and other group events). They were promoting their new chocolate bars at MIN. And providing delicious samples, of course.

Adventure Activities USA is a company that specializes in outdoor adventures. Their business ranges from hosting activities and corporate retreats to selling equipment.

Pillars, the drinkable Greek yogurt company, was a last-minute cancellation. I had been looking forward to sampling their product. I think I may have tried some at a grocery store sampling recently, but I was especially hoping they’d have some plain yogurt with them; that’s personally the one I’d like to try.

Conclusion

As always, I’ve done my best to accurately portray the exhibiting companies and their products based upon the pre-event materials and the conversations I had with attendees. You can find company information also by following this link and then clicking on the “Vote Here” tab of the MIN 113 web page. I’ve also included hotlinks to the each of the exhibiting companies’ websites so you can get information beyond my brief introductions.

It was, as always, a pleasure to see some of the emerging companies on the Boston area’s startup scene. Next month’s Mass Innovation Night will also be in Natick, on September 13th at the office of the event’s host Mathworks. MIN 114 will feature robotics, AI and clean/green energy products. Barring a scheduling conflict, as always, I hope to be there.