Eight startups from the Triangle will be competing for judges’ attention and dollars at the 15th Charlotte Venture Challenge.
The Startup factory’s Chris Heivly is the keynote speaker.
The Triangle finalists:
- New Energy & High Tech Category: 8 Rivers Networks (Durham, NC), Indexus Biomedical (Morrisville, NC)
- IT & Informatics Category: Shipedge (Durham, NC), Wellflix (Hillsborough, NC)
- General Category: BeautyOMICS (Chapel Hill, NC), Morph (Carrboro, NC), Sweetie Pie Organics (Raleigh)
- Student Ventures Category: Athnetics (UNC Chapel Hill)
The conference takes place Tuesday, April 19, at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis.
“The Charlotte Venture Challenge has grown from five UNC Charlotte ventures in 2001 to become the premiere early stage venture competition in the Southeast by providing the region’s most promising entrepreneurs with visibility to both investors and corporate innovators,” said Paul Wetenhall, president of Ventureprise, which is based at UNC Charlotte. “This 15th anniversary event will highlight the innovation and entrepreneurial assets of the Charlotte metro area.”
Last year’s winner, General Graphene, went on to land $8.7 million from the Angel Capital Group, which also was a judget at the event.
“We know we are being successful when we are seeing finalists go on to raise seed rounds from our investor judges and establish relationships with our corporate partners” said Devin Collins, assistant director of business and entrepreneurial development at Ventureprise.
Four new categories have been added for this year’s event:
- New energy and high tech
- IT and informatics
- General, including consumer products
- Student ventures
Finalists by category:
- New energy and high tech category:8 Rivers Networks (Durham), Grow Bioplastics (Knoxville, Tenn.), Indexus Biomedical (Morrisville), Innovasan (Knoxville, Tenn.), SineWatts (Charlotte), and XOONIX (Charlotte).
- IT and informatics category: GuidePro3D (Cornelius), ProjectMQ (Savannah, Ga.), RepRevive (Charlotte), Shipedge (Durham), Thrive GPO (Fort Mill, S.C.) and Wellflix (Hillsborough).
- General category: BeautyOMICS (Chapel Hill), Dogphrendly (Cornelius), Fridayd (Cornelius), HomeTrackr (Charleston, S.C.), Morph (Carrboro), Sweetie Pie Organics (Raleigh) and uBack (Charlotte).
- Student ventures: Reel Scary (UNC Charlotte), Athnetics (UNC Chapel Hill), Body Barrier (Claflin University), Credit4Less (Wingate University), Glance (Appalachian State University), MadDogg Heat Sleeve (Elon University), Monotto (College of Charleston) and Tailor Made Financial (UNC Charlotte).
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