WILMINGTON – Sixty seconds, the time it takes for the elevator to ascend to the boardroom floor.

That’s all Wilmington entrepreneur Sara Rose Harcus had to sell her startup, Tribecan, an artificial intelligence/Machine learning (AI/MI) telehealth platform for people suffering from urinary tract infections (UTIs) — one of the most common bacterial infections in the world.

It’s all captured in the latest installment of the digital business show, Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch, released on Wednesday.

“The show itself was a blast,” she told WRAL TechWire. “A very high pressure, Shark Tank-like environment.”

Investors watch the pitch via a video livestream. Once the 60 seconds are up, they vote on whether to open the doors or send her back up.

Spoiler alert: They opened them — and even better, one of them, Peter Goldberg, founder of PLG Ventures based in Santa Monica, offered her a deal: $75,000 in seed funding with 10 percent equity, and $850,000 cap rate.

However, it came with a caveat: Rose would have to combine Tribecan with her other business, Dmanna, which sells a powdered supplement to prevent UTIs.

“Both companies are focused on products and solutions for UTI sufferers,” explained Harcus.

10M doctor visits each year

UTIs are responsible for nearly 10 million doctor visits each year, according to the National Kidney Foundation. One in five women will have at least one UTI in her lifetime.

“Over 40 percent of people who get treated for a UTI will get another UTI in less than six months, but we can drastically improve these odds,” said Harcus, who worked with Accredited Health’s Lane Campbell and Mark Plaskow, to develop her startup’s proprietary technology.

“By using Tribecan’s predictive AI and machine-learning technology to assist in the diagnosis and treatment process, our doctors can improve long-term outcomes.”

Screen shot of Tribecan website.

Rose said she got the idea after being admitted into hospital as the result of a misdiagnosis related to a UTI.

“The [doctor] sent me home and I almost went into septic shock. If [he] had been aided by Tribecan’s AI technology, which used patient records, updated guidelines, and the latest research to make decisions, he would have never sent me home.

“And if my doctors 10 years ago had been using Tribecan, I would have never ended up with these chronic UTIs that caused my hospitalization in the first place.”