Vedant Pradeep took lessons he learned from managing his obsessive-compulsive disorder and created Reframe, an alcoholic recovery app.
“It’s about being able to deal with cravings immediately, then moving to break those bad habits,” Pradeep said.
Having battled similar cravings as a person addicted to alcohol might, Pradeep said his experiences helped as he worked with co-founder Ziyi Gao to develop Reframe.
Pradeep and Gao, both Georgia Tech graduates and Inno under 25 honorees, went through the university’s CREATE-X incubator in 2018. As part of the incubator, they received $20,000 and first planned a startup called Glucobit. The startup aimed to detect potentially life-threatening low blood sugar levels, known as hypoglycemia, in diabetic patients.
“It didn’t work at all,” Pradeep said. “We failed, but we loved the process of doing it, so we shifted our focus.”
The shift resulted in Reframe.
Reframe now has more than 2,300 users, Pradeep said. The app has a mix of content including interactive activities, recovery stories, affirmations and educational tools. The activities are meant to help people distract themselves through alcohol cravings, which Pradeep said only last 20 minutes, despite feeling much longer.
20 Startups to Watch in 2020
Jonny On It is a home services solution for the real estate industry. Real estate brokers use the Jonny On It white label app to connect their home sellers to the service professionals they need to get their homes ready to list and sell, and to help their buyers to find the resources they need to improve and maintain the properties they have purchased.
Jonny On It's broker partners include Realty One, Dorsey Alston Realtors, Engel and Volkers, Coldwell Banker, Harry Norman Realtors and Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Georgia Properties. Jonny On It enables qualifying vendors to acquire new customers and grow their businesses by fulfilling job requests through the Jonny On It network. Small local operators use the Jonny Pro mobile app to accept and manage job requests, and regional service providers with larger fleets utilize the Jonny On It Dispatch Portal.
All Jonny On It service professionals must be licensed and insured and are rated by users to ensure the highest level of service.
The startup was selected as a presenting company for Venture Atlanta 2019, nominated for the best B2B startup in Atlanta 2019 by Atlanta Startup Awards and won a Top 50 Tech Companies Award by Intercon.
To date, the company has raised $1.1 million in funding, according to Crunchbase.
Founded in 2017, Motivo connects recent graduates to a clinical supervisor to fulfill state licensure requirements as a therapist, counselor, social worker or psychologist. Much like a doctor is required to fulfill a residency at a hospital, those working towards professions in the mental health sector are required to complete approximately two years of face-to-face consultation with a licensed therapist following graduate school. Though requirements are typically completed in person, the rise in tele-health has pushed for many states to allow supervision hours to be collected through secure video conference.
The company's recent seed round brings Motivo’s total funding to $2,325,000.
Motivo is a 2018 Techstars Atlanta graduate, an Atlanta Inno Coolest Companies winner, and an Atlanta Inno 50 on Fire winner. Founder Rachel McCrickard was also a finalist for the Atlanta Business Chronicle's Small Business Person of the Year, and one of 50 Female Founders to Watch by Forbes.
Fanaticus creates immersive environments for communities of fans using mixed reality technology.
By combining virtual reality, projection mapping and asymmetric gaming they create “layered experiences” that accommodate larger groups of people than most VR only platforms. These layered experiences provide different immersion levels at different price points, appealing to broader audiences. The company raised an undisclosed seed round in 2018 and near the Krog Street Marketplace with Axis Replay.
Lucky is a location based marketing platform that creates impactful marketing experiences for brands to engage with and gather consumer insights from people as they move throughout a city. Their first vertical is working with mobility apps (ridesharing, e-scooters, bikeshare, etc.) to create impulse buying opportunities for people that they can use within a few blocks of their destination.
The company has recently secured their seed round, been accepted into the Plug & Play Media/Advertising accelerator and closed their first few corporate clients. Lucky is also an ATDC company.
ModifyHealth's mission is to change lives by making food as medicine simple and effective for providers and patients.
ModifyHealth’s provider recommended home-delivered, Low-FODMAP and gluten-free meals are shipped nationwide to help bring relief to common GI conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, SIBO and celiac disease where dietary modification is a recommended treatment.
All meals are organic, non-GMO, delivered fully-prepared and supported with expert dietitian consultations to ensure positive outcomes.
Founded in 2018, ModifyHealth raised a $2 million seed round in early 2019.
Sideqik is an influencer marketing SaaS platform that enables marketers to grow, manage and prove ROI on their influencer marketing strategy initiatives. Founded in 2012, the startup originally started as a marketing partnership platform.
Sideqik customers include The Coca-Cola Co., Logitech, Universal Music Group and Under Armour. In 2019, Sideqik's customers worked with over 25,000 influencers — sourced from the company's database of over 20 million social profiles and were able to measure over $1.5 billion in earned media value.
The company completed a $5 million Series A round in February 2019.
SimpleShowing is a tech-enabled real estate company that helps homebuyer access residential properties on demand, without a real estate agent.
The company uses a combination of identity verification software and IoT lockboxes to provide a more streamlined buying and selling experience, ultimately helping consumers save time and money.
SimpleShowing was founded in 2018 and has raised $1.5 million in funding. The company has participated in several startup programs including Launch's Founder University in San Francisco and Velocity Accelerator in Birmingham.
SingleOps is an all-in-one business management software for outdoor service industries, including tree care, lawn care, full-service landscaping, sod farms and landscape supply.
The company serves thousands of users who have collectively processed over $1 billion in revenue through SingleOps, and use it daily to operate their businesses and interact with clients.
To date, the startup has raised $2.6 million, including a $1.6 million Series A round led by serial entrepreneur and founder of Atlanta Ventures David Cummings earlier this year.
In 2019, the company was named a Best Place to Work and one of Atlanta’s fastest-growing technology companies by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
Demand Driven Technologies offers inventory management and supply chain planning solutions for manufacturers and distributors.
The company's software is based in the cloud and serves as a provider of a new method called Demand Driven MRP, which allows companies to pace their materials to actual demand in the market versus using forecasts.
Founded in the fall of 2011, Demand Driven Technologies was bootstrapped for six years before its first VC round in 2017 through Mosley Ventures in Atlanta and other investors. The company caters to more than 100 enterprises around the world, including clients Michelin Tires and Coca-Cola Beverages Africa.
The company raised about $3.7 million from undisclosed investors in a round of convertible notes in June 2019.Demand Driven Technologies plans to complete its Series A round in 2020.
West Hill Global is an Atlanta-based insurtech software company.
The company says its mission is to "revolutionize the customer experience in the claims process." Their platform connects stakeholders, while also providing transparency, customer choice and engagement.In 2019, the startup raised $2.5 million from Eos Venture Partners.
The founders developed the apps themselves using lessons they learned through talking with Emory University and Johns Hopkins University medical experts and Georgia Tech professors, attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and talking with more than 500 people.
With little to no marketing, users of Reframe have found the app through word of mouth or social media recovery groups, Pradeep said.
Pradeep said the social media groups give people the community they need while Reframe supplies the tools to move toward the path of recovery. Reframe initially planned to work directly with alcoholic recovery centers, but the pandemic led the two founders to release the app to the consumer market instead.
Reframe charges users $10 a month, and the company is cash-flow positive, Pradeep said. The app is a fraction of the cost of going to a recovery center, Pradeep said, which makes it accessible to more people battling alcoholism.
Moving forward, the founders plan to add more components to the app, such as therapy, and expand to help people with other behavioral disorders and addictions.
