This is the second story in our “Inno on the Road: Burlington” series, which is running several stories on Burlington (and Vermont) startups the week of August 13, 2018.
Given Vermont's reputation for snow sports and miles of mountains, one might expect the Green Mountain State to be full of startups that live up to it.
That expectation is true; but it's not the end of the story.
Take Burlington, for instance. The state's largest city is home to several interesting startups, in fields ranging from space systems to yoga and meditation services.
Here are five Burlington-based startups to watch:
Benchmark Space Systems
Launched in 2017, Benchmark Space Systems designs and manufactures the propulsion systems for small satellites—space devices (the size of two loaves of bread put together) that can be used for gathering Earth imaging, sensor space data or search for carbon emission. "The next big push in the market of small satellites is going to be telecommunications," CEO Ryan McDevitt, who holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering from The University of Vermont, said. With five full-time employees, the company raised $1.7 million in total funding and said it will be able to ship its first propulsion systems in the fall, with a starting price of $50,000 each. Former NASA's Chief Technologist Mason Peck, now at Cornell University, is an advisor of the company.
Faraday
Rob Trail, who became COO of data science company Faraday after spending more than 12 years at Boston-based Bullhorn, admits that artificial intelligence is "an overused term." Yet AI is the core of Faraday's business. First, the company gathers data from public sources, 10 to 15 third-party vendors and its own customers (especially furniture brands); then, Faraday performs AI-powered data science to understand what people are most likely to buy next. "We bring the extra ingredient, so [our customers] can do their own data science on the table," Trail explained. A recent example: thanks to a Faraday's analysis, sofa maker Burrow was able to learn that most if its customers were heavy book buyers, so they changed their advertising materials to show people reading on the couch. Faraday raised a total of $5.5 million from angel and venture investors and has 22 employees.
Fluency
After having played a major role in one of Burlington's biggest business success story, Mike Lane (one of the five co-founders of Dealer.com) founded another startup in the field of digital marketing. Fluency is a digital advertising platform that automates repetitive and time-consuming tasks associated with digital advertising management. For example, it can create databases of look-alike customers, automatically populate ads with personalized data and be a one-stop place for managing social media accounts for customers. Founded in 2017, Fluency is founded by Lane, Eric Mayhew, Scott Gale and Brian McVey, who all worked at Dealer.com for several years.
Flyway Wellness
Flyway Wellness, which said it has invented a way to teach yoga and meditation in a scalable way, offers their wellness services – provided by eight teachers – to clinics, alcohol centers and drug centers. With an initial focus on opioid addiction, Flyway Wellness serves both patients (who may benefit from yoga and meditation to speed up their recovery) and healthcare professionals (who may gain insights of their patients from the yoga and meditation forms patients choose to practice). Betsy Nesbitt, a former management consultant at Deloitte in Boston, is founder and general manager at Flyway Wellness.
OhMD
OhMD provides a encrypted messaging system that doctors and healthcare professionals can use to communicate with patients, colleagues, referring providers and nurse staff. "OhMD was really designed to look and feel as much like texting as possible," co-founder and CEO Ethan Bechtel (former CEO of $10 million health tech company MBA HealthGroup), said. "[Doctors] spend a lot of time today leaving voicemails, trying to track people down and get them of the phone, and we really want to eliminate a lot of that friction." Bechtel, who won't disclose any customers, said that OhMD has physicians using the system in every state. In 2014, the company went through the three-month long Blue Print Health accelerator in New York City. With five full-time and five temporary employees, OhMD's total funding to date is $2.2 million.
Next up on the series: A sneak peek at the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies (VCET), which has a soft spot for dinosaurs.
