A voter literacy startup that helps voters get familiar with candidates by entering their zip code. A food delivery service that will let customers go from ordering to eating in under 30 minutes. A voice recorder app working with with IBM Watson to automatically transcribe interviews.
These startups and seven more showed off their ventures at the demo day for University of Chicago's Polsky Center summer accelerator. This is the fourth year of the Hyde Park-based summer accelerator, which offers student and alumni startups a bit of funding, mentorship, workshops, and feedback to help them grow their ventures.
Since the accelerator began in 2012, over 40 teams and 121 participants have completed the program, representing 20 areas of the university. 28 teams are still in business or have been acquired, and there have been two acquisitions/mergers. Over time, the industry focus has been pretty evenly distributed across numerous areas, though 26 percent have been health-related.
This year the ten participating teams were similarly diverse, and provided a peek into what's ahead as UChicago gets ready to celebrate 20 years of the New Venture Challenge, which was recently named one of the top accelerators in the country.
Here's a look at the presenting teams at the 2015 UChicago summer accelerator demo day.
This startup wants to create the go-to app for foodies and their friends. They have created an app where users can create an interactive, shareable restaurant list, viewable in map and curated list form. Users can keep track of the restaurants they want to try, write notes on the dishes they tried, and create lists of their recommendations to share with friends. There are also pre-made city guides to help users get started no matter where they are. Given the founders are foodies themselves, and have kept previously kept restaurant lists in various forms (everything from notebooks to excel spreadsheets), they also included a feature where you can automatically import your previous restaurant list in any form into the app. Nomwell is available for iOS now, and is set to launch second version and Android app in December.
The dawn of the digital age has given way to opportunities to collaborate on a global scale like never before. For scientists, that means the ability to work with colleagues across the world with large scale data sets. With this in mind, Lab Repo created an open source information management system that allows scientists to organize data from performing and analyzing experiments in one online location. They currently have 30 beta labs using their product, and are aiming to make revenue through selling to labs, offering exclusive customer support, and offering extra storage.
This 2015 UChicago App Challenge finalist wants to disrupt the audio recorder. Their voice recorder app uses gesture-based controls, so that an interviewer can note quotes, highlights, and important moments with a single tap or swipe. The review option on the app brings together all the moments noted by users throughout a recording, so they can easily listen to the sections they bookmarked when they are done recording. Going forward, they will be working with IBM Watson to provide automatic transcriptions of recordings for a fee.
This edtech platform wants to engage students with writing feedback. Their product allows teachers to provide feedback on digital writing assignments in an interactive way. For example, teachers can set the feedback to "treasure hunt" mode, where students self-edit to see if their corrections match the teachers', and can get hints at what to fix if they miss something. They also aim to develop a premium product which would include a heat map analysis, video tutorials, and practice questions among other features. They are launching a beta product in October.
This fashion startup is aiming for the post-Forever 21 demographic-- women who want quality goods, and will pay a premium for them. Eislee is launching an alpaca wool clothing company, starting with scarves, produced in an ethical way. Initially they are starting with three scarves, designed to be versatile with pops of color, and have plans to expand out to boutiques and trade shows soon. The founders have also traveled to Peru, the source of their alpaca wool and manufacturing facilities, to ensure the quality of their supply chain.
Though the food delivery space is crowded, Nip thinks it has the solution. They have created an app that showcases around 20 curated meals from restaurants in a users' neighborhood. With one tap users can place an order, and within 30 minutes the food has arrived at their door. They aim to cut delivery times by keeping the range of restaurants close, and working with restaurants ahead of time to discern which dishes can be quickly prepared. They are set to launch in October for iOS starting in River North and Streeterville.
This startup is aiming to cater to millennial travel interests with authentic self-guided group tours. This travel company provides groups of people with an itinerary, pre-booked accommodations, and a suggested blue print for the trip. At different times during the trip, local guides "weave" in and out of the group to provide suggestions of local restaurants, activities, and even invite travelers into their own homes for a tea or meal. Initially starting with pre-MBA program trips, eventually TripWeave hopes to reach out to any millennials looking to travel in a group. TripWeave was voted runner up in the demo day's "people's choice" award.
This startup wants to take the confusion out of the medical referrals and procedure pricing. Using tablets at doctor's offices, their platform can show patients the exact out-of-pocket cost for their next procedure, and which caregiver in their insurance network can give them what they need based on price, reviews, and specialty. They recently launched their platform for referrals, and are working to get more medical professionals, doctors offices, and patients on board now to build their database. Markit Medical was voted runner up in the demo day's "people's choice" award.
After winning $10,000 as a finalist in this year's New Venture Challenge, this virtual key exchange platform spent the summer fine tuning their product. Their platform is geared toward short term rentals, such as AirBnB and Vrbo, and provides short-term, cloud-based virtual key access for guests through an app and a smart lock (which they provide). Since NVC, they are now in talks with Airbnb, and have developed a web and Android app. They will launch their beta product in October.
This voter literacy app out of UChicago's Institute of Politics, which won this year's Social New Venture Challenge, is aiming to aggregate key information on candidates running for all political offices in order to create an easy way for people to get informed ahead of elections. Users simply type in their zip code, and they will find information aggregated from news sources and the candidates' websites (inputted by local political science students) on all the candidates running in the next election. Users can also filter by issues. BallotReady has raised over $125,000 in funding, and just secured a partnership with Microsoft so their website will be displayed on upcoming election searches on Bing. Next up, they'll go live to cover elections in Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia, with the aim of scaling up to national elections in 2016. Ballot Ready won "people's choice" vote the demo day.
