A supply chain startup from two industry veterans has been named the most innovative startup at the Transform Data Science and AI Accelerator at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Nutrad, which launched to replace tedious, error-prone, manual tasks in the supply chain with artificial intelligence, will look to close a funding round in early 2024 after being one of seven early-stage ventures to participate in the accelerator program.
The company also participated in 1871's Supply Chain Innovation Lab earlier this year.
"This year wasn't a great year to do a fundraising round, but for 2024 we've got some sales targets and want to do a raise in Q1," said Nutrad CEO John Sexton Abrams, who previously ran supply chain for Cardinal Health, to Chicago Inno.
Abrams said the old cockroach adage — which tells startups to focus on being a cockroach, not a unicorn, to survive in the lean times — is more applicable now than ever before for young startups.
"I know a lot of founders that shut down this year because they had taken funding and couldn't get another round," he said.
Rather than fundraising in 2023, Nutrad focused on building out its tech and going into 2024 with new relationships and partnerships in place.
David Crosswhite, chief operating officer at Nutrad, said the company will also look to do $2 million to $3 million in revenue next year and will look to keep building from there. The company was originally targeting a $500,000 seed round in the first quarter but due to inbound interest and verbal commitments has since moved that target to $1 million.
Crosswhite said that the company's clarity on targets and understanding what the budget will take to get there has helped the startup in what is still a difficult fundraising environment.
More on Transform
Nutrad first joined Transform in August.
Anchored at the Polsky Center in Chicago's Hyde Park, Transform launched in the spring of 2023.
"Our goal was to be able to add value to our AI startups that come through our doors and catapult them and accelerate their growth to a point where they are noticed by investors," Shyama Majumdar, director of data science accelerator Deep Tech Ventures and head of Transform, told Chicago Inno. "We've seen that for more than 50% of our companies."
Transform saw 10 companies participate in 2023, and Majumdar is hoping to increase that number in 2024.
Other notable companies to participate in the Transform AI accelerator include Echo Labs, Subconscious AI and RadioLogical.ai.
