The Brandery, a nationally ranked accelerator that works primarily with marketing and design startups, took to Memorial Hall for its Batch 9 Demo Day on March 21. This marks the first event of its kind since the accelerator teamed up with Minneapolis-based tech accelerator gener8tor last February.
The night was the culmination of The Brandery's 16-week accelerator program, which runs annually and accepts five companies. Each startup receives $100,000, $200,000 in benefits and one year of office space.
Demo Day programming kicked off with insights from Jeff Boeh, managing director of The Brandery, and gener8tor co-founder Troy Vosseller. While highlighting the history of The Brandery's work, they emphasized how its also gener8tor's goal to keep local VC dollars in the community, with Vosseller emphasizing how helpful The Brandery was in allowing gener8tor to work well within the Cincinnati startup ecosystem.
It was a partnership — Cincinnati, The Brandery and gener8tor —that The Brandery's program manager, Jess Kerr, said helped make this cohort especially great.
For example, the resources of gener8tor allowed the class include startups from across the country. And geographic diversity wasn't the only type Batch 9 could boast; 50 percent of participants are women founders.
Considering only 2.2 percent of venture capital went to women in 2017, Kerr said, having such a high percentage of women in a cohort was a realization of one of the accelerator's goals. It also meant giving these women founders access to resources like mentors and opportunities like pitches (they had made more than 60 pitches while in the program, with another 20 scheduled for the future).
With the addresses in the rearview, the startups took to the stage. First up was Ad Badger, an Austin, Texas-based startup that hopes to help businesses connect more easily with consumers on Amazon.
Next up was Brandefy and its founder Meg Pryde. She demonstrated how its mobile app allows shoppers to compare store-brand and name-brand products, empowering them to purchase high-quality items for less.
Follwing Brandefy was Nollapelli, a company that designs and manufacturers bedsheets and pillowcases that are scientifically engineered to care for users' skin while they sleep. Founder Allison Howard became interested in comfy textile sheets when she thought about how much time our largest organ (skin) spends on bedsheets.
Here’s a quick rundown of the other startups:
- Norton Hurley — “[It] provides a discreet, e-commerce monthly subscription of adult diapers to the 25 million-plus Americans who suffer from incontinence."
- Pear Commerce — Minneapolis, Minnesota: “[It] bridges the gap between grocery CPG companies and their retailers. Pear’s software embeds directly into current CPG digital advertisements or websites, creating a call to action and collecting consumers’ information on behalf of the CPG. Pear pairs the consumers in real time with a local retailer to fulfill the transaction.”
- PopBase — Burbank, California: “[It’s] digital distribution platform connects brands (e.g. Disney) and consumers through a gamified experience, hosted by a digital avatar (e.g. Mickey Mouse).
