OCEAN Programs has unveiled its 2021 accelerator cohort, and a Fort Worth startup is joining the lineup.
Animal Cloud Device Connectivity, a Texas Christian University-based startup developing and commercializing a vital monitoring platform to help keep law enforcement animals safe and healthy in the line of duty, is joining the seventh cohort of the Cincinnati-based faith-focused accelerator program. With its participation in the program, Animal Cloud will also receive a $50,000 seed investment provided by an early-stage Chicago VC fund, which focuses on “purpose-driven” entrepreneurs.
There’s also the potential for the company to gain an additional $25,000, based on its progress during the 16-week accelerator program.
“At OCEAN Accelerator we’ll have a chance to test our ideas and fine-tune both our offerings and our business model. Dylan Jones, co-founder and president at Animal Cloud, told NTX Inno via email. “OCEAN will strengthen us as a team and a company by building on our personal integrity and faith. This helps us work together to achieve our mission.”
Animal Cloud was launched last April by Chris Matos, who serves also serves as vice president, and Jones. Being military veterans themselves, the team began looking at technology created by the U.S. Air Force Research Lab to commercialize and base their company around. The technology they landed on was the BATDOKTM app, which was originally designed to help military field medics monitor soldiers' vitals and track the care they received, along with any important trends. The wearable device tracks vitals like heart rate and blood oxygen levels, uploading it to a platform where it can be accessed, monitored and shared with health professionals via a mobile platform.
While a handful of other companies are working to commercialize the BATDOKTM technology, Animal Cloud is the only one looking to apply it to animals.
In addition to the funding it will receive from its participation in the OCEAN program, Animal Cloud recently landed an Air Force SBIR Phase I grant worth $50,000 that will be used to reintroduce the tech to the military for use on its working dogs. The company will be working on the tech at Joint Base San Antonio-Lakeland. Looking ahead, Animal Cloud is looking to deploy its tech into the commercial equine market, as well as build a community for all animal lovers.
“I hope to foster a sense of innovation and creativity at Animal Cloud to allow us to develop leaders in business and technology who are well prepared to take on the challenges we face, as a company as well as the overall challenges we face as a country and a global society,” Jones said. “Our environment, animals and people are interconnected through our choices. We hope that Animal Cloud can be a vehicle to develop future leaders who will make a difference at our organization or excel in future organizations.”
Meet the other participants of OCEAN’s newest cohort below (descriptions provided by OCEAN).
Findparts.aero (Cleveland): A digital marketplace for aerospace parts and repairs. Findparts.aero provides a metasearch engine for aircraft parts. The platform will improve service and savings to 6,800 aircraft operators in 200 countries.
Get Together (Cincinnati): Enables the busiest of friends to get together using an automated, predictive calendaring app. The target is a large segment of the world’s largest demographic group – millennials with children.
GRID (Vienna, Va.): GRID is a social impact gaming studio creating video games to educate, engage and empower. By creating context-vigilant games (in local languages) for low-end smartphones, GRID has opened up the possibility of using games to educate, engage and empower people in all aspects of their lives irrespective of where they live.
IRX Remember (Cleveland): health information technology company combining software-as-a-service and patent-pending IoT hardware. The company is focusing on solving the problem of compliance with taking medications and is initially focusing on the burgeoning mental health population.
NG911 (Bellevue, Wa.): The company transforms the routing of 911 calls to reduce response time, save more lives, significantly reduce operator stress and reduce center liability.
Round2: (New York City): An AI-powered automated sporting goods marketplace that connects youth athletes to affordable gear.
Sylon (Mexico City): First micro-Investing app in Mexico that rounds up transactions and automatically invests the spare change into a portfolio of US publicly traded equities.
