It's that time of year again. Our Dayton Inno Madness competition is here. We started with 32 local startups vying for the coveted title of 2024 Inno Madness champion. After Round 2 of voting, we have the 8 startups moving to Round 3.
Inno Madness is our friendly, bracket-style challenge where readers vote to advance companies based on one question: Who would you invest in? Whether you believe in one mission or product slightly over the other or would prefer to back a more established company versus an early-stage startup, how you answer that question is entirely up to you. The bracket is designed to shine a spotlight on 32 innovative, fast-growing local businesses.
The bracket is assembled based on reader nominations, as well as editorial input from the Dayton Inno team. Seeding was determined randomly. Meet the participants below and read the contest rules here.
The goal of Inno Madness is to give a snapshot of some of the most-promising companies in Dayton. It is by no means a complete list of Dayton's best startups, which is a testament to the size of the region's tech scene. It's also not just a list of the 32 most-funded startups in the region.
Instead, the bracket is meant to represent the full breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In the end, think of the bracket as just a fun look into local companies you need to know in 2024.
Related: 10 Dayton-area startups to watch in 2024
Third-round voting begins at 10 a.m. March 12 and continues until 2 p.m. March 15. We'll open up voting round by round, ultimately crowning an INNO MADNESS winner on March 29.
Let's get into Round 3 which has four company matchups.
Meet the players (listed alphabetically):
360 Total Care
This startup is a personalized home care service company, working closely with individuals and their families to create customized plans to meet specific needs. The startup provides individuals with disabilities an opportunity to live and take part in activities within their community with access to 24/7 care from certified staff. 360 Total Care has more than 100 clients onboard and 75 employees.
Website: 360totalcare.com/about-us-2/
6888 Kitchen Incubator
Founders Dabriah Rice, Charlynda Scales and Jamaica White will introduce the two-story kitchen incubator inside the Dayton Arcade. It will occupy 10,000 square feet. The shared-kitchen concept will offer training, leadership support and commercial kitchen space. The multi-phase project began with business curriculum development for OH Taste’s Sharpen the Axe (STA) Program, covering a wide range of topics related to running successful food business. The second phase will include the design, build-out, and full operation of the commercial kitchen and storage space.
Website: www.6888kitchen.org
Accelevation LLC
This Springboro startup is a vertically integrated group of manufacturing companies, making a big name for themselves in the data center construction sector. Their current place in the market enabled them to work with major corporate giants and increase revenue from a few million to $200 million in two years. Michael Rubiera, CEO of Accelevation LLC, works with more than 50 companies including billion-dollar giants and hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, U.S. Department of Defense, Facebook and TikTok. Since founding in 2018, the company has acquired eight companies to its group.
Website: www.accelevationllc.com
AIMM
At Advanced & Innovative Multifunctional Materials (AIMM), the company takes ordinary porous materials and makes them antimicrobial. This has enabled the firm to concentrate on two initial thrusts: water purification and a self-disinfecting N95 mask. For water purification, AIMM is developing a filter that removes contaminants and disinfects without harsh tasting chemicals, resulting in clean water–all powered by gravity. For the self-disinfecting N95 mask, AIMM is prototyping an outer layer on the standard N95 mask that is antimicrobial–enabling the mask to be safely reusable.
Website: aimmlabs.com
Airship Consulting LLC
Emily Fehrman Cory founded Airship Consulting after extensive work for the AFRL. She now uses her broad experience to help startup to small businesses leverage academic and government partnerships to grow their research and development programs towards commercialization and tech transfer goals. Airship Consulting works with company executive teams through periods of explosive growth and pivotal change.
Website: https://www.airshipconsultingdayton.com/
Axe.AI
The Axe.AI platform shows companies their vulnerabilities and qualifications through the calculation of an AXESS Score. The score is a combination of four assessment layer results and a proprietary scoring algorithm using hundreds of risk factors outside of technical controls including history, training and response. The startup was established by co-founders Brett Ewing and Alex Fry – Fry is also founder of Strong Crypto Innovations in Washington D.C.
Bailey Bug
This startup manufactures capes specifically for wheelchair users. The cape is designed to wrap across the wheelchair, promoting warmth, comfort and safety for its users. Plus, each user can add their personal touch to these capes with unique designs and patterns. Founder and CEO Melanie started the company in memory of her late sister, Bailey who Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy.
Webiste: https://baileybug.org/
Billie Gold Bubble Tea
Through her determination to escape a windowless office, Nicole Cornett launched Billie Gold Bubble Tea. Since it introduced the bubble tea concept to Dayton, the startup has expanded with a food truck as well as a a brick-and-mortar location at 732 Watervliet Ave. in Dayton. Cornett revealed to DBJ that she is working toward manufacturing her boba product into cans.
Website: www.billiegoldbubbletea.com/
Black Source
This Department of Defense (DoD) Small Business is aimed at simplifying mission execution. The startup offers highly specialized consulting, engineering and design services to government and industry partners. Black Source’s team leverages a multi-disciplinary approach with former Weapon School Graduates, Human Factors Experts, and Software Engineers. We provide strategic consulting and advanced solutions that meet customer objectives.
Website: blacksource.us/
Bourbon Barbers
This upscale grooming lounge with a full service bar is located at 2319 E. Third St. in Dayton’s Burkhardt Neighborhood. The business was created to give clients the opportunity to get professional haircuts and facials, as well as be able to socialize and unwind. Alakya Mathankeri-Spears, who co-owns the business with her husband, Yohanne Spears, compared the environment that Bourbon Barbers will bring to what high-end salons bring to women.
Website: www.bourbonbarbersdayton.com/
Bowerbags
Founded by Jamie Bowerman, Bowerbags provides interactive modular carrying solutions to help active people get through their busy day. The company is busy itself launching new product lines and fundraising to grow and scale. In late 2022, Bowerbags received $100,000 from Ohio Third Frontier Commission for the development and commercialization of a modular carrying solution for the military and first responders to help them reduce injuries caused by heavy weight loads carried on the job.
Website: www.bowerbags.com/
CapV
CapV has developed the patented varactor technology that has software-tunable microchips. CapV chips adjust to, and optimize, bandwidth usage for ever-increasing wireless demand. This is critically important for telecom, DoD, (the startup's first two markets), IoT, autonomous cars and more.
Dayton Photonics LLC
The startup’s DayComm free space optical communication system brings broadband internet to the most challenging places on Earth. Dayton Photonics’ field-ready systems will be deployed for pilot installation demonstrations this summer. CEO and co-founder Emily Fehrman Cory said the company will prepare to open for angel investors in April while exploring moving into Mound Business Park this fall.
Website: dayton-photonics.com/
FireWatch Design Studio
This experimental design and development studio aims to create powerful and memorable experiences with media-first innovations. The startup builds immersive experiences that ignite the same energy in the client’s visitors.
Website: firewatchdesign.com
Fluid Applied Roofing
The manufacturer is known for its unique roofing products and expanded its presence in the Dayton region with a dedicated warehouse facility. The startup reported growing from $400,000 in revenue in 2019 to $5 million in 2022. The company is anticipating growing that revenue to $10 million by 2025.
Website: fluidappliedroofing.com
GrabTV
GrabTV Inc. is developing a product known by the same brand name, "GrabTV", which is a software platform that functions in the interactive television space, with an emphasis on T-commerce. GrabTV is built around patented technology that makes every pixel on the first screen "clickable". The GrabTV solution aims to close the retail attribution loop for television advertisers.
Website: www.grabtv.com
Hybridworks Chemical
This startup, founded by Bud Honshell, leverages an innovative recycling process to transform industry waste into high quality reusable resources. Hybridworks received a $3.2 million seed-series equity investment in 2023, following a $300,000 pre-seed funding round in 2022.
Website: www.hybridworkstextile.com
Ignyte
The startup utilizes a team of consultants, technologists, and designers that specialize in Digital Transformation to solve complex client challenges. Ignyte developed industry-specific solutions to address the key challenges that helps accelerate an organization’s digital transformation journey while enhancing the development process, accelerating speed to market and training new users.
Website: ignytegroup.com
Kitchen Kanvas
A collaborative group of University of Dayton college students got together to create an innovative product for the spice and cooking industry. Their product consists of single-serving spices contained in edible, compostable, tearable rice sheets. The Kitchen Kanvas team is led by Brian LeCocq.
Lunnie
A brand focused on postpartum products to make moms feel pretty and powerful, specifically through the production of a nursing bra which launched in March 2022. At the tail end of 2023, Lunnie announced a partnership with Kettering Health to provide nursing bras to moms in need. Founded by Sarah Kallile, Lunnie's nursing bra is meant to be a chic, everyday bra for comfort, made from high quality, sustainable fabrics with a leak proof component, manufactured by Columbus Apparel Studio.
Website: www.lunnie.com
MinedXAI
This Dayton-area startup led by CEO Morley Stone and Founder Ryan Kramer focuses on "reimagining explainable artificial intelligence offerings to build autonomous and continuous learning cognitive architectures to exploit and interact with data," according to its website. The technology firm is an explainable artificial intelligence (AI) company with proprietary technology that architects a company’s data to discover actionable insights that were previously buried. The software's forecasting ability allows users to more effectively accomplish business objectives with a high return on investment.
Website: www.minedxai.com
Niobium Microsystems
Niobium Microsystems Inc. is a Dayton technology firm specializing in silicon chip design for application-specific integrated circuits. Niobium develops high performance microelectronic components to enable the secure collection, processing, and distribution of critical data. Niobium offers the world’s fastest complete fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) accelerator. Niobium is a 2021 spinout from Galois, Inc. and sister-company to Tangram Flex. The company has additional offices in Columbus, Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California.
Website: www.niobiummicrosystems.com
Polaron Technologies Inc.
The startup specializes in data analytics and computational modeling & simulation services. Over the last six years, the company has collaborated with government and non-government organizations across the United States to resolve operational and strategic issues. We have broadened our range of services beyond Data Analytics and Computational Modeling to include Research and Development, Engineering, and IT services. Polaron Technologies is led by founder and CEO and senior scientist Rahul Bhowmik.
Website: polaronanalytics.com
Printed Vertical
Dayton Veteran Matt Van Den Beldt is leveraging a German printer for direct-to-wall or material printing. The local entrepreneur is one of a handful in the country with access to the tech. The technology’s precise calculation determines the timing of how gravity will pull the ink down onto the chosen surface, accounting for any gaps and crevices, and instantly cures the ink with UV light.
Website: www.printedvertical.com
Raider Technologies
This startup develops techniques and hardware for low-cost and size, weight and power (C-SWaP) constrained radar operations for the Department of Defense, municipality and autonomous platform industries. Leveraging DoD licensed technology using frequency diversity, Raider Technologies provides sensing capability that is lower cost and lower peak-power than typical pulsed radar due to its uniquely simpler generation of transmit signals than existing radar systems. This provides cost-effective, lower complexity radar systems with accurate range, angle, and Doppler measurements.
Website: www.raidertechnologies.com
Reliant Search Group
Founder Aaron Davis created Reliant Search Group to help businesses secure talent. The startup offers continent search, and retained search services, specializing in hiring leaders and experts around tech, engineering and innovation.
Website: www.reliantsearchgroup.com
Skuld LLC
Skuld LLC in Springfield provides casting and affordable 3D printing for low volume custom metal parts. The company takes a hybrid approach for 3D printed parts in metal that is 10x faster, 10x more accurate, and 10x cheaper than alternatives. The company is working on Department of Defense-funded projects related to aluminum and nickel alloys to prove the material properties are the same as conventional metals. In 2024, the startup purchased a 32,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Piqua.
Website: www.skuldllc.com
Smart Response Technologies
This small business works off the philosophy that every second matters, driving development of leading technology with instant response. Since 2002, Response Technologies has been outperforming the competition with fast, direct, innovative solutions. And our advancements haven’t slowed. We continue to let market needs shape our inventive direction. Whether it’s wireless duress systems in courts, gunshot detection solutions in schools, industrial automation in manufacturing, or other unprecedented solutions – we view every customer challenge as an opportunity to grow.
Website: response-technologies.com
Skyward LLC
A provider of a broad range of professional and engineering services as well as custom product solutions to U.S. government and industry partners. Contracts with the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Department of Agriculture make Skyward easily accessible to new customers while partnerships across the industry increase the breadth of capabilities. Skyward is led by president Daniel Cyphers.
Website: skywardltd.com
The Remedy Studio & Events
Founders and owners Didi and Travis Williamson opened their almost 3,000-square-foot event and rentable photography space in May 2022 in the first floor of the Firefly Building at 123 Webster St. in downtown Dayton. One year later, the startup took over the 2,800-square-foot tenant space next door to create a dedicated wedding and larger event space.
Website: www.theremedydayton.com
The Science and Engineering Corps
The Corps' acclimate technology offers advanced, adaptive thermoregulatory and hydration solutions for military personnel and outdoor enthusiasts, enhancing safety and performance in moderate to extreme heat conditions.
UNLISTED
UNLISTED in Dayton is a real estate software that helps interested homebuyers connect with the owners of off-market properties. The startup makes one-on-one connections possible through the private platform. The company's objectives for 2023 include refining product-market fit, expanding nationally, growing revenue and advancing the product. In 2022, UNLISTED won $40,000 and first place in the Polsky Center’s 4th annual Alumni New Venture Challenge, a business plan competition open to all University of Chicago alumni. The startup was created by Dayton entrepreneur Katie Hill.
Website: unlistedhomes.com
