Colorado Inno is celebrating the wins of 2023 and looking ahead to potential accomplishments in 2024 with our annual Startups to Watch. In total, we’ve selected 20 early-stage Colorado startups worth keeping an eye on in the year ahead. Here are five innovative companies developing tech for mobile robots, AI for teachers, quantum technology and more.
Find the complete list of Startups to Watch in 2024 here.
Founded: June 2022
Co-founders: Zaneta Kelsey and Kevin Allen
Headquarters: Denver
Access Mode is an accelerator for tech-driven founders who are furthest removed from opportunity, including first-time and underrepresented founders and those who haven’t been accepted into other accelerators. Access Mode’s accelerator provides $20,000 in equity-free funding to each startup accepted, up to $10,000 in service credits, and training and coaching intended to help propel any stage startup.
Co-founder and CEO Zaneta Kelsey said Access Mode’s goal is to be a launching point for tech startups and a support network to help these companies grow.
Kelsey and Kevin Allen co-founded Access Mode in 2022 after working with BIPOC entrepreneurs at Energize Colorado. There, the duo focused on the number of BIPOC businesses in Colorado that were closing or struggling to stay open during the pandemic.
Access Mode focuses on tech-enabled businesses because that’s an underrepresented sector and those are the ones Kelsey believes can scale. Kelsey and Allen also have backgrounds in technology working for software, electronics, IT and energy companies and startups.
Denver-based Access Mode’s first cohort began in fall 2022 with 10 Colorado-based businesses. Its latest cohort kicked off in January with 10 U.S. companies.
During Access Mode’s first year in operation, it aimed to support 40 businesses; instead, it supported 50. Access Mode, which became a 501(c) nonprofit in March 2023, intends to support at least 60 businesses this year, including 20 in its two cohorts and through its soon-to-launch webinars for those looking to become an entrepreneur. Access Mode will also continue supporting founders at Denver Startup Week.
Founded: October 2018
Founder: Chase Garrett
Headquarters: Littleton
In July 2021, the NCAA implemented a policy called name, image and likeness — or NIL — that allows student-athletes to get paid for their personal brand, including jerseys, T-shirts and advertisements where they or their name appears. Soon after, NIL deals for high school athletes became legal in California. Now, 33 states allow some variation of NIL deals for high schoolers.
Before these policies rolled out, Chase Garrett launched Icon Source, a marketplace connecting professional athletes with potential brand partners for endorsement opportunities. After NIL launched, Icon Source expanded to serve college, and now high school athletes, as well.
The startup works with more than 20,000 athletes and brands like Crocs, Boost Mobile and Sprouts Farmers Market. Icon Source’s web and mobile platform helps both parties through the negotiation and contract process and assists them in building a campaign.
The idea for the startup came about while Garrett worked in athlete marketing at Red Bull, where he was for seven years. He was paying careful attention to NIL discussions and saw an opportunity for more brands to participate in athlete marketing.
“It was time to disrupt the brand athlete endorsement space, especially with the college NIL opportunity right on the horizon,” Garrett said.
Icon Source, according to Garrett, helped facilitate one of the first college and high school NIL deals. The startup raised a $4.3 million Series A in Q1 2023 at a pre-money valuation of $20 million. In 2023, Icon Source also launched partnerships with Sinclair Broadcasting and Brinx TV, which Garrett said will propel its growth.
Founded: 2023
Founder: Adeel Khan
Headquarters: Denver
As a former teacher and principal, Adeel Khan was more than familiar with the juggling act educators play — from grading assignments and lesson planning to teaching and communicating with parents and other teachers. When generative artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT rolled out, he saw an opportunity to reduce educators’ to-do lists and give them back more time in their day.
“Teachers will never be replaced by AI, but teachers are burned out — and AI can be an incredible assistant to help them lead more sustainable lives,” Khan said.
In May 2023, Khan launched MagicSchool AI, a generative AI startup for K-12 educators. Three months later, MagicSchool raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round and deployed more than 50 generative AI tools.
As of early January, the startup had more than 60 tools — with plans to create hundreds — to help teachers with lesson planning, parent communication, text leveling, diagnostic assessments, quiz generation, summarizing text and more. The software is free for teachers and works on any browser. MagicSchool also launched a Chrome extension in 2023 and launched internationally with the ability to translate its content into several languages.
The startup runs on a highly contextualized and proprietary layer of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and complies with all school and district data privacy requirements, Khan previously told Colorado Inno.
MagicSchool was used by more than 100,000 teachers and more than 10,000 schools as of late August 2023. By early January 2024, it surpassed 1 million users and formed partnerships with more than 450 schools and districts across the world. The startup plans to launch its second product, MagicStudent, in 2024 to bring “generative AI literacy to every student responsibly.”
Founded: 2021
Co-founders: Corban Tillemann-Dick, Kyle Thompson and Bryan Choo
Headquarters: Denver
Colorado is working to receive federal funds as a quantum tech hub, and startup Maybell Quantum Industries is one company helping lead the charge. Maybell CEO and co-founder Corban Tillemann-Dick is the founding chair of Colorado’s Elevate Quantum board, an organization spearheading quantum growth in Colorado and the Mountain West.
Quantum computing technology can store more information and solve complex problems that are difficult, if not impossible, to solve with traditional computers.
Founded in 2021, Maybell is developing systems to make quantum tech more reliable, accessible and scalable. These solutions have the potential to enable innovations that can end infectious disease, stabilize financial markets and more, according to Tillemann-Dick.
“Quantum technologies have the potential to be as important to the next 100 years as the integrated circuit or the internet were to the last 100,” he said.
Tillemann-Dick, who grew up in northwest Denver, studied engineering and economics at the U.S. Air Force Academy and Johns Hopkins University. His quantum journey began at Boston Consulting Group, where he led the company’s quantum computing efforts. There, he realized the vast potential of quantum and the gaps in quantum infrastructure.
Since launching Maybell, the startup has shipped its first systems and implemented the first customer qubits — a unit of quantum information indicative of a quantum computer’s computing power — in its cryogenic platforms. It also launched its Maybell Big Fridge, a 10mK cryogenic platform that fits 10 times more qubits in just 1/8th the space of similar platforms.
Maybell established a European HQ last year and launched full-stack quantum hardware user facilities on two continents. This year, the startup will move into a new manufacturing facility and expand its team and the capabilities of its tech.
Founded: December 2019
Co-founders: Sara Jennings and Brian Jennings
Headquarters: Nunn, just north of Greeley
Orion Labs is using robotic research to solve various problems centered around safety for robotic systems, including autonomy, localization and navigating difficult environments. Starting with navigation, the startup developed a safety system that combines a processing unit, software and multiple sensing technologies to help outdoor robots detect and maneuver around obstacles. According to the company, its product comes at a lower cost than most active remote sensing systems, or LiDARs.
Before launching Orion Labs in December 2019, co-founder and CEO Sara Jennings ran a machine learning lab with post-doctorates and PhDs, and co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Brian Jennings worked with robotics technology for several years at various companies. Their previous experience building and using mobile robotic systems led them to address a gap in sensing systems and provide end-to-end obstacle detection and navigation solutions.
Last year, Orion Labs began testing its initial units in preparation for pilots. It also won a $5,000 grant from Startup Colorado’s pitch competition and accelerator program. Sara Jennings told Colorado Inno this grant brought the startup one step closer to bringing its product to market.
“Orion Labs is at an exciting point as a startup where we have done the initial R&D to prove that our product is possible to build, we have done extensive customer discovery — including with NSF I-Corp and SBDC’s Women’s Tech Accelerator — and now we are ready to do the fun part, work with customers and start getting our units into the hands of companies,” Sara Jennings said.
Pilots will begin with customers this year. Orion Labs, which hasn’t raised venture capital funding, expects to hear about additional capital from the National Science Foundation this year.
