Launch Blue has announced the spring cohorts for both its pre-seed accelerator and UAccel programs.
For the first time, Launch Blue has accepted startups from outside of Kentucky for its pre-seed accelerator. Four of the seven selected teams are from the commonwealth, while the other three hail from Indiana, Michigan and New Jersey.
"While we typically focus on startups in Kentucky, we had strong candidates from outside our state so we decided to expand our offerings," said Laura Halligan, executive director of Launch Blue, in a news release. "We are proud that our program was attracting these types of startups, and we believe that diversifying our cohorts in this way will add immense value to our participants."
The 12-week program is designed for technology-based startups that have the potential to grow into highly scalable, profitable ventures. Launch Blue does not take equity in startups admitted to the program, however, applicants are tasked with raising $500, which covers the program fees, as part of the admission interview.
The spring pre-seed accelerator cohort includes:
- Decuremed (Lansing, Michigan) — Founded by Dewi and Erik Kreckman, Decuremed is a telemedicine company that specializes in immigrant care.
- IKEMBA (East Orange, New Jersey) — Founded by Prudence Minton, Sharleen Morris, Chiffon Rushford, Ashley Pichardo and Jonathan Dec, the IKEMBA EdX platform offers BIPOC educators a social commerce platform to galvanize pockets of reform into an educational revolution.
- Melanated Healthcare (Louisville) — Founded by Lecresha Sewell, Melanated Healthcare is a digital health platform that connects Black and people of color (POC) to culturally congruent health professionals.
- Moolathon (Louisville) — Founded by Mac Wilkinson, Moolathon is a social fundraising platform and fitness tracker that gives groups, organizations and individuals the ability to raise money for any cause with miles you run, walk or bike.
- Vor Trade (South Bend, Indiana) — Founded by Michael Hoeft, Vor Trade is a two-sided online marketplace that connects knowledgeable financial practitioner-educators with passionate learner-traders.
- X10D (Lexington) — Founded by Les Anderson and Justin Rhinehart, X10D (pronounced “extend”) is a website and mobile app providing beef cattle producers a best-in-class tool for data collection and management and the ability to make decisions based upon sound data.
- XpressRun (Louisville) — Founded by Sada Wane, XpressRun is a multi-carrier platform that enables same-day and next-day delivery for e-commerce businesses.
UAccel
UAccel is a Launch Blue cohort organized in partnership with the University of Kentucky Office of Technology Commercialization and Kentucky Commercialization Ventures. The program is designed to offer business development and an experiential learning opportunity to innovators in higher education interested in learning the best commercialization path for their technology.
The goal of the 12-week program is to advance the technology toward commercialization, including preparations for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant applications, the creation of a startup, or licensing of the technology.
The spring UAccel cohort includes:
- Trey Alexander and Jamie Studts (University of Kentucky)
- Tim Butterfield (University of Kentucky)
- Nicholas Caporusso, Brett Thaman and Trung Cao (Northern Kentucky University)
- Ming-Yuan Chih (University of Kentucky)
- Kevin Donohue, Matthew Ruffner and Michael Sikora (co-founders of Movetones)
- Christ Gant (University of Kentucky)
- Chad Risko, Rebekah Duke and Vinayak Bhat (University of Kentucky)
- Stefan Stamm and Justin Welden (co-founders of CircCure)
- Rachel Tinius (Western Kentucky University)
- Wang-Xia Wang (University of Kentucky)
- Guoqiang Yu (University of Kentucky)
Read more about the individual projects here.
Launch Blue will begin taking applications for the fall cohorts of both programs this summer.
