Across the American Inno network of publications that covers 45 cities in the U.S., the Inno Fire Awards highlight innovative organizations and people who have had a year worth celebrating. Honorees could be startups, accelerators, or nonprofits buoying startups. They could be researchers or institutional leaders who rally innovators and give them the tools they need to succeed.
Memphis’ innovation ecosystem is growing swiftly, and the city isn’t short on high-caliber startups and individuals worthy of this award. There are many organizations and people in the community that could be considered “on fire.” But after careful consideration, MBJ and Memphis Inno have chosen five to highlight.
Below is a profile of one of the 2022 Inno Fire Award honorees — PopCheck Technologies — and Q&A with its founder Erika Dillard.
Erika Dillard
Founder, PopCheck Technologies
Erika Dillard could have chosen to work as a physician. She has an M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), and spent four years as a neurosurgery resident at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philadelphia.
Instead, Dillard has chosen a different path. In 2019, she enrolled in the Patents2Products (P2P) program, a partnership between the University of Memphis and Epicenter that hires post-doc fellows to start businesses using patented intellectual property. Through this, she launched the local startup PopCheck Technologies and didn’t look back.
For someone who had never stepped outside the world of medicine and science, starting a business was a massive decision — but so far, it’s one that seems to be paying off.
PopCheck Technologies is developing a product that could predict if hospital patients are going to develop venous blood clots. The startup has raised more than $300,000 in funding — including $88,000 Dillard has won from pitch competitions.
And this year, the company participated in the MedTech Innovator, which is no small feat. An elite four-month accelerator for medical technology startups, admittance to the MedTech Innovator is extremely competitive. In 2022, the accelerator had a 5% acceptance rate: Of the more than 1,000 applicants from 49 countries and 43 states, only 50 startups were selected.
This, however, is just the beginning for PopCheck. The Q&A has been edited for clarity and space.
MBJ: What have been the biggest highlights of 2022 for PopCheck?
Erika Dillard: This year, we transitioned from the University of Memphis’ Patents2Products academic fellowship to an independent entity, with me being the first full-time employee. With the efforts we put into pitching and applying for grants over the past two years, we were able to move smoothly from academia. One of the biggest highlights for us was getting accepted into the MedTech Innovator accelerator program. In addition, we recently submitted our provisional patent and kicked off our pre-seed funding round this summer.
What big wins has PopCheck had in research funding this year? I don’t think anyone could have prepared me for the rigor of fundraising. People discuss it as being energy and time-consuming, but there’s nothing like having this experience firsthand. We were able to finalize our investment with the University City Science Center this summer, which provided $50,000 toward commercialization. In addition, through friends and family, we’ve secured $75,000 and continue to receive commitments every week. To add to these investments are a number of non-dilutive grants and awards. As an entrepreneur, the challenge is also determining the best strategy to turn commitments into checks that speak to individual investors.
Have you made any new hires in the past year, and what are your hiring plans in 2023? For several years, Dr. Tamara Baynham has been our technical advisor, providing critical assistance to the company from a technology and product development standpoint. We are super excited to bring on Dr. Baynham as our new VP of engineering in January. As we continue with our funding round, our plan will be to hire an expert in data science and machine learning.
You’ve been selected for this honor because your organization has been, in a sense, “on fire.” What’s been the fuel that’s kept this flame burning? Our village, which includes family, mentors and advisors, colleagues, investors, and the Tennessee and Philadelphia entrepreneurial ecosystems. They have supported PopCheck in so many ways, from simple encouragement to providing in-kind services toward our regulatory strategy and prototyping, as well as financial contributions that have enabled us to reach some of our initial milestones.
If you could pick any animal or mythological creature to be the mascot for your business, what would it be? The sea lion. It has natural tendencies to protect and guard. Sea lions have adapted to function on land and in water and are social creatures forming groups capable of communicating with each other. PopCheck’s technology is designed to protect patients from poor outcomes related to unforeseen complications in the postoperative setting, using detection of biomarkers that aren’t readily measured by current technology on the market. Our first device, VenaCheck, “listens” for patient biomarkers indicative of clotting and communicates potential danger to the health care team remotely or at the bedside to better manage issues earlier.
What are your key areas of focus for 2023? Building our team. We have been fortunate from the beginning to have a stellar advisory board with expertise in the medical device industry, from product development to commercialization, and we look forward to maintaining these relationships with key hires who will elevate the company as we approach clinical studies, product launch, and scaling up. In addition, one of the major and often rate-limiting steps for a medical device company is achieving key regulatory requirements that will allow our technology to be available for patient use. So, another focus will be on obtaining required clinical validation toward our FDA strategy.
What do you think the biggest opportunities and challenges will be next year? We will use the momentum from 2022 as fuel for outreach in gaining additional support of key opinion leaders and other stakeholders necessary for market adoption. An early advantage for us, having come from clinical medicine into entrepreneurship, is that we were able to gain the support of several clinical partners very early. In terms of challenges, we are beginning our fundraising efforts at a time when there’s a lot of unease concerning an economic downturn. But our vision, purpose, and the need for our technology haven’t wavered. This economic uncertainty isn’t lost with investment. Hospitals, our primary customers, are feeling the burn as well, coming out of the pandemic. Gaining their business will require much more from companies like ours than in previous years.
Where do you see your business one year and five years from now? This time next year, we will have tripled the size of our team. We will have completed our pre-seed round, developed our MVP (minimum viable product), and secured breakthrough device designation. And we will be completing our first in-human trials and retrospective study, capturing data to validate clinical outcomes and value proposition for our customers. In five years, we will have launched our technology into the market, generating revenue, and established our position as a global leader in remote monitoring technology, with customers and team in the U.S. and abroad. Our value will be undeniable, with proven and reproducible clinical and cost outcomes demonstrating our ability to save lives, decrease long-term debilitating disease, and enhance the quality of life for patients across the globe.
