Dominion Energy Innovation Center is adding a new category to its annual pitch competition.
Applications are open through Feb. 1, for the fifth annual Center Street Pitch Competition hosted by the DEIC and Randolph-Macon College EDGE Career Center.
The event typically includes pitches from three different competitive tracks: energy or sustainability related businesses, Randolph-Macon student ideas, and a general startup category. DEIC Director Adam Sledd said for the upcoming 2022 competition, the general startup category will be replaced with with agribusiness-related innovators.
“Hanover (County) has been an agriculture-focused community for a long time,” he said. “It's still a place where you have a lot of farmers and food being produced and land being used in a lot of ways.”
Sledd said DEIC is inviting innovators from the surrounding area to pitch startup ideas for the Ag-Enterprise category. He said they’re looking for folks who can excite judges by doing something different with “agribusiness” by using a product in a new and innovative way.
“Any food, forestry or agricultural business located in the Richmond Metro area, that seeks to commercialize a technology, process, product or service that relates to agriculture, food production and distribution or food waste (are invited),” he said.
The hope is participants in all categories of the Center Street Pitch Competition include a sustainability element, which has been an on-going part of DEIC's mission since it was founded in 2009. The DEIC is also focused on supporting early-stage advanced technology companies in their growth through resources, guidance and collaborative space.
Three finalists per category will be chosen to make a five-minute pitch. The live event is Feb. 24, at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland. Each winner will receive $5,000, a year-long membership to DEIC and in-kind service packages from mentors like BrownBaylor and Capital Advisors.
“What the judges look for in selecting the winner, and when we select the the finalists, are a unique product or service, good team and good business model,” Sledd said. “I think it’s what you’re looking for when you’re evaluating a new business.”
He said the competition has always served as a path forward to local entrepreneurs.
“Previous winners like Babylon Micro-Farms, Trace RX and Linebird have gone on to raise significant additional investment and create jobs in the Richmond area,” he said.