Two Davis-based companies took the top cash prizes in the Pitch Elk Grove startup competition.
Ravata Solutions won $10,000, Matrubials Inc. won $5,000 and Elk Grove-based AdLoad Technologies Inc. won the $2,500 prize for best pitch from an Elk Grove-based startup.
The city is trying to "build a startup community in our sleepy suburb," said Darrell Doan, Elk Grove's economic development director.
"We are not thought of as a hotbed of startup activity," he said, adding that we are now in an information age and "innovation is what builds the economy."
The city uses the pitch contest, now in its second year, as an economic development tool to introduce the startup community to the Sacramento suburb and its programs focused on supporting Elk Grove companies.
"We have funding to help you launch. We have funding to help you scale," he said.
The city could use its economic development funds to try and lure some big company to move to Elk Grove, Doan said, adding that "it never works."
The city has taken the position that it will support homegrown talent at the stage where they are still working in their garage.
"We want to help them early," Doan said.
Even if just one of those companies scales up to be a big employer, the program will be a success, he said.
Eight companies made five-minute pitches to a panel of five investors and financiers and an audience of more than 100 people at the city's civic center.
Ravata is a maker of sensors to quantify embryo health for in vitro fertilization. It is pursuing the animal market now as it awaits federal regulatory approval for its use in people, said CEO Gurkern Sufi. The company's sensors and software analyze embryo quality and viability to increase the success rate of in vitro fertilization.
Matrubials is developing antimicrobial peptides from milk for combating severe bacterial infections, which will need federal regulatory approval, and in the meantime the company is working on cosmetics using the same technology to treat skin conditions, said CEO Ishita Shah, a former associate director at the Foods for Health Institute at the University of California Davis.
Adload Technologies offers digital billboard advertising installed on big rig trucks that can be geographically tracked and programmed for specific messages in real time as they travel highways across the country. Its billboards are on 75 trailers now, and customers include Chick-fil-A and the Los Angeles Angels baseball team.
Pitch Elk Grove highlights the Startup Elk Grove Incentive Program, which launched in 2018 and offers direct cash subsidies to companies based in the city.
The Startup Elk Grove Incentive Program offers cash grants to companies that will support new jobs or technology opportunities in Elk Grove. The city takes no equity in the companies and the money doesn’t need to be paid back — as long as the companies remain headquartered in Elk Grove. If the company moves out of Elk Grove, or if the company is acquired, the grant becomes a loan.
