Learn more about these CWRU LaunchNet teams
The following enterprises have launched and are in various stages of development
Apollo Medical Devices
When someone is critically ill or injured, every second counts. When it comes to blood tests, not everyone can afford to wait a couple days for results. Apollo Medical Devices, founded by Punkaj Ahuja and Patrick Leimkuehler, recognizes the problem of inefficient and immobile blood tests and have come up with a solution: a device that can provide analysis at the point-of-care with just a single drop of blood.
AMD's technology allows physicians to receive blood test results within just five minutes, and the device is disposable for easy-use.
"One of our major advantages is that we could use this in the developing world, in disaster relief and the military potentially. I really see this being used in places like primary care facilities, pre-ambulance, pre-hospital facilities like in nursing homes, and eventually for an at-home market," says founder Punkaj Ahuja.
Since its founding in 2014, AMD has received over $150,000 in funding, including $50,000 from a first place win at Techweek Chicago, $20,000 from a first place win at Jumpstart "Up and Corners", and $5,000 from being runner-up in the McCloskey Business Plan Competition.
On December 21, 2016, Apollo Medical Devices was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $225,000 to help continue research and development work on its handheld blood analyzer and accelerate Apollo toward FDA submission and clearance.
BoxCast
When a few web developers were asked by a funeral home to develop a video solution so that families who couldn't attend their loved one's funeral could participate remotely, they realized the potential for a new business, and BoxCast was born.
BoxCast has developed a device that allows anyone to live-stream events in HD to any device. This device‒called the BoxCaster‒only requires a video camera, power, and WiFi in order to display a live video feed on an organization's website. With BoxCast, people have a simple, reliable, and affordable way to stream.
BoxCast was founded in 2013, and in just two years the company has grown tremendously. From acquiring $250,000 in seed funding from JumpStart Inc. in 2013, BoxCast is now working with Cleveland ESPN to stream high school football games on the ESPN website. In just one week in September 2014, BoxCast logged over 1 million minutes watched via the BoxCaster.
In the summer of 2017, BoxCast is releasing the BoxCaster Pro. At the moment BoxCast is taking in pre orders for the newest iteration of BoxCast.
CWRU LaunchNet is proud to have helped BoxCast get started, and is enthusiastically anticipating wherever BoxCast's rapid development will take it next.
Event 38
CWRU alumnus Jeff Taylor's company Event 38 is revolutionizing the way people of a variety of professions survey and evaluate.
Founded in June 2012, Event 38 designs and manufactures drones (unmanned aerial systems), specialized optical sensors, and a Drone Data Management System™ for small and medium sized businesses.
Since its founding, Event 38 has expanded to sell drones in 49 countries in a variety of markets: agriculture, construction, environmental conservation, surveying, etc.
"Working with an exciting new technology, I think, has helped us... because what we do, it's fun, it's cool, and it's new and we get to do something that there's not too many people doing yet," says founder Jeff Taylor.
Everykey
Innovators are always seeking to make life more convenient. For Everykey, eliminating the common hassle of forgetting passwords for different accounts is chief among them.
Everykey, founded in September 2012 by CWRU alumnus Chris Wentz, has developed an attractive Bluetooth-enabled wristband that allows immediate access to a user's password-protected electronics such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer, as well as physically locked items including doors, car doors, bike locks, and other controlled access devices.
Since its founding, Everykey has received a warm welcome from investors and grants, earning $125,000 from the GLIDE Innovation Fund, $12,000 from the Protech grant, $117,053 from a Kickstarter campaign, and $250,000 from Michigan's IncWell.
"Ever since I was in middle school, I've always been starting small ventures, so this isn't anything hugely new for me. But this is the biggest and best one. This is the one where I have full-time employees other than myself, the first hopefully multimillion-dollar idea. This is the first really big thing that I've done," says founder Chris Wentz.
FGC Plasma Solutions
FGC Plasma Solutions utilizes plasma to stabilize combustion for a wide variety of lean combustion systems, leading to increases in efficiency and operability as well as decreases in emissions. FGC Plasma seeks to improve: fuel burn combustion, combustion dynamics control, lean blow off control, increased fuel flexibility, increased turn down, and altitude relight.
FGC Plasma started out as a high school science fair project and since then has taken in over $100,000 from DOE grants. While currently working out of NASA Glenn Research center, FGC Plasma was recently inducted into Argonne National Laboratories first research based startup accelerator program and will be moving to Chicago, Illinois, to complete development.
In December 2016, FGC Plasma Solutions joins as a cohort of Chain Reaction Innovations to make jet fuel more efficient utilizing a plasma based fuel injector for combustion.
FM Tracks
FM Tracks is an iOS application designed to collect, manage, and evaluate information about your farmer's market. Designed by Dr. Darcy Freedman, it is used as a tool to build healthy food policies and develop industry standards for uniform healthy food incentive data collection.
FM Tracks partnered with Case Western Reserve University, the Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods, and Wholesome Wave. It is supported through funding from the Ohio Department of Health, Wholesome Wave, and the Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods.
The completed free product can be found through the use of its partnering website and on the iTunes app store.
HemaImaging
A safe, worry-free environment is every homeowner's hope. Eric and Courtney Beall founded Hema Imaging LLC to make the costly, tedious dream of home maintenance into an affordable, efficient reality.
Hema Imaging LLC helps homeowners and professionals use thermal, or "heat map," imaging to uncover unexpected temperatures associated with common household problems. Hame Imaging's device, HemaVision, can highlight abnormal temperatures, lock onto scenes, calculate power dissipation and cost, and make statistical maps of significant temperature changes.
"I wanted to create a device that would be more affordable and would help homeowners make informed decisions about ongoing maintenance in their homes," says co-founder Eric Beall.
Eric's vision has been warmly received by many. In 2015 Hema Imaging raised $143,126 in funding from a Kickstarter campaign, greatly surpassing its $40,000 goal.
Jaswig
When his girlfriend started suffering back and neck pain while studying for a PhD in 2012, Mathias Ellegiers and his girlfriend wanted to try a standing desk but none were affordable or attractive. Standing desks often cost in the thousands and were made of unattractive metal. Ellegiers, with a background in structural engineering, decided to build a cheaper model made of plywood rather than metal.
In 2014, Ellegiers and his two partners launched Jaswig with $50,000 invested from their own pockets. They went on to launch a kickstarter that ran for a month in late 2015 that raised $74,031 in funding.
In just a few years, Jaswig has shipped its ergonomic and sustainable plywood product to homes and schools. In 2017, Ellegiers hopes to reduce the price of their product to an even more affordable cost for schools after some time off to volunteer teaching kids in Cape Town, South Africa.
Ottia
The Ottia Maker Machine brings creativity to the next level by putting 3-D printing, wood cutting, cake frosting, and more into one affordable and easy-to-use machine. With this power, Ottia is able to let anyone experience the creative empowerment of the personal manufacturing revolution!
The Ottia Maker Machine was featured extensively at CES and will soon be available for pre-order on kickstarter!
Pandata LLC
Formerly Triple Analytics LLC, Pandata LLC is a company that developed a software which reports treatments known to produce the best outcomes for specific types of patients based on data in electronic medical record systems, greatly increasing the efficiency and reducing the costs of quality healthcare.
CWRU LaunchNet's client Khalid "Cal" Al-Dhubaib, most recently becoming a finalist in the 2015 Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year competition, is climbing higher every day with his startup company, Triple Analytics LLC.
Since its founding in 2014, Triple Analytics has grown to encompass at least five employees and has won first place in the 2014 Regional Global Student Entrepreneur Awards and second place in the 2014 National Global Student Entrepreneur Awards.
"We're the only company that does decision support for chronic care in real time. We integrate population health care analytics with patient engagement," says Cal.
Parihug
Parihug makes electronically-connected teddy bears, that let loved ones hug each other from a distance. Two people can be on different sides of the world, each with their own bear. When one is hugged, a suite of soft, fabric-based sensors detects the hug and transmits a message to the other bear.
The receiving bear then hugs its owner with a gentle vibration—haptic telepresence! The bears allow loved ones to connect with each other when they physically cannot be together, and brings the humanity back into technological connection.
In 2017, Parihug raised $53,415 from backers at kickstarter through the course of a month with an expected delivery date in December 2017.
From a hackathon project to kickstarter phase, Parihug is seeking to change the way we interact with those we hold dearest!
Reflexion Interactive Technologies LLC
Reflexion Interactive Technologies is an Angel backed startup striving to create a more robust concussion monitoring system. They recognize that millions of concussions are reported each year and that these are only a fraction of all concussions that athletes face in reality.
They are currently committed to research and development and have partnered with the Penn State Center for Sport Concussion Research in order to validate our system. Athletes are their primary focus and they plan to protect them by providing a fast, portable, and affordable solution to keep them safe.
In 2017, Reflexion Interactive Technologies placed first place in Penn State's show The Investment for a prize of $15,000 to be invested in their company.
Remesh
When Andrew Konya and Aaron Slodov saw how difficult it was for people to come to an organized consensus via group chat, an idea was born: Remesh.
Remesh, founded in 2013, is a messaging platform that uses an algorithm to consider thoughts submitted by individuals and selects and send one thought that most accurately reflects the group's prevailing opinion. Since the startup's founding, Remesh has acquired over $395,000 in funding from business accelerators Techstars and Flashstarts and from the Innovation Fund.
"Since the dawn of humanity, groups have been forced to allow a few select people to speak on their behalf; I am truly excited to bring the world a new option – the ability for a group to speak for itself. I believe this will radically change the way we do business, socialize, learn, govern and even resolve international conflict," says co-founder Andrew Konya.
On July 15, 2015, Remesh announced that it is joining the New York Barclays Accelerator class, a 13-week program designed for startups in the financial technology space.
In 2017, Remesh announced a closing of a $2.25M seed round. Thus investment from LionBird Investments (Chicago and Tel Aviv) puts Remesh's total raise to $3.85M.
RVS Rubber Solutions
Founded in 2017, RVS Rubber Solutions is a Case Western Reserve University startup founded by Pavel Galchenko and Yohann Samarasinghe.
The RVS, or Resonant Vibrational Separation, is a breakthrough in rubber materials recycling. Using state-of-the-art processes, the RVS tech allows for cleanly and efficiently conversion of otherwise useless rejected tire components into a high-quality, low-cost, and environmentally-friendly rubber source for a wide array of applications.
In 2017, RVS Rubber Solutions beat seven other campus-based student startups to win the Midwest regional competition of the U.S. Department of Energy's Cleantech competition. RVS seeks to use this $50,000 prize to continue on building a working prototype to refine their findings and attract investors.
After some early success, the following teams and enterprises pivoted or ran their course
SpiroSano
It's no secret that healthcare costs are on the rise, and this is especially true for asthma and COPD patients, whose annual healthcare costs are projected to double every 5 years.
Radu Iancu and Jacob Glenn seek to mitigate the costs for these patients through SpiroSano, a technology that helps patients with respiratory problems and their doctors efficiently track data and quickly identify trends. SpiroSano is the first truly end-to-end solution for managing respiratory diseases.
SpiroSano was founded in 2014, and since then it has been quickly growing. In 2014 SpiroSano raised $10,490 through a crowdfunding campaign on MedStartr. In 2015 the startup company was selected by the HealthBox business accelerator to join its upcoming class in Chicago of innovative healthcare startups.
Carbon Origins
When Amogha Srirangarajan, Kailey Shara, and Peter Dixon first built the Apollo, it was not for their soon-to-be-founded business Carbon Origins, but rather for their rocketry project for a class at Case Western Reserve University.
However, they soon discovered that their small device with 11 different sensors that collect data that can be logged via Bluetooth, WiFi, and SD card–the Apollo–had a variety of applications outside the classroom, and thus Carbon Origins was born.
Carbon Origins is a business that empowers people with the best tools to explore the universe and, in the process, makes space commonplace. Applications for its device Apollo are wide-ranging, from monitoring rockets to at-home use for personal projects.
In 2014, Carbon Origins received $10,000 in funding from its 3rd place win in the first Blackstone LaunchPad Demo Day in New York City.
College Hamper
College students are plagued with the issue of balancing work, school, and fun. Time is a precious resource for a student, and the average U.S. college student spends 95 hours each year doing laundry. Marc Parnell realized this issue and founded College Hamper, a laundry courier service for college campuses.
In 2015, College Hamper won third place in Case Western Reserve University's Spartan Challenge, and continued on to develop their business into a full-fledged service on a number of campuses in the year of 2017.
Purple Carrot
The world of healthcare is rapidly changing, and yesterday's "proven best practices" are no longer valid in today's environment. In order to help nurses easily adapt to this fast-paced progression in healthcare, Jackie Sanders founded Purple Carrot, described as "a mash-up of LinkedIn and Allrecipes.com".
Purple Carrot is an online platform that establishes a forum-like space for nurses to share best practices, connect with peers, and integrate new solutions in an efficient, scalable, and measurable manner.
Purple Carrot's services have been well-received by hospitals: CWRU and University Hospitals are beta testing the online platform. In 2015, Purple Carrot was recognized as a semi-finalist for the Innovation Prize at Unite for Sight's Global Health and Innovation Conference held at Yale University.
Since its founding in 2014, AMD has received over $150,000 in funding, including $50,000 from a first place win at Techweek Chicago, $20,000 from a first place win at Jumpstart "Up and Corners", and $5,000 from being runner-up in the McCloskey Business Plan Competition.
SensID
In a job where working under pressure is the norm, nurses need to be well-trained and familiar with the ins and outs of assisting medical surgeons in their operations. Recognizing that this training process is often unnecessarily difficult and expensive, Alexis Schilf and Jack Schwarz have built a device and software under their startup company SensID that will help nurses develop the necessary muscle memory for passing instruments to surgeons in the operating room.
SensID's device has two hands, and trainees learn how to properly pass the sometimes-sharp tools—even measuring the level of pressure used to place the instruments in a surgeon's hands.
"The operating room can be very tense and stressful. We can help nurses become accurate, quick and reduce mistakes," says co-founder Alexis Schilf.
SensID placed as a finalist in the Blackstone LaunchPad National Demo Day competition in 2014 and won 2nd place at the Saint-Gobain Student Design Competition in 2015.
GreenLite Technologies LLC
In a world of fast-paced progressions in technology, it is important to share the wealth with developing countries. That is precisely what Ian Ferre, Evan Harris, Samuel Crisanti are doing with their startup company GreenLite Technologies LLC.
GreenLite has developed a foot-pedal generator capable of charging a cell phone and LED lights as an ultra-affordable, low-load power source to developing countries.
Since first releasing its prototype in 2014, GreenLite has won first place in the CWRU Spartan Challenge, and $75,000 in funding from the US EPA's People, Prosperity and the Planet phase grant competition. In November 2015, GreenLite took first prize ($3,000) in the Hudson Library pitch competition, sponsored by the Burton D. Morgan Foundation.
"All of the money will be put towards furthering the business, continuing development, and traveling to the Philippines and Lesotho (again) to conduct market research," co-founder Ian Ferre says.