First Flight is proud to announce our Demo Day for our first AgTech Propeller Cohort. The Demo Day will be on Friday, October 20th from 10am-1pm.
This will be a hybrid event -- for those who can make it in person, we will meet at First Flight Venture Center in the Hutchison Conference Room. There will also be the option to Zoom in. In addition to the link information below, Zoom meeting information will be sent in the emails to attendees.
We are looking forward to celebrating the success and progress of our Propeller cohort which includes:
SOLCarb, Venkat Avirneni
AcreShield Technologies, Hunter Brown
Onda Vision Technologies, Bill Reynolds
Ingateygen, Hortense Dodo
Sable Fermentation, Toni Bucci
Fafabiotic, Farzaneh Rezaei
SCS Research, Kelly Chapman
Please join us to celebrate the hard work of the founders in this cohort. You will get to meet the Founders, hear about their exciting business ventures, and network with other entrepreneurs in the community!
About Propeller
First Flight Venture Center’s program, “Propeller” is an entrepreneurial design thinking program based in part on the Wendy Kennedy Institute (WKI) methodology but tailored to science and technology-focused companies. First Flight seeks to contribute to our vibrant entrepreneurial community by adding Propeller as a building block for an ever-stronger innovation ecosystem.
Propeller provides practical hands-on visual tools and frameworks to help entrepreneurs discover and communicate the business value of new ideas. The program utilizes an engaging set of visual tools that founders use to look at their ideas considering angles from the business problem, customer value, and competitive edge. The result is a clear understanding by the innovator about the business direction for their idea. They also have a pitch presentation ready to engage investors, advisors, first customers and others about the business opportunity their idea presents.
Please join us to celebrate the hard work of the founders in this cohort. You will get to meet the Founders, hear about their exciting business ventures, and network with other entrepreneurs in the community!
This cohort was made possible by the North Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership, NC Idea and the NC Biotechnology Center.
About the Companies:
1. SOLCarb
a. Venkat Avirneni, Founder and CEO
b. Description of Company – SolCarb is a pioneer in Carbon Credit Measurement and Verification Services, leading the way with innovative machine learning models that transforms the carbon credit measurement and verification process. Our approach not only accelerates the process but also substantially enhances accuracy. In stark contrast to traditional methods, which harness only a fraction of the potential carbon credits, SolCarb's methodology can increase this figure by a remarkable factor of 10X.
2. AcreShield Technologies
a. Hunter Brown, Founder and CEOb. Description of Company – AcreShield Technologies offers a plant pathogen surveillance tool that equips farmers with the knowledge of when, where, and how to protect their crops from disease. With pre-infection identification and fungicide determination, farmers reap a 10% boost in crop yield, 4-6 fewer fungicide applications, and reduced resistance spread through better-rationed fungicide applications. When paired with the latest advances in autonomous robotics, farmers receive high-impact, low-labor insights into targeted disease management.
3. Onda Vision Technologies
a. William (Bill) Reynolds, Founder and CEO
b. Description of Company – Onda Vision Technologies serves people who experience abrupt changes in their hydration induced by athletics, occupation, or medical conditions. Our wearable solution provides early alerts and continuous monitoring to prevent adverse health outcomes.
4. Ingateygena. Hortense Dodo, Founder and CEO
b. Description of Company – IngateyGen is an early stage Agricultural Biotech Company developing a safer and more nutritious peanut for greater health and wellness. We are applying genome editing technology to develop the various products in our development pipeline, starting with an allergen free peanut, followed by an ultra high protein peanut and an oil profile modified peanut.
5. Sable Fermentation
a. Toni Bucci, Founder and CEO
b. Description of Company – The demand for sustainable food and agriculture products has driven the use of living cells to produce various compounds. Sable Fermentation, Inc. is a pilot scale biomanufacturing plant that helps companies successfully optimize and scale up production of those cells. Through optimization of cell growth processes, Sable reduces the time to commercialization while lowering the overall cost to produce bio-based products.
6. Fafabiotics
a. Farzaneh Rezaei, Founder and CEO
b. Description of Company – Fafabioitc is an innovative Bioformulation and Bioproduct development company bringing microbial based products into skincare market, solving skin health issues one probiotic at the time.
7. Global Agricultural Development Corporation
a. Kelly Chapman, Business Development Manager
b. Description of Company – Global Ag can deliver the best laboratories, specialists, consultants, cooperators, only when needed. Your product can be developed in record time with lower fixed costs and optimal variable cost by seasoned scientists and experts in the industry based on solid science and accurate business analysis. Global Ag uses iAdvantage Software to make current project status and results (data) of all studies and overall status of your product's development immediately visible online to all decision makers.