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"50% of them are billion-dollar companies – and it's just the first time we're doing this," said serial entrepreneur Ratmir Timashev, the OSU graduate whose donation launched the program.
The Ohio State University benefactor who brought Techstars to Columbus said he sees potential unicorns among the first group of startups completing the business accelerator.
High-quality founders and business models improved with the guidance of "the best" staff for a Techstars program, serial entrepreneur Ratmir Timashev said after last week's Demo Day for Techstars Columbus Powered by the Ohio State University.
"50% of them are billion-dollar companies – and it's just the first time we're doing this," Timashev said.
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Twelve tech startups from around the world, including five that started in Central Ohio, are wrapping up the 13-week program that's a core component of Ohio State's Center for Software Innovation. It's one of more than 50 Techstars programs around the world.
This week, Tim Grace, the program's managing director, will take the group to investor presentations in Chicago and New York, completing the formal curriculum. The companies can continue to work out of Mount Hall on west campus. The fall batch will be chosen later in summer.
The software innovation center, which also encompasses student curriculum and faculty recruitment, was established with a school-record $110 million donation from Timashev's family foundation.
The OSU graduate founded Veeam Software Corp., a data backup and recovery firm now based in Seattle, and before that Dublin-based Aelita software.
"We have the best team assembled," Timashev told the crowd at the event. "The vision, the idea, is to help Columbus and Central Ohio to become ... the next high-tech mecca."
Some highlights of progress the startups made:
- Blomso, founded in Fairfield County by OSU undergraduates, started a 15,000-acre pilot with the Ohio Department of Agriculture to test how its sensor and software system, which attaches to tractors for more precisely mapped fertilizer application, can reduce fertilizer runoff to streams. The system has reduced fertilizer use by 35% for early users, saving both money and the environment. Up next is a partnership with a food production giant in Europe, which also is trying to curb agricultural runoff.
- Pedal Data announced that it received U.S. Food and Drug Administration medical device approval for its insole sensor and AI software that tracks gait abnormalities in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s. The data helps the treatment team develop more personalized therapy to slow progression.
- Seek during the program released its production-ready product – an at-home lab test to measure the effects of alcohol on women's health, with coaching to reduce drinking. The first week of pre-orders logged 13,000 sales.
- Currents, an app for keeping track of and managing ownership and maintenance of possessions, launched a new feature during the event – a library of user manuals. The app now supports some 500 million products. During the program, the founders developed a revenue stream for the free app: Affiliate relationships with retailers who want to reduce returns by customers who can't figure out how to make a product work.
- Rubato, AI-powered music therapy and biometric sensing for patients with dementia grew to $20,000 monthly in recurring revenue and inked a deal with a 250-bed nursing home. If successful, it could spread among 600 other homes in that chain.
- Besample, an online recruitment platform for social scientists to diversify their study participants globally, doubled its user base and shipped new versions that had been back-burnered before.
"Techstars helped us deploy much of the stuff we'd been sitting on for months," co-founder and CEO Elena Brandt said. "They use the word accelerator for a reason."
More on the startups and links to their websites are on the accelerator's site.
Grace, the managing director, thanked the Central Ohio tech community for providing dozens of mentors and volunteers and Ohio State for its partnership.
"Ohio State has essentially lifted us up on their shoulders," Grace said.
Because summer break started in early May, few students were still in town to attend Demo Day. Timashev said future rounds should be timed to end while school is in session.
"This is the best business class," he said. "Entrepreneurship is what we have to teach."
