GREENVILLE, S.C. — Thirty startups have been selected as semifinalists for the NEXT Venture Summit. These companies represent a broad cross-section of industries and are among the most venture-ready startups in the region.
The semifinalists are all from North and South Carolina and were selected from 94 applicants, and among them are a Greenville firm specializing in carbon and alloy bicycle wheels and a Charlotte drone company that produces machines that clean buildings up to eight times faster than traditional methods. Of the 30 semifinalists, 17% are minority- or female-owned companies.
NEXT Excutive Director Eric Weissmann said the caliber of this year’s applicants was outstanding and demonstrates how the NEXT Venture Summit has become a showcase for the Carolinas’ top startups.
“We want to get to the 10 best venture-ready, venture-backable startups in the Carolinas,” Weissmann said. He added the event’s continued growth also demonstrates a vibrant Greenville ecosystem that supports high-growth entrepreneurship.
All 30 semifinalists will present (via video) at a special Screening Party on Sept. 8 at Fluor Field preceding the Greenville Drive’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Night. Attendees will have the opportunity to vote to help select the 10 companies that will be showcased on stage as NEXT Venture Summit finalists on Sept. 22.
The 30 semifinalists are:
Kevel — Durham, NC
Kevel's APIs enable you to easily build a high-revenue, custom ad platform.
Bluerecruit — Raleigh, NC
BlueRecruit is a direct-hire marketplace for skilled-trade workers who want to build their careers and the companies desperate for talent.
BOYDbikes Inc. — Greenville, SC
Boyd Cycling is a Greenville-based craft bicycle wheel manufacturer focused on producing the highest quality bicycle wheels.
Checkeeper — Greenville, SC
FinTech product that facilitates easier business-to-business payments.
Earnnest LLC — Greenville, SC
Earnnest is the largest digital payments platform int he United States to transfer earnest money in real estate transactions, and is expanding services to include all transaction types in the real estate industry.
Ecobot — Asheville, NC
Ecobot helps companies in the architecture, engineering and construction industry with a workflow-based mobile/cloud platform, regulatory expertise, and native integrations with partners.
Elastrin Therapeutics Inc. — Simpsonville, SC
Elastrin Therapeutics is developing a ground-breaking new therapy to prevent and reverse chronic cardiovascular disease. Their compounds will enter clinical trials next year and are planned to be available for all patients in 2027.
Girlology — Greenville, SC
Girlology is a digital health platform designed to help every girl feel confident and informed about her changing body & mind with grade-by-grade mom and daughter support.
Growpath — Durham, NC
GrowPath helps law firms increase revenues and improve efficiencies through advanced analytics, workflows and automating business processes.
Hank AI Inc. — Lexington, SC
Technologies to augment and automate digital work in healthcare and enterprise back office.
Hook Security Inc. — Greenville, SC
Training for nontechnical users to recognize cybersecurity threats and attacks through humorous training experiences.
Interloop — Charleston, SC
Interloop combines an all-in-one Cloud Data Platform with extensive data engineering expertise to help organizations gain the insights they need to make better decisions and drive growth.
Land Intelligence — Columbia, SC
LandSUITE helps land developers research, finance and trade any property in the United States. We focus on land transactions and saving land developers time and money.
Lucid Drone Technologies — Charlotte, NC
Lucid builds robots that perform labor-intensive tasks, starting with drones that can clean buildings.
Momtech Inc. — Charlotte, NC
Momtech makes products that solve problems for moms and babies by replicating the natural biomechanics of nursing.
My Relief Wear Inc. — Taylors, SC
My Relief Wear is a casual cold therapy clothing company with patent-pending technology changing the process of icing pain by fusing ice packs and clothing.
Natrx Inc. — Raleigh, NC
Natrx provides coastal and marine infrastructure solutions by combining proprietary digital technologies with patented advanced manufacturing to deliver habitat-specific systems that harness the adaptive power of nature.
North 7th — Greenville, SC
North 7th builds tools and solutions to help facilitate the sale of real estate.
Omedym — Liberty, SC
Omedym digitizes the B2B buying experience by empowering your buyer to buy and equipping your sellers with digital guided product experiences.
Parrots Inc. — Winston-Salem, NC
Parrots Inc. has built an inclusive platform using AI and ML to give a smart voice and telecare to people with neurological disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.
Plum CoOwnership Inc. — Durham, NC
Plum's co-ownership platform helps customers form groups, set the rules, buy a home and manage it together.
ProAxion Inc. — Cary, NC
ProAxion is connecting the nation’s manufacturing machines with IIoT and leveraging cloud based predictive maintenance analytics to improve machine availability.
Quartix — Charlotte, NC
Quartix embeds trade finance in supply chains of large industrial clients.
Rabbu — Charlotte, NC
Rabbu helps real estate investors find, buy and operate short-term rentals at scale.
Resultid — Raleigh, NC
The difficulty of creating a compelling story from a mountain of documents, Powerpoints, and spreadsheets is an enormous challenge. Resultid processes this type of qualitative data to detect themes.
ScopeStack — Greenville, SC
ScopeStack is a software platform that automates part of the sales process for IT companies.
TestedHQ — Mauldin, SC
TestedHQ is a product development research company providing real time end-user feedback to consumer product companies.
TRAKID — Raleigh, NC
Interactive and educational platform for families visiting zoos, amusement parks and other outdoor venues, enhancing the guest experience.
Udu Inc. — Durham, NC
The udu platform solves complex business challenges by leveraging advancements in data harvesting and machine learning for customers in private equity.
Zylo Therapeutics Inc. — Greenville, SC
Zylo Therapeutics is a materials technology firm focused on commercializing a novel silica-based encapsulation technology with applications in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and agricultural chemicals.
Tickets are on sale now at nextventuresummit.com.
The NEXT Venture Summit is a one-day venture capital conference that brings together high-growth entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, world-class speakers, and more to establish Greenville as an innovation and entrepreneurship hub in the Southeast. In its seventh year, this event promises to deliver value to the entire #StartupGVL ecosystem and the surrounding region. For more information, visit https:// www.nextventuresummit.com/
NEXT is an entrepreneurial support organization that attracts and helps high-impact, knowledge-based companies grow by developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem and connecting entrepreneurs to it. NEXT currently supports more than 120 knowledge-based companies in Upstate South Carolina. For more information, visit www.nextsc.org.
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