This week’s startups could be fodder for the next great American novel.
We have a deodorant made from whiskey, a Mexican chef who went from killing chickens to dicing tofu, and a humor-based dating app founded by a female engineer looking for the intersection of AI and… love.
It’s a mission-affirming week for us, to say the least. Read on for more incredible stories of new startups from all across the country.
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New Deals 👊
allocortech – Hardware building blocks for vehicle startups.
Built a suite of 5 products and grew to $ millions in revenue, while entirely bootstrapped.
Team from Boeing, Google, Rockwell Collins, Lockheed Martin.
Kidcaboo – Uber for kids.
Poised to be 1st licensed children’s rideshare in northeast states.
70% week-over-week growth rate; $10K+/month revenues since Feb 2022 launch.
Flux Hybrids – Retrofitting fleet vehicles into hybrids.
Marketsize of ~200M fleet vehicles, with 1% of commercial van and truck sales electrified.
Techstars Alabama Energytech portfolio company.
Pit Liquor – Deodorant powered by whiskey & vodka.
Leverages the antibacterial properties of alcohol to create an organic, sustainable deodorant.
60K customers; 1M site visits; 1,500 five star reviews.
Venganza Foods – Vegan, authentic Mexican food.
Chef went from killing chickens in Mexico to making vegan meats for the Latinx market.
Named Los Angeles’ Best Taco in 2018; vendor at Coachella.
GMSO – Supplying oceanographic research vessels to scientists.
1st private research vessel provider for ocean sciences.
Enable more scientists to get out to sea to conduct research on climate and ocean plastics.
Diesel Water – Cannabis terpene beverages.
First cannabis beverage with no THC or CBD – eliminating the “high” while retaining the therapeutic benefits of the plant.
Propretiary strains with unique flavors; Now selling on Amazon.
Heart & Solar Brew Farm – Planet-friendly lager and ale.
Baltimore-based taproom will serve 7 different beers year round.
Solar power, water reclamation, and efficient heat exchange reduces carbon footprint.
Smile Dating App – Humor-based dating app.
Founded by a female software engineer & physicist, with a goal of finding the intersection of AI and love.
Drew Barrymore praised the app on TV & posted about it to 15M instagram followers.
Voyager Global – On a quest to bring back lighter-than-air (LTA) technology.
Airships suffered a series of crashes. But now safer technology could be the key to their return.
LTA uses a free infrastructure – the Earth’s atmosphere.
atmosphere.
Mindwell Labs – Track your anxiety in realtime.
Democratizing access to high-quality and affordable mental healthcare that works.
24% free-to-paid conversion of app (industry avg: 1-2%).
Most Raised 🚀
Next Bolt – Developing a sodium-based home battery.
Buttonsmith – Software bringing American factories into the 21st century. Watch webinar here.
Tap – The input technology for the Metaverse.
Rad – AI marketing platform with an EQ. Watch webinar here.
GroGuru – The future of sustainable farming.
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