Each startup company receives a $100,000 investment award
Render Capital, a $15 million regional fund that is focused on providing early-stage risk capital for entrepreneurs in Louisville and Southern Indiana, has named eight winners for its 2021 Render Competition, that have each received a $100,000 investment award to help fund and grow their startups.
“We are thrilled to announce the 2021 Render Competition winners,” said Marigrace Ragsdale, Senior Associate at Render Capital. “On behalf of the entire Render Capital team, we want to thank all 302 startup applicants from 27 countries that applied, as well as our generous sponsors and our expert judges. We cannot wait to see how these funds will benefit the eight startups and to watch our local entrepreneurial scene continue to flourish as a result of the great work they will be doing here.”
The eight winners were awarded an investment of $100,000 on Thursday, Sept. 23, during the Render Competition Pitch Event at Lynn Family Stadium. While five winners were local to Louisville, the remaining three winners will now relocate their headquarters to the area.
The eight Render Competition winners are DiningTek, Innovative Therapeutix, Inc., Legal Gantt, Moolathon, Repaytient, Symba, Veeper, and Xena Intelligence.
- DiningTek (Broomfield, CO): DiningTek is an all-in-one business development engine empowering food and dining entrepreneurs (restaurants, cafes, food trucks, and food wholesalers). DiningTek provides marketing automation, branding and online sales under one platform, providing high-profit margins, brand elevation and customer retention.
- Innovative Therapeutix, Inc. (Louisville, KY): Innovative Therapeutix, Inc. is a pediatric-focused device company solving medical and developmental issues in infants and children. Their current product, LullaFeed™, is a music-based feeding device allowing parents and feeding specialists to support their child through the feeding progression, which is a problem for nearly 60% of infants every year – an estimated 74 million infants.
- Legal Gantt (Louisville, KY): Legal Gantt eliminates unnecessary phone calls and reduces the risk of a communication bar complaint against attorneys.
- Moolathon (Louisville, KY): Moolathon is a social fundraising platform built around a fitness tracking application. They give all groups and individuals the ability to raise money for a cause through the pursuit of a cause we can all relate to… getting fit!
- Repaytient (Louisville, KY): Repaytient increases hospital cash flow by up to 30% and reduces collections overhead by up to 15% by offering interest-free payment plans to patients to pay their ever-increasing out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, and help them get the care they need when they need it.
- Symba (Louisville, KY): Real estate agents have extremely fragmented and chaotic sales processes preventing them from providing a modern customer experience. Symba helps agents close more business and provide better customer service with the industry's only mobile-first CRM that eliminates clunkiness and complexity.
- Veeper (Kansas City, MO): Veeper builds personalized loyalty programs for online stores and rewards customers with automatic, incremental discounts instead of cashback/points. They track customers’ shopping activities and apply the optimum discount that gets them to buy more. Each time a customer adds an item to the cart, they'll see their discount increase.
- Xena Intelligence (Boston, MA): Xena Intelligence is an algorithmic engine that optimizes pay-per-click ad campaigns by continuously ingesting keyword and sales data from various sources and automates the decision-making process, thereby making the ad campaigns highly adaptable to the ever-changing e-commerce landscape.
The competition makes funding more accessible to local early-stage startups in the Greater Louisville region, while also helping attract new entrepreneurs to the area. The winners were selected by a group of expert judges: Allie Burns (CEO, Village Capital), Vik Chadha (CEO, Scalable Ventures and General Partner, Unbridled Ventures), Kellie Kuzmuk (Growth Lead Product Manager, Rise Science), Jacob Schpok (Vice President of Entrepreneurial Services, Elevate Ventures) and Patrick Henshaw (Managing Director, Render Capital).
Last year, eight startups, including Stuccco, were selected to receive $100,000 to help grow their business. Stuccco, a virtual staging and online interior design company enabling realtors and homeowners to get any room staged or designed in as little as one day, said the funding was crucial, especially during COVID-19.
"We cannot thank Render Capital enough for their investment last year, which helped us continue to grow,” said Matt Langan, CEO and founder, Stuccco. “This funding will be so important for those selected this year. We look forward to seeing them all thrive as a result of the Render Competition.”
About Render Capital - Render Capital is a Louisville, KY-based investment firm focused on deploying a capital strategy that boosts the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem by investing in the best startups in our region. We envision a robust and thriving regional economy where entrepreneurs see Louisville and Southern Indiana as a place they can find appropriate risk capital necessary for them to start and grow. Render Capital is a regional fund of Access Ventures. Learn more at http://render.capital.
