September 4 (Hypepotamus) -On the Atlanta startup calendar, there are a few “can’t miss” days. One of those happened last night, and it brought investors, seasoned CEOs, and ecosystem leaders together inside the LOOP on Georgia Tech’s campus
Create-X Demo Day has become a venerable “who’s who” for the ecosystem (even attracting people from other local universities). And all those were gathered were supporting the budding entrepreneurs coming out of Georgia Tech’s Create-X program.
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200 startup teams went through the program this year, working to bring ideas across DeepTech, MediaTech, HealthTech, Robotics, SaaS, and consumer products to life. At Demo Day, the culmination of Create-X’s summer cohort, over 100 startups set up booths, answered questions, and showed off the progress they’ve made on their startup ventures.
Hypepotamus walked around Create-X and met founders who were ready to fundraise, and others who had recently pivoted and were starting to see traction. Others had already landed pilot programs with international customers.
Here were a few ideas that stood out to us:
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Dossi:A phone-based insulin pump controller created by a 19-year-old Georgia Tech student Casey Dunham, who has type 1 diabetes, to reduce the everyday burden of managing the condition. Dossi is currently in an invite-only pilot. Dossi was one of a handful of over a dozen HealthTech and healthcare-related startups to go through Create-X this year.
Align Valuation: A math student and a business student have teamed up to create a front-office strategy platform for college baseball and softball programs. The reality is that NIL deals have made college sports more complicated…but there is a lot of data in baseball and softball that could help. Align Valuation is looking to harness that data and help college programs make better scouting decisions.
Kintic:LLMs need a lot of training data. So do robotics companies, but that data isn’t readily available to them. After a pivot during Create-X, the Kintic team of CEO Kavya Shree Mohankumar and CTO Pranavi Gogineni is collecting that data…and building the Data infrastructure for physical AI. In its early stages, they’ve already landed impressive international pilots.
AdaptaPlay:Georgia Tech aerospace student Akos Vidais building accessible gaming controllers and technology to help those with upper body disabilities play popular video games. Watch Vida’s full pitch here.
Sokol Technologies:DefenseTech is having a moment in Atlanta. One of the latest DefenseTech startups coming out of Create-X is Sokol, a startup using machine learning, acoustics and computer vision to detect drones that can evade traditional detection methods.
Other Takeaways
Students aren’t afraid to go ‘niche,’ seeing potential markets in innovating on nonprofit fundraising, calisthenics based workouts, and on-the-go journals.
Others want to tackle age-old problems with technology, be it in dating, construction safety, the ticket buying experience, how we learn…or putting on those pesky compression socks.
Create-X has a track record of creating venture-scalable companies (Askari Defense being one of the latest). In fact, its companies have gone on to launch over $4.6 billion in venture-valued startups. Of the cohort, some ideas will no doubt gain traction and become stand-alone businesses. Other founders will leave with a new appreciation for the entrepreneurial journey.
“I want our founders to be confident in the skills it takes to build a start-up. Even if their first venture isn’t a hit, they will leave CREATE-X Launch knowing how to fashion a business model that addresses real problems, to work expeditiously, and offer novel solutions that make their customers the best versions of themselves. My goal is to make great founders that want to make their customers great, too,” said Don Oates, who worked with several student startups in this year’s program.
Those skills are essential as Atlanta continues to expand as a technology hub.
Want to check out all the startups? Skim through their digital pitch presentations here! Did you attend Demo Day and did you have a favorite booth?Let us know!
