(Photo above: Perfect Company’s ‘Perfect Bake’ system | photo courtesy of perfectbakeapp.com)
Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO), host of the 12th Annual Bend Venture Conference (BVC), announced the five Growth Stage finalists who will vie for investment and cash prizes upwards of $500,000 at BVC on Friday, October 16.
In alphabetical order, the five Growth Stage finalists, who were selected after a thorough due diligence process by investor teams, are:
HoneyComb: An Oregon-based company with a diverse team of dedicated employees focused on drone-based aerial imaging solutions for precision agriculture and forestry. ” Since inception, agriculture has been our #1 market with all of our products, services and values reflecting that. As a company we believe in innovation and supporting traditional values. We do this by supporting our community, rural development, and providing technologies and services that have a direct impact on efficiency, productivity, and profitability.” www.honeycombcorp.com
NemaMetrix: Offering an early stage drug discovery platform that reduces costs 100x by increasing the success of identifying drug candidates early. ” Our mission is to make whole animal electrophysiology increasingly accessible. We believe that this will accelerate the pace of research in many wide-reaching fields: from academics to toxicology texting, drug discovery to the genetic basis of disease.Our technology is an application of soft lithography to biological problems. We make microfluidic devices with incorporated electrodes to make extracellular recording of bioelectric activity easy and repeatable. Our microfluidic devices are fabricated from a soft, gas-permeable, biocompatible elastomer called PDMS into which small channels are formed. www.nemametrix.com
Odysys: Helping hotels drive more direct bookings at a lower cost by allowing hoteliers to connect, manage and track digital marketing efforts with one simple platform. ” We built Odysys because we love staying at places with character. Boutique hotels, historical inns, quirky motels, and off-the-beaten path destination resorts are our passion. We’ve designed the Odysys platform to be both simple and powerful. It has the tools you need to manage your property’s online presence, all in one place. Our mission is help you book more guests for less money. What we are not: We’re not an online travel agency. OTAs serve brands. We serve people, connecting travelers with independent hotels.” www.odysys.com
Perfect Company: Revolutionizing cooking with a connected scale and interactive recipe solution. “How do master pastry chefs bake delicious treats time after time? They start with a great recipe and follow each step, making sure measurements and timing are accurate.The Perfect Bake system turns YOU into a master pastry chef. It weighs each ingredient for accuracy and uses built-in timers to alert you when you’re done mixing, baking, or cooling. Need to rescale the recipe? Perfect Bake does the math for you—whether you’re changing the size of your cake pan, the quantity of cookies you want to bake, or the amount of chocolate chips you have on hand.” www.perfectco.co
Scratch-it: Providing a Software as a Service (SaaS) marketing solution that manages a new type of content called “reveal,” which consistently improves engagement by 10x. “A marketing strategy that requires the recipient of a marketing message to actively participate in uncovering a hidden message. Reveal marketing utilizes innate aspects of human psychology to motivate your audience to act.” www.scratch-it.com
“This group of finalists represents a breadth of industries, ranging from software to the Internet of Things to drones,” said Brian Vierra, Venture Catalyst for EDCO. “I’m really impressed with how far some of these companies have come in a very short period of time.”
The 12th Annual Bend Venture Conference takes place on Thursday, October 15 and Friday, October 16, 2015, with events happening throughout both days. For more information or to buy a ticket, visit 2015 Bend Venture Conference.
About the Bend Venture Conference
The Bend Venture Conference (BVC) is divided into two categories that consist of Early Stage and Growth Stage companies vying for investment and cash prizes. The Early Stage finalists compete for a $15,000 cash prize courtesy of BendBroadband Business, while the Growth Stage finalists could collect what is currently $500,000 in investment funds, with more still coming in from angel investors. Learn more about BVC at www.bendvc.edcoinfo.com.
About Economic Development for Central Oregon
Founded in 1981, Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO) is a non-profit corporation, supported by private and public members and stakeholders, whose mission is to create middle-class jobs in Central Oregon by recruiting new employers to move to the region, helping entrepreneurs start new, scalable businesses, and working with businesses that are already here to grow their operations. This is the sixth year EDCO has managed the Bend Venture Conference. Learn more about EDCO at www.edcoinfo.com.
