A Chicago company that creates a digital record of the
injuries suffered by school-age athletes took first prize Nov. 13 in the
Elevator Pitch Olympics, which is part of the Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium.
Team Interval earned the top scores among 18 contenders —
all relatively new companies — who each had 90 seconds to explain what their
business is all about.
Former pro football player Tyrre Burks, chief executive
officer of Team Interval, said children between the ages of 8 and 18 who play
team sports such as soccer, football and basketball suffer more than 2 million
injuries a year, but only about 18 percent of them are documented.
Founded in 2012, Team Interval’s products are being used in
33 schools so far, Burks said. The company has seven employees and has raised
$380,000, and is working toward a $1.5 million funding round.
Second place went to Concinnity, a Madison company with a
low-cost medical software program for physicians that integrates with other
medical records to determine the quality of care.
Ben West, Concinnity’s founder, is a former employee of Epic
Systems Corp., the Verona company that has become the market leader in the
electronic health records business.
FloraSeq won the People’s Choice award, from voting by the
audience of more than 200 people. The Waukesha company wants to create a stool
bank that would offer quick access to qualified stool transplants to treat
Clostridium difficile, CEO Steven Visuri said. The gastrointestinal disorder,
known as C. diff, can stick around for months and is often contracted in
hospitals and nursing homes.
Organizers said the competition was as competitive as any in
its nine-year history.
“We were extremely impressed by this year’s crop of
presenters, who were selected from a field of potential presenters by our
conference steering committee,” said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin
Technology Council.
Other presenters were Alpha Universe LLC, Field59 Inc., Hunt
Butler, Glucan Biorenewables, Insulete, Inventalator, Iowa Adaptive Technologies,
Modern Movement, Momentio Inc., pHinding Solutions, Refringent Technology LLC,
ScanTribution, Tali Payments LLC, TerraCaptus LLC and Vistrata.
Judges were Scott Button, Venture Investors; Larry Hayward, Cornerstone
Angels / Independence Equity Management; Tim Keane, Golden Angels Investors;
Ann Marie Murphy, Tribal Ventures; Bob Okabe, Angel Resource Institute / RPX
Group; John Philosophos, Great Oaks Venture Capital; Toni Sikes, CODAworx; and
Valerie Wulf, Phenomenelle Angels.
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