The winners of the Spark Venture Competition were Inspirame, a venture to help students navigate college, and AgriNerds, a startup that uses weather satellites to detect diseased ducks that kill poultry. These startups were selected from 50 applicants, said Cameron Law, executive director of Sacramento State’s Carlson Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Sacramento may not be Silicon Valley, but Law said the diverse missions of the winners are examples of the variety of Sacramento’s startup community.
“There are a lot of different startups in the Sacramento region” he said.
The eight finalists competing in the Nov. 15 competition included a company that sells a hydration mix aimed at preventing muscle cramps and soreness in endurance athletics, a startup making Latin-oriented food for backpacking trips and a company that buys and sells fashion online for music festivals and dance events.
WINNING MEANS SOMETHING
Her online startup aims to help students navigate the roadmap for a college education.
Medrano said it’s often difficult to find degree requirements online and seeing a college counselor on campus for enrolled college students can sometimes take weeks.
“Inspirame is Spanish for 'Inspire me' as we believe with a little inspiration, students can go a long way,” she said.
Medrano is of Mexican origin and one of her goals she said is to address inequities in the higher education system that have deprived Hispanics and other minorities the opportunity for higher education.
Medrano brings a tech background to the startup having worked at Google, Cisco and Visa. Her husband Mauricio Gonzalez brings the educational component to the venture.
He is an academic counselor at Sacramento City College and serves as the startup’s co-founder and chief technology officer.
Inspirame started in 2019. Medrano said so far the startup has raised more than $500,000 from backers along with $450,00 that has been contributed in personal money.
The Elverta resident is seeking to raise another $500,000 to accomplish a key task.
The money would be used to load the academic data of the 116 community colleges, 23 state colleges and 10 state universities in California into its computer system.
Currently, Inspirame has the information of eight educational institutions in its system with another 32 coming in the next few weeks, Medrano said.
Medrano hopes to succeed financially by partnering with colleges and offering custom content.
The startup charges the educational institutions $50,000 to create relevant material in cooperation with Inspirame.
For example, Medrano said officials at Woodland Community College want to improve the transfer rate to UC Davis. She said the startup has created custom content showing what courses are necessary for the transfer.
But Woodland Community College in Yolo County, is the only educational institution that had paid the $50,000 fee so far.The revenue from schools is a key part of Inspirame’s business model for success.
UC DAVIS BACKING
AgriNerds, the other winner of the Sacramento State competition, has the backing of UC Davis and was started in 2018.
CEO and Co-founder Maurcie Pitesky is a professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. His partner in the venture is Jeffrey Buler, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware.
Pitesky aims to reduce cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza by tracking ducks, who are carriers and are close to poultry operations.
The tracking is done through 141 U.S. Weather Service satellites.
“Waterfowl are the primary reservoir of a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak that is causing billions of dollars of damage,” Pitesky said.
The damage is millions of dead chickens, a big hit he said for commercial poultry operations in the U.S.
“One farm in Iowa recently lost a million hens,” he said.
The weather satellites provide risk assessment for which farmers could face the biggest threat, the professor said.
Pitesky said this allows farms in danger to use measures like lasers and water cannons that are aimed at the ducks to protect their chickens.
He said 1,000 of the 44,000 chicken farms in the U.S currently subscribe to the threat assessment service.
The fee is $50 per month per farm, but Pitesky said he is working with federal and state officials to offer subsidies to make the service free.
“I want to make the service accessible to everyone,” he said. “We are talking about the security of our food supply.”
The small subscription fee and grants have been the lifeblood of the startup initially.
Pitesky hopes winning the Sacramento State competition will draw more attention to the startup from potential financial backers.
“It’s an opportunity to draw attention to our startup and at least talk to a few investors,” he said.
SUCCESS ISN'T EASY
While both startups celebrated last week’s win, and hope to be survivors, the reality is most startups fail, said Douglas Younger III, one of the of the three judges of the Sacramento State competition.
Younger said the current economy is also a deterrent.
“Interest rates are going up, inflation is increasing. It all increases the cost to operate,” he said.
Younger said the failure of startup backers Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank is only aggravating the situation.
“I see an extinction event of innovation and startups,” said Younger, a former corporate executive who hosts a podcast on startups called “Twist of Faith: A Small Business Podcast.”
“It’s harder than ever to succeed,” he said.
But it’s not impossible. Younger said some startups do beat the odds and hopes AgriNerds and Ispirame will be two organizations that succeed.
Younger noted that occasionally a startup beats the odds and commended AgriNerds for attempting to save poultry and Inspirame for giving more students the chance for educational opportunities.
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