The Summerfest Tech Pitch Competition, hosted and sponsored by Molson Coors, gave seven start-ups, including five from Wisconsin, an opportunity to pitch their ideas to a panel of local community and business leaders in a ‘shark-tank’ style format at the Potawatomi hotel and casino.
The first-place winner, North Carolina-based Lavni took home $20,000. Lavni is a digital platform that aims to combat mental health care stigma by connecting individuals in underserved communities with mental health professionals. It offers a unique avatar feature that helps clients feel comfortable and safe when attending therapy.
Second place went to Red Fox AI, a Madison company that has created a conversational AI that helps users with at-home diagnostic tests. Afrocharts, which has developed an app and website that allows users to listen to African music, took third place and won the $5,000 hometown winner award, a new award showcasing Milwaukee as an emerging hub for tech and innovation.
Here ‘s a look at the Wisconsin start-ups that participated.
Afro Charts
Afro Charts is a music website and app that allows users to listen to their favorite African songs from their favorite artists for free. Users can download and enjoy top African songs from charts generated daily and weekly. The start-up was pitched by Afrocharts founder Leonard Novati.
When he came to the USA, Novati said, he felt homesick and missed African music. There are many streaming music platforms nowadays, but none prominently feature African music.
“Music streaming is a 30 billion market. And yet with 300 million Africans living abroad like me, and over 600 million in Africa expected to use smartphones by 2025, it is still difficult to find African music in streaming platforms.”
Red Fox AI
Red Fox AI is a conversational AI that helps guide patients through their at-home diagnostic tests.
According to co-founder and CEO Nick Myers, only about one third of the 20 million home health tests that are done daily in the United States are performed correctly.
“It’s inexcusable, it makes me very, very angry. And we need to bring that number down to zero,” said Myers.
This issue has affected him personally. He had Leukemia as a child, and his parents had to navigate the complex home health systems while he underwent chemotherapy. He hopes that this problem will be fixed with Red Fox AI and that more people have accurate test results and can be better informed about their health care.
Cross Kudi
Milwaukee-based tech start-up Cross Kudi has developed a digital platform that uses blockchain technology to create a safe, easy way to transfer money internationally.
Founder Bobola Odebiyi created Cross Kudi as a better way to deliver better ease and accessibility to immigrants who constantly send money to their home countries.
Wellacy Health
Wellacy Health, a Milwaukee digital health company, seeks to improve care delivery, reduce health disparities and provide better health outcomes for patients with chronic diseases. By educating the users about their healthcare Wellacy Health is able to provide the best care.
The digital platform seeks to match patients with a doctor they feel comfortable with. The start-up works by signing a contract with the doctor, handling patient eligibility and communication registration it will also send out remote patient monitoring tools to patients who need them.
The start-up will also do all the back-end administrative work for doctors who sign up, according to Marlon V.R. founder and CEO of Wellacy Health.
App Ease
AppEase, digitally transfers electronic health data for life and health insurance. According to the Green Bay company’s website, it replaces out-of-date retrieval methods and rapidly receives records.
It takes an average of 36 days to retrieve medical records, according to App Ease CEO Nicole Tilot. App Ease expedites the process and does it digitally. According to Tilot, the turnaround would change from 36 days to only two days.
App Ease will improve record retention compliance and give customers an overall better experience when dealing with their insurance and health records.
“It is our mission to revolutionize insurance through digital health access and underwriting adjacent solutions.”
