Increment Analytics Wins $50k Investment at Comeback Capital Bowl
A few months out of INVANTI, the South Bend-based startup placed third in a competitive field vying for $225k of capital.
On May 17th, Comeback Capital hosted the Comeback Capital Bowl, a pitch competition held in Youngstown, Ohio where five finalists competed to win $225K in investment capital.
Comeback Capital is a venture capital firm founded after the success of last year’s Comeback Cities Tour, a three-day bus trip through the Midwest organized to introduce members of congress and venture capitalists to local leaders and start-ups in an under-estimated region. As Roy Bahat, founder of Bloomberg Beta, stated, “We met founders building companies that Silicon Valley folks would never even think to start.”
Today the firm’s focus is to “bridge the divide between Silicon Valley investors and Midwestern startups” so that entrepreneurs are not forced to leave their communities to build impactful companies.
The pitch competition was part of the Connecting the Coasts to the Heartland conference, a day of panels, presentations, competitions, and mentoring designed to connect Silicon Valley expertise and Midwest entrepreneurial energy.
Jessica Lee, who completed the INVANTI Cohort 2 program in March, gave a six-minute pitch on her emerging venture, Increment Analytics, and placed third, earning a $50k SAFE note from Comeback Capital.
Increment addresses the accelerating trend of manufacturers automating their production processes by providing a SaaS solution to help small-to-mid-sized manufacturers create a clear, data-driven picture of their internal skills gap.
Automation is a critical concern for many who fear that it will result in the displacement of workers. After six months of research, however, Jessica found that the pressing question on manufacturers’ minds is how to upskill employed workers to adapt to these new technologies. Increment offers a solution to this question by aggregating data about each employee’s skills and then tying it to other metrics, such as production data, giving HR managers and training directors a visual, customizable dashboard that shows them where the specific gaps are and what they are costing the company. Increment will then be able to make recommendations on training programs that may help fill the gaps and measure their effectiveness, creating a full lifecycle of upskilling metrics.
Jessica is beginning her pilot program here in South Bend, Indiana and has signed on her first customer.
To get in touch as a manufacturer, investor, or partner, check out her website, and to learn more about Jessica’s story listen to her interview on the Founders’ Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or Spotify:
INVANTI is a startup generator in the Midwest.
We recruit entrepreneurial talent and provide them deep insight into the most important problems facing Americans today. We then generate new solutions and business models and ultimately build companies that matter: invanti.co
