IDEA’s Unforgettable 2019 Gap Fund Recipients
As the month of November wrapped up, IDEA had its final round of Gap Fund for 2019. IDEA granted five amazing ventures Gap Funding which has never happened before during IDEA’s ten-year tenure.
Flexxbotics, Free Up Farm, Botcopy, The Oyster Common, and Rahoo Baby are the five ventures that received Gap Funding. Continue reading to learn more about these amazing ventures:
Flexxbotics works by optimizing processes on Univeral Robotics robots by providing a Flexx Reference, a hardware & software solution, that helps the user reprogram real-world coordinates within minutes. The venture plans on using its Gap Funding for an initial production run of their current product, prototyping efforts, and developing marketing collateral for their partnerships.
Free Up Farm is a farm in Dominica that serves as a demonstration site for sustainable, profitable, organic permaculture farming. Free Up Farm plans on using its Gap Funding to fund a farm to table cafe while they wait for their Moringa crops to be harvested. Moringa leaves contain very high concentrations of calcium, protein, potassium, iron, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin E, anti-aging and anti-cancer agents. Free Up Farm’s Gap Funding will help them increase foot traffic and generate short term revenue for the farm.
Botcopy is a UI (User-Interface) plug-in that allows companies to easily implement and customize an AI-powered chat agent to their websites by simply adding a top-layer to existing code. Botcopy is using its Gap Funding to complete their product’s integration with Rasa, an open-sourced NLP framework, that will allow it to move forward with large contract negotiations.
The Oyster Common connects restaurants with oyster farms to create a fresh farm to table experience. Their mission is to allow shellfish growers to concentrate on raising great products by providing integrated software services to make it easier for the growers to oversee their aquaculture business. Oyster Common plans on using its Gap Funding to launch a brand awareness campaign that will include sponsored content, ads, mailers featuring a case study based on their Direct to Chef program, and automated cold calls with ringless voicemails.
Rahoo Baby helps aid parents and babies in making the most of their first-year development. Rahoo Baby’s flagship product seeks to improve “tummy time” experience for infants and new parents. They plan on using their Gap Funding to launch a two-pronged marketing campaign, focused around “Mommy Bloggers” and social media, to support growth following a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Congratulations again to these five ventures!
IDEA Gap Funding is a non-equity educational grant available to ventures in the GO stage of IDEA’s process. Applicants may apply on a bi-monthly basis where their business plans are reviewed by IDEA’s student Investment Committee upon being selected to pitch plans to IDEA’s Advisory Board. Applicants may receive up to $10,000 in funding.
