RAMP, Regional Accelerator, Welcomes New Business Cohort

Innovation is brewing at RAMP, Roanoke’s regional business acceleration and mentoring program, which announced its latest cohort of startups. Eight companies were chosen for their ability to expand and create jobs within the impactful STEM-H field. The program begins May 15 in the RAMP building in downtown Roanoke.

The incoming cohort represents a diverse range of businesses and technologies including apps, pharmaceuticals, 3D-modeling, biosciences, and health care technologies:

• Beam Diagnostics, Inc. will focus on alcohol misuse and severity. BEAM is working to create BEACON, an app that will report a patient’s reinforcer pathology score (RPscore) as a quantitative measure of alcohol misuse severity to a clinician in under 4 minutes saving time and promoting preventative screening for a burdensome disease.
• BrockWorks, Inc. is a virtual construction company working with builders across the country, creating detailed 3D models, and essentially building the house BEFORE they do. The company points out issues, mistakes, etc. as well as offering visualization services and providing cost estimates to the builder.
• Chorda Pharma is a young, start-up pharmaceutical company, based in Roanoke. Chorda Pharma was founded by Rick Carliss, Ph.D., with a 25 year background in the research and development of patented pharmaceuticals. Carliss is the Operating Manager of Chorda Pharma, working with experts in the industry to develop the company and launch its flagship product, Paloxin.
• Flewid Capital, Inc. believes that technological advancements can be utilized to create a more efficient and cost-effective method for financial exchange for the average person. They endeavor to provide people with a way to make their money accessible anywhere they go through a web-based financial transaction service, and to form the largest international community of individuals and businesses dedicated to a revolutionary method for commerce without borders that prioritizes efficiency, customer needs and connectivity across the globe.
• healthEscores, Ltd. will bring patient satisfaction and care quality data to the forefront of our partner’s clinical operations, helping small clinical practices, free and charitable clinics, Patient Centered Medical Homes (PCMH), rural health clinics (RHC), community health clinics (CHC), community hospitals and dental clinics stay relevant and innovate in our current health system-dominated marketplace.
• Leon BioVentures is working on a bio-pesticide that will have a world market. Josh James (COO), a Bioengineering graduate from Virginia Tech is working to scale up the product that has shown to be effective in a bounty of successful greenhouse and field trials.
• Outlit Inc. is a hyperlocal awareness and social networking service designed to make day-to-day community interactions easier.
• Skyphos Technologies is dedicated to improving the translation of point-of-care diagnostics – moving these diagnostics out of the lab and into the hands of care specialist. They accomplish this by reducing both the costs and time to develop the next generation of Lab-On-a-Chip and microfluidic platforms. Specifically their value-add is in a proprietary and patent pending process for 3D printed microfluidic chips – they have the technology to eliminate 90% of the process timeline. Researchers can do it in their lab or use the Skyphos Technologies service to send them chips from designs.

Participating businesses will receive advice and mentorship from experienced executives, gain access to funding, and receive training and education targeted to scaling technology-based startups. If you have a startup for the next cohort, contact RAMP.