EntreFEST 2022 started off strong on Wednesday night with Iowa Startup Accelerator (ISA) Launch Day. Five businesses going through this spring’s and last fall’s ISA Foundation Accelerator pitched their companies live at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City.
The Iowa Startup Accelerator is a 6-month program that matches Iowa-based startups with seed funding, mentors, and product development expertise to accelerate their businesses.
Here are the five businesses that gave presentations on Wednesday night.
Line Call
Line Call enhances sports experiences by turning amateur players’ phones into an impartial AI referee. The Tennis Line Call app indicates when a tennis ball lands in our out-of-bounds offering a fair game to those who use it.
The company has completed developing its app for iOS and has plans to raise funding later this year and begin developing the app for Android.
Sprayer Mods
Sprayer Mods upgrades farmers’ existing agricultural sprayer equipment with a camera that uses artificial intelligence in real-time to identify weeds while applying herbicides so that chemicals are sprayed only where weeds are found, reducing herbicide use and costs by as much as 80 percent.
The company has developed a prototype and completed initial field testing and has plans to launch a marketing campaign and get 20 paying customers by Q1 2023.
Haggle
Haggle is a bartering marketplace dedicated to helping farmers access and lease equipment and services when not in use on their own farms. The Haggle platform enables peer-to-peer bartering and financial transactions between farmers to buy, borrow and hire goods and services.
Groov
Groov is a software as a service platform for residential land developers that organizes all of their land development data in one place, eliminating many manual processes and improving the consistency and accuracy of their information.
Groov currently has four pilot customers on the platform and was awarded a $100,000 IEDA Demonstration Fund in May 2022.
The Hummingbirds
The Hummingbirds helps companies generate awareness and sales through local social sharing. Hummingbirds are community members who share experiences on social media with their own friends and followers, introducing people to new brands in their community.
The company has over 250 brand partnerships in Des Moines and recently expanded to Omaha and Milwaukee.