Original post found on Pensacola New Journal.
The technology that Pensacola company Robotics Unlimited uses to develop all-terrain drones is complicated, but its business plan when it launched in 2014 was simple. First, the company would seek to license its technology to a toy manufacturer, then it would use that revenue to develop a different version for military applications.
“Making toys, you need a lot of capital to develop technology to bring to market and to reach distribution channels like Target and Walmart,” co-founder Sebastien Cotton, Ph.D., said Friday afternoon to those gathered in the REX Theatre in downtown Pensacola.
Last week the company closed a licensing deal with WowWee, a robotic toy maker.
Cotton was one of six presenters during the Greater Pensacola Demo Day, hosted by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) and Innovation Coast. It wasn’t an official investor pitch event or a competition, but an opportunity for participating technology start-ups to demonstrate their products and services, said CIE Director Kelly Reeser.
“It raises awareness of technology that is being created and of innovation that is going on in Pensacola,” she said.
The six start-ups are among the 10 that are clients of the CIE, receiving below-market value rental rates as well as referrals and networking with experts in intellectual property law, accounting, marketing and other business specialties. The three-year program is designed to get businesses to the point where they can afford rent for a place of their own.
“Events like this encourage other entrepreneurs to start companies,” said Michael Lepinay, CEO of Clearstream, a business to business text message marketing company.
The app is offered on a freemium model and about 10 percent of the 1,800 companies who use the product pay between a few hundred dollars and up to $30,000 a year. Recipients of the marketing texts opt in as customers or employees of the companies who use the product.
Lloyd Reshard of Cognitive Big Data explained how his company’s software takes images or sounds of pets, people or objects and creates digital memories in the form of computer code.
“It recognizes you the same way I recognize you when I look at you,” Reshard said, adding that the start-up is targeting the cognitive computing market, which is projected to be $12.5 trillion by 2019.
Accountingfly uses what it calls “inbound recruiting” to attract accountants and accounting students through training classes on its website. It places those individuals with thousands of accounting firms and accounting masters programs at universities across the country.
“Think of Accountingfly as a digital career center that maps together all of the players across the eco-system,” said CEO Jeff Phillips.
Pay Cell Systems CEO Jibril Sulaiman described how his company’s services allows independent prepaid cell phone dealers to earn residual income by collecting payments online, through phone systems and online apps. Often, these mom and pop dealers will lose that revenue if their store is closed at the time the customer wants to come in and pay.
“We are providing these stores with their own online, ecommerce presence,” he said.
Jason Crawford, the CEO for Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems, or IRIS, described how the company’s software screens patients for diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to blindness.
“All the research has shown that if you suffer from chronic diabetes, the blood sugar levels in veins and vessels will impact your retina,” he said. “If we can detect early, we can save sight.”
