Four home-grown North Dakota startups and two startups that relocated their businesses to North Dakota will present their businesses during gener8tor Showcase on June 8
Six startups have been selected to participate in the inaugural gener8tor North Dakota accelerator. Each startup receives access to gener8tor’s regional and national network of mentors, venture capital funds, angel investors, and corporate partners. The companies participate in a concierge-style, 12-week accelerator program designed to help them launch products and achieve revenue growth. Participants also receive a $100,000 investment.
Of the six startups selected, four – Farmented Foods, generAI, Pavewise & Aethero – are homegrown North Dakota companies. Two – Detect Auto and Cios – have relocated to North Dakota and moved their headquarters to the state.
“It has been my honor to work side-by-side with the six startups and their teams over the past few months,” said Lindsay Breuler, managing director of gener8tor North Dakota. “Watching the daily growth, helping with their struggles, and being surrounded by their passion brings me immense pride and continued enthusiasm for the entrepreneurial journey.”
Last summer, gener8tor announced the launch of a North Dakota-based seed fund, called gener8tor 1889 along with three accelerators to be run annually in Fargo and Grand Forks to provide services to early-stage companies across the state of North Dakota.
“Each company in this first accelerator cohort in the state has shown remarkable growth over the last 12 weeks. We are thrilled to introduce them to the broader North Dakota entrepreneurial community,” said Ben Stanley, principal of gener8tor 1889. “Our goal is to be a vehicle through which the North Dakota community can more effectively invest in its best and brightest. We couldn’t be happier to work with four home-grown entrepreneurs and help attract two more to relocate to the state to take advantage of the immense resources and support here.”
The six startups will present their startups at a Showcase event in June. Showcase is a celebration of gener8tor’s latest class of innovative startups and entrepreneurship. The six companies will pitch to a captive audience of investors, entrepreneurs, and community members. Supporters of entrepreneurs, startups, and the entrepreneurial ecosystem are invited to attend the gener8tor North Dakota showcase on June 8, 2023, at the Sanctuary Events Center in Fargo from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
gener8tor North Dakota Spring 2023
Farmented Foods I Vanessa Williamson, CEO/Co-Founder | vwilliamson@farmented.com | farmented.com | Fargo, ND
Fargo-based Farmented Foods uses imperfect produce from local farmers to create sustainable, gut-healthy fermented food products sold direct to consumer and via retail. Farmented Foods saves and repurposes produce that might otherwise be discarded, giving it new life through fermentation. In 2022, Farmented sold 3,645 jars and is currently available in 65 stores via retail relationships with Natural Grocers, Whole Foods, Town & Country and more.
generAI I Jimmy Slagle, CEO/Co-Founder | jimmy@generai.io | generai.io | Fargo, ND
Fargo-based generAI has two tools that help direct-to-consumer brands with video advertising. The first is generGrade, an AI-based tool that grades the effectiveness of video advertising content. Brands create an account, upload their video and receive a score indicating the likelihood of increased sales. The data generated by generGrade is used to build generX, a platform that generates video ads with the highest probability of success. generAI analyzed more than 40,000 video ads to develop the effectiveness score used by both tools. The waitlist for both these tools has surpassed 900 potential users.
Pavewise I Bryce Wouri, CEO/Co-Founder | Bryce.wouri@pavewise.pro | pavewise.pro | Bismarck, ND
Bismarck-based Pavewise’s web-based software maximizes productivity and improves project quality resulting in increased incentives and profits for paving contractors. Variables such as weather, project specifications, and equipment operations impact every paving project. By efficiently managing project variables and integrating paving solutions, Pavewise develops a strategy for success for every paving project.
Aethero I Matt Dunlevy, CEO/Co-Founder | aethero.ai | Grand Forks, ND
Grand Forks-based Aethero provides holistic building-exterior health analysis for facility managers in large commercial and public institutions. Through the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence, urgent problem areas on the building facade are identified and prioritized to create a predictive repair strategy. A lack of knowledge of building health can create backlogs of deferred maintenance and repairs costing millions to large commercial buildings and public institutions which are growing by 16 percent and 24 percent respectively on an annual basis.
Cios I Terry Wang, CEO/Co-Founder | terry@getcios.com | getcios.com | Fargo, ND
Fargo-based Cios (pronounced “keys”) partners with property management companies to provide tenants who need to move early with an alternative to paying lease termination fees. Cios does this by facilitating a sublease with a replacement tenant, taking care of screening, check-in/check-out, payment, and cleaning. Property managers minimize vacancy and re-leasing costs, while tenants save thousands of dollars in penalties. To date, Cios is available in more than 750 units across three property management groups in North Dakota.
Detect Auto I Jonathan Cabak, CEO/Co-Founder | jon@detectauto.com | detectauto.com | Fargo, ND
Detect Auto’s hardware-enabled SaaS solution for automotive repair shops increases repair efficiency by an average of 25 percent and automates traditionally manual processes such as quoting, repair order auditing, and technician performance evaluations. Leveraging computer vision and data analytics, Detect Auto provides greater visibility into inefficiencies related to daily operations as well as the actual cost of repairs. Detect Auto automatically generates recommendations for automotive shop owners and dealers to improve efficiency and seamlessly integrates with existing software solutions. Detect Auto currently powers 16 shops and has signed a pilot agreement with a dealership group to begin providing services throughout its dealer network in June.