2023 InnoVets Pitch Competition
Join InnoVets and Massachusetts Fallen Heroes in celebrating our Veteran and Gold Star Family businesses in New England at our InnoVets Pitch Competition. Each candidate will have 15 minutes to address the public and present their compelling pitch for how we can help them continue to grow and thrive, followed by a 5 minute Q&A session with our judges. The first and second place winners will leave with their share of $20,000 in seed money. Attendees will have the chance vote for their favorite, with an additional prize of $5,000 for the audience’s favorite business.
2019 Pitch Competition Winners
UPROOT
UPROOT is a military-focused home equity solution and marketplace. We remove the current inefficiencies, risks and hassle that exists in the real estate market which limits the appetite and opportunity to profit from homeownership when people are frequently “uprooted” because of their service. We expand homeownership opportunities and access to financial security by creating a mortgage market for short-term homeowners.
When a servicemember gets orders to PCS from their current duty station, they will call UPROOT. We take the place of a traditional real estate agent and find an incoming military buyer, and then mediate a loan assumption between the two parties. The incoming member moves in with an UPROOT cash offer that is guaranteed when he moves out at the end of their tour. Our outgoing member moves out and can choose between the cash offer they were guaranteed or the opportunity to maintain a fractional equity stake in the home and let it appreciate without having to do anything else.
OLGS
A person can bleed to death in 5-8 minutes. A 10-year study of battlefield deaths from 2001-2011 concluded that 879 preventable deaths occurred where the warfighter died of hemorrhage. On the homefront, data from the National Center of Injury Prevention and Control show that over 2 million Americans have died from trauma since 2001. They estimate that 20% of trauma deaths are preventable, 30,000 annually.
Aggressive tourniquet use has been shown to significantly reduce deaths. But successful application of traditional, hand-wound tourniquets requires training and practice. Timing, speed, and force are central issues. Automation of the tourniquet offers a path to a rapid, more effective lifesaving response. OLGS is developing an automated tourniquet for warfighters and first responders. It is an intuitive device that works with the push of a button and does not require extensive training to use.
DropZone for Veterans
Our business is a digital platform that provides vetted, veteran employees who are mentally stable and are guaranteed to stay with the company for over a year. We do this by providing the veterans with holistic, curated, high-impact veteran resources that align with their passions, needs, and interests so they can thrive in their work and personal lives. We are a double-sided platform consisting of three databases—a resource database, a veteran database, and a job database.
