Local entrepreneaurs recieve investment boost
Several local tech entrepreneurs will now have the funds to continue building their own companies in the mid-Missouri area.
ABC17 News reported in June about a newly created Missouri Innovation Accelerator Fund. The city of Columbia, the University of Missouri and the Missouri Innovation Center, or MIC, were among some of the investors that put money into the fund.
The entrepreneurs received the money at an event held last week at the Missouri Innovation Center. There were four companies that received an initial investment.
Missouri Innovation Center’s Bill Turpin said the entrepreneurs received the money as more of an investment than a loan. Steve Wyatt, the vice chancellor of economic development at the University of Missouri explained the investment philosophy to ABC17 News in June: “If there’s an event where we can cash out or a lot of times it can be bought out, there will be a return to the fund. The fund will distribute the profits depending on how much the investment was, so there will be a payback to the investors.”
Four companies received investments October 12. Turpin said they are all homegrown companies.
“All four are developing products with really large commercial operations,” Turpin said.
The four companies were:
NVision Ag, Peter Scharf: NVision Ag has created a precision agriculture product that helps farmers make data-driven decisions about fertilizer application. Recordly, Sintia Radu: Recordly won the MU app creation contest this year with an iOS application that provides annotated transcripts of interviews for journalists. The app uses IBM’s Watson service to convert speech to text. eSports LLC, Conor Hall: eSports LLC created EloScout, a collegiate esports recruiting service that helps universities build competitive varsity gaming programs (Columbia College was its first client). eSports LLC also created a subsidiary, eSportsRec, an online intramural gaming platform where students can compete against their classmates and be recognized by the school as the “best gamer on campus.” AdSwapper, Amos Angelovici: AdSwapper is a personalized ad firewall that runs transparently in the background and enables users to control their ad-viewing experience, and earn money doing so.
Sintia Radu said Recordly began as a student project at the University of Missouri last year and it was an honor to receive the investment plus earn the trust of their investors.
“This funding from MIC would help us finalize our product, as well as launch on the market and make it available to our users as soon as possible,” Radu said. “It would also cover market research and additional business-related expenses.”
Amos Angelovici had more than 17 years of managerial experience for large companies and start-ups. He said he was passionate about start-ups and investment opportunities. He said AdSwapper will launch its product early next year.
“We are happy that the mid-Mo Accelerator has decided to invest in AdSwapper,” he said. “The mid-Mo Accelerator is an important partner in developing successful companies and their investment is a validation of the huge business potential in the mobile advertising market and the solution AdSwapper provides mobile customers.”
Both Wyatt and Turpin have said in the past that they believe local investment funding might encourage more businesses and companies to stay in mid-Missouri and help boost the economy here.
