Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

FunLPro, a company profiled last week on teknovation.biz, won the “Pitch Competition” and the $5,000 top prize, while ARiES Energy won the “Traction Award” presented at yesterday’s “Start-up Day Knoxville.”

This was the first year for a cash prize associated with the pitch event, and it was the inaugural year for the award given to a start-up that has made the most progress during the past three years since the “Start-up Day” event was launched.

The pitch prize was sponsored by the Business Owners Business Association, itself a local start-up, while the UT Federal Credit Union sponsored the “Traction Award.”

FunLPro produces a patented closure system for fluid containers that provides a lengthy, extendible, and directional to pouring spout within the closure system itself.

ARiES Energy, previously profiled on teknovation.biz, competed with two other local start-ups – NewsBreak Media Networks and Little Fishkopp. Here are links (NewsBreak and Little Fishkopp) to previous teknovation.biz posts on them.

ARiES Energy announced in September a merger with PHG Energy of Nashville and Thompson Machinery.

Finalists in the pitch competition were:

• Additerra, founded by Will Sames, is an E-Commerce Platform developed for direct business-to-business sales and designed to permanently change the way customized parts and products are purchased.
• ANYROAM LLC, founded by Philippe Hanset, is a company providing a Wi-Fi roaming service for the research and education community called eduroam.
• RadiantWear LLC, founded by Marva Solt, creates patent-pending clothing for women going through radiation treatment for breast cancer.
• RDI LLC, a company developing a patented technology platform capable of measuring motion, vibration, and displacement not visible to the human eye, was presented by Bob Wilson.
• SimPath, founded by Rob Moseley, is a proprietary assembly technology that reduces the time researchers spend on monotonous tasks, increasing the time needed to spend on true science.
• SpareTime Entertainment, founded by Fadi Saleh and most recently a participant in the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center’s “MediaWorks” accelerator, makes millions laugh by curating and remixing familiar video content into hilarious entertainment.

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