Seven start-ups, eight weeks | The Works Accelerator starts now
The participants and mentors gathered for a kickoff event at the Maple Room on Wednesday night.
The Works has been running for more than a decade. It is the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center (KEC) flagship accelerator program focusing on early-stage tech-enabled start-ups with the potential to grow at scale. And this year’s cohort is something special.
The seven start-ups selected for the program bring a rich history, extensive experience, and energy to the eight-week accelerator.
For example, four of the seven founders have a history of successful exits with previous ventures, and all seven are already generating revenue, whether through pilots, beta tests, or actual customers.
Meet the Companies
Unified Track
Dustin Bainbridge founded the company, which recently participated in the 5th Annual PYA Ballard Innovation Award. For THE WORKS, Bainbridge is paired with mentors Michael Grider and Courtney Delaura as his key mentors.
Unified Track is a predictive analytics platform that helps high school counselors keep students on track for graduation and beyond by integrating directly with a district’s Student Information System (SIS) to visualize real-time data on academic progress, credit completion, GPA, attendance, and behavioral trends.
Bainbridge previously had a successful exit from his first start-up, Horizon Education.
Read the teknovation.biz article about Unified Track.
VisualizAI
Mac Bartine -co-founded the company with Jian Huang, and has been paired with Bruce Ramshaw and Britton Garrett as his key mentors.
VisualizAI is a AI powered big data visualization platform that maximizes healthcare organizations’ claims revenue without risk or hassle. The company was the second investment for the University of Tennessee Research Foundation’s Accelerate Fund.
Previously, Bartine Co-founded Smartria. In eight years, his team attracted over 2,700 customers comprising more than $600Billion in assets under management. Today, the company is run by Patrick Hunt.
Read the teknovation.biz article about VisualizAI.
TeachCraft
Joel Smith founded the company, which was the winner of the 2025 What’s the Big Idea pitch competition at the KEC. His mentors are Victoria Frankel and Ann Buckingham.
TeachCraft offers the ability for teachers to make high quality, project based lesson plans, in minutes, using AI powered tools. They serve anyone who needs to produce project-based instruction, whether it be K-12, Higher Ed, or Corporate Training.
Currently, Smith has a pilot running in Maryville City Schools.
Read the teknovation.biz article about TeachCraft.
PowerTechs Inc
Ksenia Solomatina, the founder of PowerTechs is paired with mentors Harry Boston and Jenna Johns. She is bringing to market a DoD-approved start-up that is centered around building a reskilling platform for strategic industries. Targeted industries include energy, construction, and manufacturing jobs.
Unfortunately, Solomatina was unable to make it to the WORKS kickoff event due to splitting time between Knoxville and Austin, Texas (where she is serving a couple of customers).
PowerTechs technology integrates AI, Extended Reality, and CognitiveTech, enabling a detailed understanding of individuals’ transferable skills and facilitating 10x faster and smoother workforce transitions.
Read the teknovation.biz article about PowerTechs.
DataRook, Inc.
The founder of DataRook, Gustavo Alvarez-Suchini, is paired with mentors Noa Barak and Rob Cochran.
DataRook provides innovative STEM education through our flagship program, footyLab. This unique after-school program combines youth soccer with hands-on data science education through a three-part methodology: capturing metrics, analyzing performance data, and creating interactive dashboards and visualizations.
Alvarez-Suchini is already running his footyLab experience throughout the summer with school, city, and nonprofit summer camps, helping connect more students to STEM through soccer.
Read the teknovation.biz article about DataRook.
Modern Day Stay at Home Mom
Kimberly O’Neal, the Founder of Modern Day SAHM is paired with mentors Brittany Burton and Preston Garland.
She is building is building a staffing platform designed to connect stay-at-home moms with flexible, legitimate job opportunities while allowing them to remain home with their families. They provide businesses with access to a highly skilled talent pool, offering affordable hiring solutions with thorough background checks, reference checks, and initial screening interviews included.
O’Neal has more than 5,000 moms already in her network. And, at the kickoff event, she announced a new partnership with one of the region’s largest hospital systems.
Read the teknovation.biz article about Modern Day SAHM.
Rush to Resolution, LLC
The company’s founder Brett Rush is paired with mentors Creed Huckaby and Matthew Park.
Rush to Resolution, LLC helps SaaS startups build an AI-first support presence leveraging Intercom for chatbots, human assistance, and metrics, as well as other bots for custom niche requests. They also help with building out human support teams, since they have experience developing global teams from the ground up.
Rush was unable to attend the kickoff due to a family vacation.
Chris McAdoo, the Chief Experience Officer for the KEC, introduced the program sponsors, mentors, and laid the groundwork for the upcoming eight weeks of lessons for the seven participating companies.
He also introduced a new role in the WORKS Accelerator, and that is the position of “Lead Growth Advisor.” Abhijit Verekar, the Founder and CEO at Avero Advisors has been on the Inc 5000 list for the past four years. He will help lead the program participants toward a mindset of growth and success.
Learn more about the WORKS Accelerator here.
Learn more about the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center here.
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