Texas Tech Accelerator Program starts up 7 startups

• By Karen Michael, A-J Media
• June 29, 2017

Perhaps you don’t know that you grind your teeth at night, but 20 percent of us are grinding away at night, annoying our spouses and causing real harm to our teeth.

 

Employees of one of the seven startup companies taking part in the Texas Tech Accelerator at the TTU Innovation Hub would like people to get an earlier diagnosis of sleep bruxism, or tooth grinding.

 

Together, personnel from the seven startups presented elevator pitches about their businesses and took part in a ribbon cutting Monday afternoon at the Innovation Hub with the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce to celebrate their start in the Accelerator program.

Over time, Victoria Coverstone said, someone who grinds may have to spend thousands of dollars to repair their chompers

 

Coverstone, a mechanical engineering professor at Tech, is part of a team that invented a $25 device that could lead to earlier diagnosis and prevention of that damage.

 

That team, DENIS, is one of the companies that will get a startup grant from the Lubbock Economic Development Alliance, access to the Innovation Hub to house their company for one year, mentorship from people in the community including industry experts and investors to help develop a revenue model, and participation in Hub Camp, where they will learn best practices for launching a successful startup.

 

Kimberly Gramm, senior managing director of the Innovation Hub, said this is the first cohort of entrepreneurial startups chosen to be launched from the Hub. The opportunity to develop a business through the Innovation Hub is open to Texas Tech students, alumni and faculty, as well as all entrepreneurs in the Lubbock community.

 

“Today, we had everything from a resume maker to diagnosing Bruxis, when you’re grinding your teeth, to surface coating which makes wind energy efficiencies by coating the wing of a turbine. Lots of different ideas have come through. We do our best to select teams that we think will be successful. That’s really important. Teams that are coach-able, that’s also very important. And teams that have a real vision and perseverance for following through on the plan they want to execute,” Gramm said.

 

After a year, she said, “We hope they have a minimal viable product, they’ll have revenue and they’ll be able to move out into the community and make Lubbock great.”

 

Each business selected for the Texas Tech Accelerator program will be required to stay in Lubbock for one year after the program and to give success metrics for three years.

 

The seven startups chosen for the TTU Accelerator program include C-Safe, DENIS, Reproductive Solution Inc., ResuMakers, Surface Coating, TKQuant and TitleFlow LLC.