SCRA CEO Podcast

WAVS Custom

Ric Hoke, CEO and Founder

WAVS Custom became an SCRA Member Company in October of 2022 and received a $50,000 Acceleration Grant. The company became an SC Launch Inc. Portfolio Company with SC Launch Inc.’s $200,000 investment in October of 2023.

WAVS Custom is a Greenville-based startup that manufactures custom-fit ear audio products. It developed a 3D scanning and manufacturing platform that makes custom-fitted in-ear monitors (IEMs) that provide a higher degree of noise isolation for better sound. Visit company website.

New Forge

Javier Ortiz, Co-Founder

New Forge became an SCRA Member Company in 2021 and has received Demonstration Grants totaling over $37,000. In February of 2023, New Forge received a 250,000 investment from SC Launch Inc. to help the Rock Hill-based startup continue transforming the manufacturing and healthcare industries with its augmented reality software and hardware.

New Forge offers customized AR solutions that enhance an organization’s frontline productivity. Their solutions make manufacturing operations safer, more efficient, and less costly. Functions that benefit from this service include order picking, maintenance, inspections, part assembly, remote assistance, training, and communication. Visit company website.

HANK AI (hank.ai)

Jack Neil, Founder and CEO

HANK (hank.ai) became an SCRA Member Company in 2019 and received a $50,000 Acceleration Grant from SCRA in 2020. 

Later that year, they became an SC Launch, Inc. Portfolio Company by receiving their first $200,000 investment. In November of 2021, Hank received another $200,000 investment to help the artificial intelligence company continue its strong growth track of helping health care providers streamline their medical billing processes.

Recognizing the need to simplify and improve efficiencies in medical billing, Hank AI built a cognitive automation platform that combines traditional machine learning with crowdsourced knowledge to automate repetitive decision-making tasks. This helps medical coders increase their productivity and accuracy by providing an easy-to-use interface for manual keyword searches against a database of medical codes. The platform also allows coders to transform free-text medical records into a list of the most probable codes. Visit company website.

Ruffian Software

Martin White, CEO

Ruffian Software, became an SCRA Member Company in 2021 and received a $25,000 Project Development Fund Grant. They also became an SC Launch Inc. Portfolio Company with a $250,000 investment in May of 2023.

As a solution to the problems businesses have managing multiple secure networks and maintaining privacy and security, Ruffian Software created an application, TechIDManager. This application automatically makes and manages individual accounts with appropriate rights for every MSP technician on every domain, with automatic passwords. Visit company website.

Mainstage Gaming Network

Matthew Snyder, CEO & Founder

Mainstage Gaming Network Inc. is a Rock Hill-based startup that builds single platforms for organizations to create gaming events, tournaments, and leagues for gamers everywhere. The company is allowing organizations to create communities through inclusive and accessible opportunities in gaming. Visit company website.

Humimic Medical

Joel Edwards, CEO & Founder

Humimic Medical, an SCRA Member Company, is an industry leader in high-grade medical products. Their first invention, the ballistic gel, is best known for setting the standard for durability, quality, and reusability in synthetic medical gelatins. Medical professionals worldwide use Humimic’s gelatins for simulations, phantom imaging, and to train with realism. Healthcare innovators also rely on their reusable gelatins for their products. Visit company website.

ScopeStack

Jon Scott, CEO & Co-Founder

ScopeStack has developed a web-based platform to automate the IT Services Scoping and Pricing process for Service Providers. The ScopeStack Services CPQ standardizes the presales process for engineers so that each project is scoped accurately and priced consistently. Visit company website.

Rainwalk

Joshua Snead, CEO

Rainwalk is a Columbia-based startup that provides pet health insurance. Their online platform offers easy and quick claims processing, covers most veterinary bills, and provides end-to-end pet insurance support online. Visit company website.

Borealis Global Advisory

Sailesh Radha, President and Chief Investment Strategist

Borealis Global Advisory, a Blythewood-based fintech startup, is a SaaS platform that saves significant time and money for money managers. The platform allows managers to invest globally by leveraging advanced algorithms and visualization tools that provide world-leading, real-time, and actionable country-level insights. Visit company website.

MitoChem Therapeutics

Michael Voevodsky, President and CEO

Founded at the Medical University of South Carolina, MitoChem Therapeutics was started by two scientists who saw an opportunity to focus on developing treatments to address the effects of cellular and metabolic dysfunction in neurodegenerative conditions, specifically eye diseases. 

MitoChem Therapeutics became an SCRA Member Company in 2019 and received a $25,000 Academic Startup Grant. The company became an SC Launch Inc. Portfolio Company with a $200,000 investment in August of 2022. MitoChem has also been a long-term tenant at SCRA’s Innovation Center in Charleston. Visit company website.

BrightMa Farms

Harold Singletary, Founder and CEO

From seed to manufacturing, the Charleston-based AgTech company has built a sustainable circular economy model with Industrial Hemp as the aggregator of change. BrightMa Farms brings together state-of-the-art AI/ML breeding, sustainable AgTech innovation, best farming practices, and unparalleled hemp vertical market integration expertise. Visit company website.

Vän Robotics

Featuring Laura Boccanfuso, Founder and CEO

Vän Robotics develops social robots that teach skills-based lessons while collecting data about individual users and leveraging machine learning techniques to develop smart, social robot tutors. Their robots track performance and student behavior, in real-time, to adapt how the robot teaches by personalizing each interaction. Their robots offer a plug-and-play, widely accessible solution for schools, after school programs and parents with students struggling in core subjects. Visit company website.

Hank AI

Jack Neil, Founder and CEO

Recognizing the need to simplify and improve efficiencies in medical billing, Hank AI built a cognitive automation platform that combines traditional machine learning with crowdsourced knowledge to automate repetitive decision-making tasks. This helps medical coders increase their productivity and accuracy by providing an easy-to-use interface for manual keyword searches against a database of medical codes. The platform also allows coders to transform free-text medical records into a list of the most probable codes.

Hank AI’s interface has resulted in up to a 50% cost reduction of the traditional document management process while simultaneously enabling customers to leverage data for better outcomes. Visit company website.

UASidekick

Jason Cansler, Co-Founder and COO

UASidekick is a software development company that provides services to the aviation industry, in particular the drone or UAV segment. They provide airspace awareness using integrations to display essential data to the drone pilot and facilitate communications for all who interact with the drone industry. UASidekick is connected to Flight Service, FAA LAANC system and Micro Weather data service. Their first integration was to Flight Service which provides air traffic briefings to 80,000 manned aviators every week.

UASidekick is developed by aviation pilots for the aviation industry and the general public. Their goal was to first provide quick and easy access to critical components of the regulatory system. Authorization request through UASidekick are streamlined and are the avenue for UAV pilots to fulfill various regulatory requirements mandated by the FAA to operate a drone in National Air Space (NAS). UASidekick quickly expanded their services to enhance flight management by incorporating interactive mapping functions and flight logging. Visit company website.

Land Intelligence

Gore Bolton, Founder and CEO

Land Intelligence provides a suite of comprehensive reporting, analysis, and advisory land development services through its LandSUITE platform. Their mission is to empower clients to research, finance, and trade in record time, enabling smart, cost-effective, data-driven decisions.

The land development market is currently served by fragmented sources that focus on narrow segments within the industry. Redundant research for a particular property is performed by many real estate related professionals and local governments which produces many disparate databases. This old model of real estate evaluation has created siloed and disconnected data that is not actionable to the ecosystem of land development. Visit company website.

Zylö Therapeutics

Featuring Scott Pancoast, Founder and CEO

Zylö Therapeutics, located in Greenville, has developed an innovative sustained-release topical drug delivery system that uses patented xerogel-derived silica particles, called Z-pods™, to sustainably deliver Nitric Oxide, cannabinoids, and other notoriously hard-to-deliver therapeutic agents through topical administration. The game-changing technology enables a Patchless Patch™ concept, which provides long-term delivery to the skin but without the hassles and inconvenience of a patch. Visit company website

Citibot

Featuring Bratton Riley, Founder and CEO

Citibot connects citizens to their local government by integrating text messaging and messenger apps into an interactive customer service experience. With Citibot, citizens report city issues and get answers to their questions, and the city saves time and money by quickly and efficiently solving problems. Visit company website

Viatec

Featuring Mark Ferri, CEO, and Neeraj Chirmulay, Chief Technology Officer

Viatec has developed an affordable, green solution for commercial vehicles in the utility, telephone, construction and delivery industries. Their fully electric product, SmartPTO, is equipped to save fuel, reduce maintenance costs and lower noise while commercial vehicles are idling. Through national partnerships, Viatec delivers these products in a modular, flexible, scalable manner to meet customer needs. Visit Company Website

Boyd Cycling

Featuring Boyd and Nicole Johnson, founders of Boyd Cycling

Boyd Cycling is a craft wheel manufacturer dedicated to producing the highest quality bicycle wheels. All wheels are hand-built in Greenville, SC to exacting standards. Visit Company Website

6AM City

Featuring Ryan Heafy, COO of 6AM City

6AM City is redefining the future of local media as the fastest growing newsletter-first local media company in the country, delivering the most relevant need-to-know local news and events via a daily email at 6 a.m targeted to its 9 markets and 400,000+ subscribers in the southeast. The newsletters are a 5 min read, conversational in tone and politically unbiased. 6AM is like a distribution center for all local content and specializes in packaging, distribution, performance, convenience, and profitability. With the ability to rapidly deploy new markets, 6AM is doubling the size of the company (audience, markets, and revenue) in 2021. Visit Company Website

Vizbii Technologies, Inc.

Featuring Julie Moreland, CEO of Vizbii

Vizbii Technologies located in Charleston, has developed a patented technology solution called Morphii, which measures human experiences by capturing reactions to stimuli. The solution allows users to self-report experiential response types like emotions, moods, and physical sensations, and their respective intensities, using digitally manipulated images. Preliminary applications include measuring the customer, employee and patient experience. Visit Company Website

ZVerse

Featuring John Carrington, Founder and CEO of ZVerse

“ZVerse, Inc., a Columbia, South Carolina-based company, provides the only CAD as a Service (CADaaS) platform and designer marketplace optimized for the manufacturing as a service (MaaS) ecosystem. ZVerse leverages its proprietary software to connect makers with the designers, materials and manufacturers they need to bring their products to life with less friction and less waste and has become one of the largest on-demand manufacturers in the Southeast.

As businesses were closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ZVerse, an SCRA, SC Launch, Inc. Portfolio Company, initially became concerned with possible staff layoffs, but instead, they made a bold step and shifted their operations to reusable face shields. They quickly responded to the needs of nurses and doctors while drastically expanding the size of its staff. ZVerse is now the largest reusable face shield supplier in the nation, and has since invented a non-clinical inverted shield.”

ActivEd

Featuring Julian Reed, CEO of ActivEd

ActivEd is an educational technology company providing an innovative movement based platform, Walkabouts, that accelerates learning while improving health. Walkabouts are on-demand adventures that transform math, language arts, and reading content into short, movement-rich activities for Pre-K through Second Grade students. This research-based online tool makes it easy for teachers and parents to create lessons that bring key concepts to life through physical activity. Walkabouts even correlate to the state standards teachers already use to develop and manage their lesson plans. Visit Company Website

Ellipsis Technologies

Featuring Bill West, CEO of Ellipsis Technologies

Ellipsis has developed a leading edge web and eCommerce security technology which allows a website owner to invisibly detect human traffic while quarantining all suspicious visitors. Their Human Presence technology utilizes user timing and movement data coupled with their human behavior database and proprietary machine learning algorithms to allow human site visitors to avoid CAPTCHA or other turing tests with a focus on user experience, customer satisfaction and ultimately higher online sales. Visit Company Website