The Colorado Springs Venture Attractor welcomed its 2024 Cohort Four companies earlier this month. This year, eight companies from six different states have joined the Scale to $1M Boot-Up Camp.

As the ventures begin the Scale to $1M program, an online education and mentorship opportunity, the entrepreneurs will have high-impact action items to complete, including monthly ‘progress pitches’ to ensure accountability and other deliverables and milestones to achieve over four months. Each of the ventures has a dedicated mentor with whom they meet at least once per week.

This year’s cohort includes:

• Archery N Motion | Moving Target Platform – Sam Westfall
  • Archery N Motion has created a custom moving target platform for archery and firearm targets. They are designed to enhance target practice and provide a unique and realistic experience that simulates moving target scenarios.
• StructureBot – Automation in Construction – Jim Scott and Cam McRoberts
  • Innovating construction by applying robotics, advanced software, and materials in the form of 3D Construction Printers (3DCP). StructureBots 3DCP machines are designed to help builders produce homes faster, more efficiently and economically.
• Lodgeit. – Lauren Little
  • LodgeIt. has created a boric acid suppository in an ecofriendly package to help women manage yeast infections. LodgeIt. is working to break the stigma around discussing vaginal health, while improving quality of life for their customers.
• Virtual Systems Engineering – Lee Groeschel
  • In the electronic design automation space, there is a significant lack of coordination between software systems and vendors. With the PREVIEW system Virtual Systems Engineering provides a unique three-part system to coordinate information and analysis between these groups.
• Aqua Boxing Glove – No Impact – Tony Adeniran
  • Boxers typically resort to shadowboxing with dumbbells to increase resistance in their training sessions. The Aqua Boxing Glove allows athletes to train with gloves and resistance simultaneously. Decreasing risk of injury and increasing the quality of the workout.
• Finally Pockets – Xiaoyao Li
  • Triathlon apparel is commonly manufactured and marketed towards professional level athletes. Sacrificing comfort and functionality for aerodynamics. Finally Pockets aims to create functional, comfortable, and aerodynamic Triathlon suits with accessible pockets.
• FreezeNit Inc. – Joanna Shu
  • Headlice are extremely difficult and time consuming to treat, especially considering todays treatment resistant “superlice”. FreezeNit Inc. eliminates headlice and their eggs without using chemicals. The treatment takes only 15 minutes to complete.
• Nightingale Caring Solutions – Colin Plover
  • The nursing industry is plagued by poor scheduling and patient pairing optimization. Nightingale uses big data to feed their algorithm the information needed to quickly and effectively pair nurses with patients. Minimizing nurse fatigue, increasing care outcomes, and providing a better experience for patients.

The Scale to $1M online curriculum is taught by accomplished entrepreneurs and academics from around the country. The purpose of the Scale to $1M program is to help each of the participating ventures develop a foundation for scaling their valuation to the coveted $1M level. At that level of valuation, new opportunities for growth financing becomes available.

The Colorado Springs Venture Attractor is a research project under the direction of Thomas Duening, El Pomar Chair for Business & Entrepreneurship and associate professor of management. The Venture Attractor is a concept designed specifically to attract people, resources and startup ventures to help build regional economies based on a region’s predominate industry cluster.

The Colorado Springs Venture Attractor is a worldwide first, and is centered on developing the region’s sports/outdoors, health innovation and human performance cluster.

Duening launched the Venture Attractor in 2020 just prior to the onset of the pandemic. Nonetheless, the project persevered and has seen three successful cohorts in the years since.

Learn more about the Colorado Springs Venture Attractor

The EPIIC Venture Attractor™ is a university-based research initiative of the El Pomar Institute of Innovation & Commercialization (EPIIC) at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) and is on a mission to drive regional economic development and strengthen the startup ecosystem in Colorado Springs. The focus on early stage startups in the sectors of sports and outdoors, health innovation, and human performance spurs the organic development of a dynamic regional cluster from these complementary sectors. Learn more about the Venture Attractor on the UCCS website.