Walter Beesley pitches his company, JUDGED Gear, at Cloudport in Portland on May 9. (Photo/MCE)

After a series of semi-final pitch events around the state on Wednesday, eight entrepreneurs who participated in the Maine Center for Entrepreneurs’ Top Gun accelerator program have been chosen to compete for $25,000 in the final showcase event.

The eight were among nearly three dozen entrepreneurs who were selected to participate in the three-month Top Gun program and pitched their businesses Wednesday evening at four semi-final events in Portland, Bangor, Brunswick, and Lewiston/Auburn. Each entrepreneur presented a five-minute pitch to a panel of judges followed by a brief question-and-answer period. Scoring was based on presentation, innovation, scalability and feasibility. The judges picked two entrepreneurs from each regional cohort to move on to the final showcase event, which will be held May 23 at the University of Southern Maine’s Hannaford Hall in Portland.

“The entrepreneurs of the Top Gun 2018 class have been a remarkable group,” Laurie Johnson, Top Gun’s program manager, said in a statement. “It has been a pleasure to get to know these young companies and I look forward to seeing them shape the community of Maine’s next innovators.”

The eight finalists are:

Bangor

Radhakrishnan Jamadagni, who pitched his company, AI Steth, which is developing an electronic stethoscope that can diagnose heart and lung problems using artificial intelligence.
Rebeckah Perry, who pitched Queen City Arts, a company that runs educational after-school and summer programs in the Bangor region.

Brunswick

(This was an entirely aquaculture-focused cohort)
Matthew Moretti pitched his family’s rope-grown mussel farm, Bangs Island Mussels
Jonathan Turcotte pitched Glidden Point Oyster Company in Edgecomb.

Lewiston/Auburn

Michele Gilfoil pitched her skin-care-product company Planet Botanicals.
Stacy Moore pitched Healing Harbors, her healthcare-product company that produces creams and tinctures from cannabidiol, one of the cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant.

Portland

Meghan Carey pitched her company, Co·amplify, which aims to make life easier for kids with cochlear implants.
Erica Schmitz pitched her company, MyBodyModel, which will soon release an app that allows clothing designers to create custom body sketches.

The Top Gun showcase event is one of the few statewide business pitch events an is the culmination of a three-month entrepreneurial training program run by the Maine Center for Entrepreneurs. When MCE launched Top Gun in 2009, it was based solely in Portland, which limited the accessibility for entrepreneurs in other parts of the state. Since then the program has added locations in Bangor, Lewiston/Auburn, and midcoast Maine.

The final Top Gun showcase event will be held at the University of Southern Maine’s Abromson Center in Portland on May 23. The $25,000 cash prize that will be awarded to the winner is sponsored by the Maine Technology Institute.

Last year, Thrivant Health won the Top Gun showcase event.