HighByte, in a ‘tech talent war,’ wins $50K LaunchPad award

HighByte, a Portland-based developer of industrial data ops software, has won the 2021 LaunchPad business pitch competition and its $50,000 first-place cash prize.

A panel of three independent judges choose the tech company from among five finalists who pitched their businesses Tuesday afternoon in studio (spectators were able to view via livestream, which can still be viewed here). HighByte impressed the judges with its strong management team and desire to grow tech jobs in Maine, according to a post-event press release from Gorham Savings Bank, which sponsors the annual event and provides the $50,000 non-dilutive grant.

HighByte beat out Brave Foods, Erin Flett/Studio e Flett, Hüga Heat and Vintage Maine Kitchen.

In recent years, LaunchPad winners had all been consumer packaged goods companies like Good To-Go, Flowfold, North Spore, and Casco Bay Creamery. HighByte is the first tech company to win the award since Pika Energy won it in 2013.

“Being a finalist—and then winning—sent a clear signal that Maine is interested in embracing the growing tech movement here in the state,” Torey Penrod-Cambra, HighByte’s co-founder and chief marketing officer, told Maine Startups Insider. “There are many ways to be an entrepreneur in Maine—and building a tech company here is legitimately one of them.”

HighByte plans to win ‘tech talent war’

Founded in 2018, HighByte has developed a subscription software platform, called HighByte Intelligence Hub, that helps traditional manufacturers and industrial customers connect technology on their facility floors with their enterprise and IT systems that live in the cloud. These integrations are important as traditional manufacturing continues to go through a massive shift toward automation using modern smart technology, which some refer to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0.

“It’s a game changer,” Penrod-Cambra said in her pitch. “Without the HighByte Intelligence Hub, integrations won’t scale, analytics can’t be trusted and ultimately industrial 4.0 projects will fail.”

HighByte released its first product in January 2020 and is a “first mover” in the space, “which positions us to become the industry standard for integrating manufacturing systems,” she said.

The company currently has 15 large global manufacturers as customers
 and is on target to reach its sales goal of $672,000 by the end of this fiscal year, according to Penrod-Cambra. Its annual recurring revenue is expected to reach $3.2 million by end of 2022 and $12 million by the end of 2024.

HighByte is going after a total addressable market of $1.14 billion for data conditioning within the Industry 4.0 sector, according to Penrod-Cambra.

Besides the first-mover advantage, HighByte’s team is also a competitive advantage. CEO Tony Paine, along with Penrod-Cambra and the third co-founder, John Harrington, are all veterans of Kepware Technologies, a Portland-based industrial software company. Paine served as CEO of Kepware from 2009 to 2016, when PTC, a Boston-based enterprise software company, acquired Kepware for $100 million.

The company currently employs nine people, but has several open positions and expects to grow to a team of 16 by the end of the year and nearly double that by the end of next year.

Helping to recruit talent, “and stop losing tech talent to Boston and New York,” will be the main use of the $50,000 award, Penrod-Cambra said. The company currently has four open positions ranging from a software engineer to a quality assurance engineer.

“Our biggest challenge right now and what’s hampering our growth is being able to offer competitive salaries outside of what our plan was,” she said during her pitch. “It’s a tech talent war right now, and what we honestly have to offer to pull in top talent is above and beyond what we had expected … I don’t think we’ll be able to fill these positions unless we add money on top of what we expected and really put some offers out there that are enticing to talent.”

She said HighByte’s management team immediately got to work on Wednesday, the day after the competition, meeting to discuss their recruitment strategy and how the new funds could support recruitment.

“The feeling of walking through the office door Wednesday morning with the team cheering and elbow bumping because we had an infusion of cash to solve an immediate problem, well, it was awesome and it was a moment I won’t forget,” Penrod-Cambra told Maine Startups Insider.

To date, the company has received $100,000 in grants from the Maine Technology Institute and has raised slightly more than $1 million in convertible debt. The grants enabled the company to build the MVP of the product, while the convertible debt enabled it to hire its first employees to support commercialization, according to Penrod-Cambra.

Beside the challenge of recruiting top-tier talent, Penrod-Cambra said the team is also heads down ahead of the release this summer of an updated version of its software.

“Releasing HighByte Intelligence Hub version 2.0 will be an important milestone in our journey as it supports more sophisticated use cases and is expected to increase our ASP (average selling price),” she said.

Cookie company wins Emerging Business Award

Gorham Savings Banks also provided two smaller awards to other competitors.

This year’s Emerging Business Award went to C. Love Cookie Project, which is “creating community around a cookie” and donates 21% of sales to support the immigrant community in Portland. The award came with a $10,000 cash prize and $10,000 worth of in-kind marketing, business development, and public relations services. Additionally, an anonymous donor from the community contributed $1,000 bringing the cash prize total for this award to $11,000.

And this year only, Gorham Savings Bank provided a special $10,000 Business Agility Award for outstanding perseverance and response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award went to Portland-based Zootility, a design studio reimagining everyday products so they can be made locally and sustainability using futuristic manufacturing.

“We saw a fantastic group of small businesses present at LaunchPad this year, and we were inspired by their creativity, determination, and vision,” Steve deCastro, Gorham Savings Bank’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “Today’s event gives me even greater confidence that Maine’s innovators will lead our state toward a more diverse and prosperous economy.”

The three independent judges this year were Catherine Cloudman, president and CEO of CHC Advisors LLC; Kate McAleer, founder of Bixby & Co. and the 2014 LaunchPad winner; and Ed McKersie, founder and president of ProSearch and founder of Live+Work in Maine.

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