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🌞 Good morning. Welcome to the 210th edition of Maine Startups Insider. You are one of 2,004 subscribers (we made it past the 2,000 mark!) receiving this email. Thanks for your continued support the last few months as I navigated a new job, kids, and a pandemic.
You may have noticed I redesigned the newsletter. I’ve been tweaking my workflows to make creating the newsletter more efficient, and to enable me to easily turn each newsletter into a post on my website so the content will be archived and searchable. This simplified design allows me to draft the newsletter using a Markdown-like language and then easily copy and paste it into my MailChimp editing window AND my WordPress CMS. Hope you like it, and feel free to hit reply if you have any feedback or are seeing any funky formatting.
Also want to give a quick thanks to Maine Startups Insider’s newest Sustaining Member: Joel Bejar, a software sales leader from NYC who recently moved to Portland. If like Joel you appreciate what MSI is trying to do and have the financial wherewithal to support my efforts, please consider becoming a Sustaining Member.
/ News
Reconnect raises more than $3M to drive innovation in criminal justice system
Reconnect, a Portland-area company, has raised $3.7 million to fund its continued development of software and hardware designed to improve outcomes for individuals in the criminal justice system. Several out-of-state VC firms participated in the round, including San Francisco-based Yes VC and Philly-based SustainVC.
Read more at Maine Startups Insider >>
MSI is sponsored by Preti Flaherty
Two Maine companies accepted into Cleantech Open
Two Maine companies—Baseline ES and Foothill Fuels—have been accepted into this year’s Cleantech Open, a national startup accelerator program and business-pitch competition for companies working on ideas that could help solve the world’s greatest environmental and energy challenges.
Read more at Maine Startups Insider >>
Portland fintech company acquired by Atlanta firm
ZipLine, a Portland-based payment-technology company, has been acquired by Atlanta-based Professonial Datasolutions Inc. It’s unclear what the deal means for ZipLine’s 61 local employees. Stephen Goodrich, ZipLine’s CEO, was also the founder of PowerPay, another early player in Portland’s fintech cluster.
Read more at Maine Startups Insider >>
Neuright, a biotech startup, receives $225,000 NSF award
Neuright Inc., a biotech startup spun out of the University of Maine, has received $225,000 from the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Technology Transfer program. The company is focused on the early diagnosis and treatment of peripheral neuropathy, a condition that involves damage to the peripheral nervous system and is estimated to affect more than 20 million people in the United States. Magdalena Blaszkiewicz, who graduated from UMaine in 2019 with a doctoral degree in biomedical sciences, and Kristy Townsend, an associate professor of neurobiology, co-founded Neuright in 2018 to create and commercialize an affordable medical device to measure nerve conduction and stimulate the regrowth of nerves.
Read more on the UMaine blog >>
/ Briefly Mentioned
🧺 David Stone, founder and now executive chairman of Forager, a Portland startup that has developed software to streamline the procurement process between grocers and local farms, has been named a Champion of Change by the International Dairy Deli Bakery Association and Winsight Grocery Business, a well-known trade publication in the grocery industry.
📱 Three young women swept the podium at this year’s Maine App Challenge, an annual competition in which Maine high school students design and build functional mobile apps. Tyler Technologies, a software company that employs nearly 1,000 people in Maine and hosts the competition, said it received a record 42 applications this year. Parker Harnett, a senior at Yarmouth High School won first place for her app, “How to Help,” which helps people find ways to donate their time, money, and needed items. Sarah Hagan of Cape Elizabeth High School and Elena Miller of Yarmouth High School won second and third place, respectively. The three students received scholarships totaling $10,000 at a virtual ceremony held June 23.
💡 Justin Hafner and David Holomakoff, co-founders of Portland-based KinoTek, conducted a Q&A with The Tech Tribune in which they discuss how they founded their digital health startup, what challenges they’ve faced, Portland’s startup scene, and their advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. In addition, Justin recently participated in this virtual summit on digital health.
/ Jobs
If you apply for a job you see here, let them know you saw the opportunity in Maine Startups Insider.
+ Running Tide Technologies, a technology startup in the aquaculture space, is hiring a full-stack software engineer. If interested, search out Phillip Connaughton, Running Tide’s head of software development, on LinkedIn.
+ HighByte, a Portland-based B2B software startup, is hiring a Senior Java Developer.
+ KinoTek, a Portland-based startup at the intersection of health and augmented reality, is looking for a software developer with experience with C++ unity integration. Those interested, email the company at contact@kinoteksoftware.com.
+ Farming robotics startup Farmhand Automation is hiring a mechanical engineer.
+ AskGMS, a Portland-based company that provides benchmarking and data analysis tools to the insurance industry, is hiring a Quality Engineer/Manager.
+ Amplify Additive, a 3D printing company in Scarborough that specializes in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of metal-printed orthopedic implants, is hiring a Quality Engineer/Manager.
+ VETRO Inc., a software company in Portland, is looking for a full-stack developer, inside sales rep, customer success rep, and a staff accountant.
+ MedRhythms, a Portland-based medical-device startup, is hiring a mobile/front-end developer.
+ Defendify, a cybersecurity startup in Portland, is hiring a full-stack developer.
+ Arkatechture, a Portland-based company that provides business intelligence and data analytics services, is hiring a senior software engineer, AWS cloud engineer, senior data scientist and financial analyst, among other positions.
+ Introspective Systems, in Portland, is looking for a lead software engineer and a software engineering intern.
+ Theory and Principle, a legal-tech product design and development startup in Portland, is hiring a front-end developer.
Seeking a full-stack engineer? A technical co-founder? A sales or biz dev superstar? Send me your job postings to make this a great resource!
/ Events
Propeller
July 14 – Sept. 8 — Online
Propeller is an eight-week training program for female entrepreneurs. Hosted by CEI’s Women’s Business Center, the online program’s goal is “to help creative, problem-solving women to develop tech-based businesses and form a network that supports the participation of women in technology.” The program begins July 14 and is free. For more info and to register.
Please send me your event or calendar item for possible inclusion.
