Scratchpad Accelerator, a startup-business accelerator in Bangor, has selected four companies for its fall 2019 cohort.
The fall cohort, which gathered last week for its first of three five-day intensive learning sessions, is focused on spin-off companies, which it defines as being either spun out of a university or existing company. The accelerator received 22 applications for the four spots.
The four companies selected for the new cohort are:
- Kinotek, a software startup spun out of UMaine that uses virtual reality and motion capture technology to create “x-ray vision” to improve athletic output and reduce the chance of injury
- EverCup, a product company selling FDA-registered menstrual cups that was spun out of Casco Bay Molding in Sanford
- Dermarus, a company spun out of Lobster Unlimited, which develops and commercializes products made from the recycled waste of lobster processing
- Wicked Strong, a cleaning products company spun out of Maine Standard Biodiesel
The accelerator is managed by Jason Harkins, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Maine Business School, and Lisa Liberatore, an entrepreneur with a master’s degree in educational leadership.
Earlier this year, it received grants from the Maine Technology Institute and Bangor Savings Bank to help provide a consistent source of funding for the program, which has been operating off and on for the last several years. It launched in 2015 with its first cohort of four startups before taking a two-year hiatus. In August 2017, it announced it would shift its focus to female founders, welcoming its first cohort of four female founders in November 2017. The fall 2019 cohort of spin-off companies is only its third program.
Scratchpad expects to run a cohort in the spring of 2020 focused exclusively on female-founded companies.
