The Maine Center for Entrepreneurs has selected 44 companies to participate in its 2020 Top Gun startup-training program.

Top Gun, which launched in 2009 as a single class of a dozen entrepreneurs in Portland, will convene cohorts this year in Portland, Bangor, Lewiston/Auburn, Brunswick, and Waterville. Four of the cohorts will be sector agnostic, while there will be two cohorts convening in Brunswick, one focused on companies in the aquaculture industry and another focused on craft beverage businesses.

To date, more than 200 entrepreneurs have gone through the Top Gun program, which consists of hands-on training taught by subject matter experts in finance, business law, marketing, and other critical aspects of business development.

The 2020 cohort of 44 companies will be the program’s second largest, slightly less than last year’s 47 companies but surpassing 2018’s 38 participants.

Entrepreneurs were required to complete a rigorous application process that included submitting a
pitch deck, pitching their business, and one-on-one interviews with program staff and volunteer business
leaders.

Here are the members of Top Gun’s 2020 cohort:

Bangor – Regional Sponsors: First National Bank

  • Coffee Hound Coffee Co. — Jennifer Litteral
  • Let’s Go Bagz — Suzie Milkowich
  • Treadwell Corporation — Gerald Collins
  • Bub ‘n Mutha’s — John Fuhrman
  • TrustedRentr — Steven Doman & John Peters
  • Gel Hydration Technologies, Inc. — Laura Lockwood
  • Sign26 — Daniel C DeLuca & Nieves Perez Besu

Brunswick – Aquaculture – Regional Sponsors: Maine Aquaculture and Innovation Center & Maine Aquaculture Association

  • Aphrodite Oysters — Krista Tripp
  • Maine Island Aquaculture, LLC — Hannah Twombly and Connor O’Neil
  • Southern Maine Sea Farms — Phil Demers & Jessica Pinckney
  • Butterfield Shellfish — Austin Donnelly & Keith Butterfield
  • Maine Ocean Farms, LLC — Tom Klodenski
  • Wayne Seafoods — Robert Mitchell
  • Kaskolos Sea Vegetables — Theodore Willis
  • Mere Point Oyster Co. — Derek James Devereaux

Brunswick – Craft Beverage – Regional Sponsor: Bernstein Shur

  • Blue Barren Distillery — Andrew Stewart
  • Lincoln & Main Inc. — Thaddeus St. John
  • The Whole Almond — Myranda McGowan
  • Heritage Seaweed — Josh Rogers
  • NU Brewery, LLC — Russell Voss

Lewiston/Auburn – Regional Sponsor: the Cities of Lewiston/Auburn

  • Binding Tales, LLC — Hillary Dow
  • Cosplay Convention Center — Benjamin Santos
  • LiteracyTech Inc. — Michelle DeBlois & Kathryn Lariviere
  • Caribbean Life Grocery — Sophia Bailey
  • Dog-a-holick — Laci Barnett
  • Yardduck — Mark Parker
  • Cooking to Gather — Kristina Slocum
  • Journey — Carolyn Delaney

Portland – Regional sponsor: Preti Flaherty

  • LAW Calibration — Louis Waterhouse
  • Mumbai to Maine — Cherie Scott
  • Story Culture — Andrew Griswold
  • Lorraine’s Cakes LLC — Tyler Cote
  • Paramount Planet Product LLC — Ariadne Dimoulas & Claudia Lowd
  • Transcapsule — Tobey Tozier
  • Maine Casual, LLC — Brian Fish
  • Readiness Associates, LLC — Mike Boardman
  • UNAR Labs — Hari Palani
  • Maine Pine Box Company — Michelle Tussing
  • SeaME, LLC — Mariah Curtis

Waterville – Regional Sponsor: Central Maine Growth Council

  • BrightHer Way — Susan Hunter and Colleen Maguire
  • Crooked Face Creamery — Amy Rowbottom
  • Trusted Estate Advisors — Scott Greeley
  • Candy Hollow — Jason & Lydia Stevens
  • TreeFreeHeat — Dylan Veilleux

Top Gun concludes each year with a final showcase and pitch event. The Maine Technology Institute is providing a $25,000 cash prize to be awarded to the top startup at this year’s final event, which will be held in May 2020.

Last year, a biotech company and an ice cream company won the showcase event.