 Today, PNWER is thrilled to announce the founders and companies selected for the Congregate Solutions Accelerator Second Cohort. These companies were selected to participate because their ventures align with Congregate’s mission to accelerate resilience in travel and tourism. Over the course of the next ten weeks, these founders will work with Congregate to secure partnerships with travel and tourism companies throughout the northwest to test out concepts that can help the industry around these lingering challenges: (1) workforce and labor challenges and (2) the lagging recovery in business travel. On May 11 at 2pm PT, the founders of Cohort Two will have their first chance to “pitch for partners” in an event designed to connect them with partners to work on specific projects. Companies interested in meeting directly with these founders to discuss their product or attending the event on May 11 should reach out to congregate@pnwer.org for more information. Read the full Cohort Two news release below. SEATTLE, May 3, 2022– The Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) has selected nine tech startups from across the United States for the second cohort of its Congregate Solutions Accelerator. The Congregate Accelerator brings tech startups together with experts from industry and government to solve challenges in the Tourism, Performing Arts, Travel, and Hospitality (TPATH) industries.
Founders are offered a multitude of opportunities including one-on-one mentorship, access to thousands of dollars in credits from Amazon Web Services, market research, and the opportunity to access new customers in the travel and hospitality sectors. The Accelerator program will include 10 weeks of curriculum focused on the needs of startups at this phase in their journey anchored in the network and partnership with the Washington Technology Industry Association. Each founder will work with their mentors and Congregate staff to pursue opportunities for pilot projects with the program’s industry partners - organizations ranging from the Seahawks to Argosy Cruises to small business owners, and event venues. Companies selected for Cohort Two include: CityGuyd Naor Amir and Pauline Feder, Co-Founders CityGuyd turns real life people into digital, Augmented Reality tour guides! Our digital guides or famous VIPs can be found at cities, landmarks, & events across the globe - improving the travel experience, increasing fan engagement, and providing our clients with valuable data on their visitors! ClubHealth Daniel Bolus and Josh Lim, Co-Founders ClubHealth is a one-stop platform for modern employee health perks. We curate and bundle personalized, subclinical health & wellness products for employees based on individualized profiles that can be deployed in any work environment. Products include premium fitness and mental health apps, nutritional supplements, subscription boxes, educational resources, and more. Edizeven Shilpi Gupta, Founder Edizeven is a jobs website built from the ground-up for the special needs of the restaurant and hospitality industry. Whether you work in a restaurant or you run one, time is scarce. Edizeven provides tech-powered, personalized hiring solutions for restaurants, helping them hire staff 3x faster and better. Kickback Space Inc Rocco Haro, Founder Introducing the best way to come together online: kick back, a more human video conferencing experience. Our custom video network introduces superior enhancements to make communicating online feel like we are actually together. LegUp Jessica Eggert, Founder Families need child care to cover the hours they're at work, but the process to find a quality, full-time care can take months or even years. We're building technology that helps working families find care when and where they need it, so they can get back to everything else. LocalBuzz, Inc. Adrian Gillette and Tony Ce, Co-Founders LocalBuzz makes it so much easier for people to venture out into their local communities, find interesting things to do, meet people in real life, and be social. We provide an exciting way to explore your town, city, and community by discovering local spots and things to do through videos. It’s the best way to find a new restaurant, a great new band to see, or an experience to share. Save new discoveries, capture the moment and share your experiences. It’s time to break out of our bubbles and find new things that make our lives a lot happier! Motis Inc. Richard Beaton, Founder Motis Grow offers companies a way to make the employee experience fair and personal with customizable career paths, skillsets, and feedback. Employees love Motis Grow because it makes them feel known, like they belong and have a future with the company. And it fosters career growth, employee retention, and overall high performance, which are good for business. Radious Amina Moreau, Brian Hendrickson & iLan Epstein, Co-founders Radious offers companies a marketplace for on-demand meeting spaces and private offices right in their employees' neighborhoods. The model is similar to Airbnb but instead of overnight accommodations, we offer great workspaces — close to home. Companies love Radious because our spaces allow for in-person collaboration without forcing teams to commute back to a centrally located office. They offer better work-life separation by getting people out of the house, shorten commute times, reduce turnover costs by offering teams flexibility, and are cheaper than that rigid 10-year lease that companies were previously constrained by. Simply X Christopher Davies & Emily Cheng, Co-Founders SimplyX provides a cloud-based platform for our customers where they can easily create and manage mobile-friendly mini-webpages within minutes. Through our Design Studio, important business links can be aggregated into effective customizable campaigns. Once created the system also generates URLs and downloadable QR and NFC files, that allow these campaigns to be shared through endless channels as well as everyday items. By their digital assets to physical items like product packaging and branded merchandise, ordinary items become dynamic marketing assets that people can engage with in the real world, extending their digital voice outside of the internet. More information about the Congregate Accelerator Program can be found at www.congregate.resiliencefoundry.org. ABOUT CONGREGATE Congregate is a challenge-based solution accelerator program run by the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) as part of its Resilience Foundry initiative to build strong and resilient new economies in the Pacific Northwest. The Accelerator brings industry experts from the tourism, performing arts, travel, and hospitality (TPATH) sectors together with industry experts to support and partner with innovative startup companies with capabilities to help reopen these sectors quickly and safely. The program is funded by the SPRINT Challenge, a grant program of the U.S Economic Development Administration. PNWER along with their partners at the Washington Information Technology Association, Alaska Travel Industry Association, and Future Borders Coalition have implemented an accelerator that connects the Northwest innovation economy to the TPATH industries. ABOUT PNWER The Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) is a public/private non-profit organization created by statute in 1991. Member jurisdictions include Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and Washington, and the Canadian provinces and territories of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, and Yukon. PNWER's mission is to increase the economic well-being and quality of life for all citizens of the region, identify and promote "models of success, and serve as a conduit to exchange information. PNWER is a registered nonprofit in the state of Washington and will not receive equity in any of the startups that participate in the Congregate program. ABOUT SPRINT GRANT The Congregate Solutions Accelerator is funded by the Scaling Pandemic Resilience through Innovation and Technology (SPRINT) Challenge Grant, which was awarded to PNWER by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration. ###
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