Thrivant Health is the winner of the $10,000 cash prize sponsored by the Maine Technology Institute in this year’s Top Gun Showcase competition, while Grojo Inc. won an in-kind prize from Microsoft valued at over $120,000 as the highest-scoring tech company.
The Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development, along with its partners, the University of Maine, MaineStream Finance and the Lewiston/Auburn Economic Growth Council, announced the winners of this year’s Top Gun Showcase, which was held June 7 at the Abromson Center, Hannaford Hall, on the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus.
Eight participants from the Bangor, Rockport, Lewiston/Auburn and Portland Top Gun classes, representing the first- and second-place finishers from their respective regional pitch-off events, competed for the $10,000 cash prize. In addition to Thrivant Health and Grojo, the other finalists were:
- City Life Nature Kits, Orono
- Sofia Firma, Lewiston
- Girl Zone Fitness, Orono
- Herbal Revolution, Rockland
- Branding Compass, Portland
- Tempest in a Teapot, Rockland.
Entrepreneurs presented five-minute pitches to a panel of judges followed by a brief question-and-answer period. Scoring was based on presentation, innovation, scalability and feasibility.
Winner of the $10,000 cash prize was Michael Royals of Thrivant Health, which is creating a drug-based alternative to surgery to achieve animal sterilization.
Additionally, Joshua Drew of Microsoft awarded the Microsoft BizSpark prize, an in-kind award valued at over $120,000, to Jared Pinkham, Aaron Hasting and Brandon Bergman of Grojo Inc., which is building an open, connected hardware and software platform that allows small scale indoor growers to control, automate and monitor their gardens from anywhere in real-time.
Over 200 enthusiastic supporters attended the MCED’s Top Gun Showcase 2017.
“it was truly inspiring to see the level of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurial courage these companies exhibit,” Tom Rainey, executive director of MCED, said in a news release. “We expect great things from these brave entrepreneurs.”