Health tech, urban tech startups picked for Florida-Israel Business Accelerator

Nine Israeli companies will come to Tampa for the 2020 Florida-Israel Business Accelerator launch program.

The companies are concentrated in two verticals, health tech and urban tech, that align with the strengths of the Florida economy, FIBA said in a news release. The companies collectively have raised about $38 million and are looking to raise additional funding to support their expansion of U.S. operations. Most of them are post revenue and offer cutting-edge innovation such as aging in place, non-invasive hernia repairs, high-rise window cleaning robots and smart garbage collection.

FIBA screened more than 90 companies and tapped the expertise of about 40 advisors to select the nine participating companies. They are:

AEYE Health provides an automated diagnostic screening solution that can revolutionize the scanning process and make it accessible for more patients. Over 1 billion high-risk people need an annual check, 72 million of them in the United States,  for diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and other conditions that cause vision loss. AEYE Health is the first FDA-cleared, accurate, camera agnostic, broad screening solution.

ArTack Medical is a medical device company developing a variety of tools for the minimally invasive surgery market. Their eTack device is a motorized, articulated solution for hernia mesh fixation designed for laparoscopic repair and open surgery, tackling the many drawbacks of hernia surgery. Its motorization assists surgeons by providing precise control improving anchor insertion and consistent performance. Hernia is considered to be the most common procedure in the abdomen with 10 million hernia repairs performed annually worldwide.

Milagro AI has reinvented the way that artificial intelligence is applied to predictive analytics in healthcare and how hospitals can easily leverage existing knowledge (data), making the process real-time, contextual based, faster, more accurate and population specific. Milagro AI was founded to address the ongoing problems of hospital-acquired infections and readmissions, issues that cause significant morbidity and mortality for patients and increased cost for hospitals.

Uniper-Care is an accessible tech-enabled program empowering older adults with the ability to remain at home independent, socially and physically active, healthier and happier, in an affordable way. Uniper’s program provides seniors with a daily schedule where they can join live, interactive programs; mental, social and physical meetings and sessions all accessible through any TV.

ACiiST provides secure high preforming Internet of Things data infrastructure for smart city and smart roads on every lamppost without typical disruption and prohibitive costs. Cities are becoming “smart cities” and existing solutions to connect urban smart systems are expensive and disruptive or unreliable and controlled by municipalities. ACiiST’s MetropoLAN is a distributed-network management and polarity suite that upgrade existing city lamp posts into Smart-Poles, while leveraging existing infrastructure and providing broadband and electricity around-the-clock.

Aura Smart Air LTD is an all-in-one indoor air purification and quality intelligence system. When hazards are detected, Aura sends out an alert, identifies the origin of the problem, offers solutions on how to rectify it and notifies if immediate action or evacuation is required. People today spend most of their time indoors in which the air can be up to six times more polluted than outdoor air, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Cemento is the first Software-as-a-Service tool focused exclusively on the construction of multi-unit projects. Utilizing military technology, Cemento enables contractors to build higher quality buildings more efficiently. The biggest challenge in the real-estate industry is project management, requiring tracking hundreds of thousands of tasks and checklist items. Cemento improves this process by collecting hundreds of thousands of data points, identifying failure patterns and assessing performance metrics and risk factors, predicting delays and mistakes.

GreenQ deploys cameras and sensors on garbage trucks that generate predictions about when waste will accumulate and when it needs to be picked up. Operators are alerted in real time so they can respond and plan accordingly. Unnecessary expenses, higher emissions by trucks, suboptimal route planning are all current disadvantages of waste collection today.

Skyline Robotics has automated all types of work at heights, starting with window cleaning. Window cleaning has not changed since the industry launched. Buildings have scaled dramatically in height and window surface areas continue to be cleaned the same way, creating a dangerous environment for people doing the work as well as the general public, while also being very inefficient. Skyline performs a consistent quality of work in a safe and efficient manner with robots and highly skilled technicians managing the job.

The 2020 Launch Program kicks off in Tampa Jan. 20.  The companies will all return for a road show to visit select cities around Florida from March 4 through March 11. In Tampa, the community will have an opportunity to meet the participating companies at FIBA’s Connection to Innovation at Bryan Glazer Family JCC March 10, 5:30-7:30 p.m. There will also be an opportunity to meet the urban tech companies at the Synapse Summit Feb. 12.

FIBA is a business development initiative established by the Tampa Jewish Community Centers & Federation and supported by the state, Hillsborough County and community philanthropists. The organization’s Launch Program is focused primarily on helping participating companies with U.S. market validation and sales coaching, as well as introductions to potential investors, customers and strategic partners, with a focus on assisting Israeli companies to hire and build their organizations in Florida. Two founders of FIBA alumni companies, StemRad and UC-Care, recently relocated from Israel to expand their Florida-based operations.