Innovation Center selects startups for fall ’24 B2B cohort

The Tampa Bay Innovation Center will launch its ninth accelerator program cohort for early-stage B2B (business to business) startups Wednesday.

B2B startups are building products targeted at businesses, as opposed to consumers. “It is a rather broad term, but for our programs, we look for products that appeal to medium – larger enterprise customers,” said accelerator program managing director Ken Evans. “Our workshops are tailored to helping these startup founders create product and go-to-market strategies so that they are capable of delivering solutions that work well for that size market opportunity-slash-customer.”

Nine bay area tech startups have been identified for the Fall 2024 cohort, which focuses on “assisting founders with the skills needed to launch and scale innovative products,” Evans said.

“This generally means that their solution can scale to a large number of users and locations, the product meets the security standards for an industry, the product can integrate with existing enterprise systems, the product is accompanied by professional services and training to assist in the successful adoption and use of the product, and the product is priced and purchased in a manner that is compatible with their customers’ policies and processes.”

The startups are:

BluOcean Innovation – SaaS product for business process optimization and forecasting

Depth AI – Reducing human error and streamlining medical imaging for better patient care

Job Phaze – Assisting hiring manager with better tools for candidate matching

Pathogens.ai – Enabling agriculture labs with AI-assisted models for pathogen detection

Perimeter Health – Tracking variants of unknown significance (VUS) in genetic testing results

Solar Design Lab – Reducing the cost and delays in the design and engineering of solar systems

Tampa Deep Sea – Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) for research and marine services

TECHG-X – Identifying risks associated with climate change and weather-related events

TerraChat – SaaS platform for workforce and job management in the landscaping industry

The Tampa Bay Innovation Center has been working with the tech startup community for almost 20 years; however, the formal accelerator was started in late 2019. There are usually two cohorts per year.

“We focus mainly on product-market fit,” Evans said, “which is technology agnostic. “While the industry buzzwords and hype may change monthly, the basic blocking and tackling skills needed to turn an opportunity into a business venture do not change significantly from technology to technology.”