Tampa Bay ed tech companies vie for Startup of the Year honors

Educational technology companies Knack and PikMyKid are among 100 semi-finalists for Startup of the Year, a global competition and network designed to elevate and support startup founders.

The two Tampa firms will get a chance to pitch and showcase their technology at Innovate Celebrate, Oct. 15-17 in Boston. The conference is co-hosted by Consumer Technology Association and Established, a Las Vegas-based company that helps organizations with their innovation, startup and communication strategies.

“We were selected from a competitive pool of startups spanning the globe, giving us a fantastic platform to get in front of potential customers, investors, mentors and advisors,” said Samyr Qureshi, co-founder and CEO of Knack. The company has developed technology and an app to connect students in tutoring and mentoring relationships on about 40 college campuses.

PikMyKid has software to streamline the school dismissal process, and Saravana “Pat” Bhava, founder and CEO,  said he’s “humbled and excited” to be chosen from among thousands of great companies.

“Since inception, PikMyKid has constantly improved and grown with feedback from our school community,” Bhava said. “We are currently the only comprehensive school safety solution available in the market today. The features include dismissal automation, SAFER Alarm button, parent messaging, Kidio anonymous tipline and soon a tool to analyze social media feeds for potentially harmful threads needing immediate attention.”

Knack, which is about to close a seed round of funding, is focused on growth, Qureshi said.

“We’re heads down focused on growing our team, building and shipping new product releases, and expanding sales and marketing efforts as we sign on additional corporate and institutional customers,” Qureshi said.

Both Knack and PikMyKid are part of Tampa Bay Wave, a Tampa nonprofit that services and houses growing startup companies. A third Tampa Bay Wave company, OpticSurg, headquartered in New York and with an augmented reality software platform for surgeons in the operating room, also is a semi-finalist. OpticSurg was part of Wave’s recent Tech Diversity cohort.

“We couldn’t be more proud and humbled to have three Wave post-accelerator companies selected among 100 global semi-finalists for this prestigious competition,” said Rich Heruska, Wave’s interim accelerator director. “This is a testament to the region’s rapidly growing ecosystem and the talent of the PikMyKid, Knack, and OpticSurg teams.  Hardly a week goes by without a Tampa or St. Pete company making national news, and it’s inspiring to see the entire ecosystem work together for the greater good of our companies.”

Knack, PikMyKid and OpticSurg also are in the running for the event’s People’s Choice award for 2018, an open voting process that anyone can participate in. Each of the founders is ready with a pitch for votes.

“With our maniacal focus on kids’ safety at schools, voting for PikMyKid will bring into focus the glaring inadequacies in the current school systems and allow us to make a difference in schools worldwide,” Bhava said.

“Knack is considered a social enterprise and because of that we value the impact our product offering has for the public benefit beyond a profitable gain. We hope that voters value this as much as we do, and consider voting for Knack in the People’s Choice Award!” Qureshi said.

You can vote for that award here. Voting ends Monday, Oct. 8.