Tampa Bay tech startup hub announces fall accelerator cohorts

Earlier this week the Tampa Bay Innovation Center in Pinellas County announced the ninth iteration of its accelerator program for early stage B2B startups. The goal is to provide the founders of nine different companies specific training and mentoring in customer discovery, product strategy, investor readiness and market validation.

“The TBIC B2B accelerator focuses on the basic blocking and tackling that every tech startup should master. Our program helps founders perform targeted customer discovery, identify their most likely early adopters and develop both a product and go-to-market strategy that puts them on a path to sustainable revenue,” says Ken Evans, managing director of the accelerator program in the statement. “We recruit startup founders who have identified an opportunity to build products that improve productivity by creating or leveraging emerging technologies.”

The participating companies 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

At the end of the course, each of the founders will have the opportunity to present their company to a panel of judges at the Innovation Showcase, which will take place at the ARK Innovation Center on Nov. 2. 

The Tampa Bay Innovation Center is a nonprofit founded in 2003. In October 2021, the 45,000 square-foot ARK Innovation Center opened its doors in St. Petersburg.