AMPED competition launches

July 6, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

For the second year in a row, startup companies have a chance to grow with the local AMPED competition.

The Youngstown Business Incubator, Burton D. Morgan Foundation and America Makes launched AMPED 2016 for national and international technology startup companies.

One or more companies have a shot at winning funds from a $100,000 pot of startup funds.

“We are trying to generate more deal flow,” said Rich Wetzel, additive manufacturing business coordinator at YBI. “We are looking to create more jobs for the region.”

The competition, which has an emphasis on additive manufacturing, will run through Oct. 17.

Wetzel, whose company Freshmade 3D won $15,000 last year, said the goal is to have at least 50 applications.

Last year, 35 startups applied, with three taking home a cut of $100,000 not in a cash prize form, but in an equity investment given as the companies meet specific milestones.

Last year’s winners were: JuggerBot 3D, a YBI portfolio company that produces an affordable industrial-grade 3-D printer; Akron-based Smart 3D Solutions, a company that makes a flexible pressure sensor to embed in the insole of a shoe to provide runners with coaching tips on form; and Freshmade 3D, another YBI portfolio company that uses digital manufacturing to produce rare and custom parts for the restoration industry.

“Everyone is definitely progressing,” Wetzel said.

JuggerBot is in the process of releasing the product to the market and Smart 3D Solutions is finalizing its product. Freshmade has been involved in a project with the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber to create life-size, 3-D-printed bobblehead versions of the 2016 presidential candidates.

The support from the AMPED competition enabled Freshmade 3D to purchase software that cost $5,000.

The Burton D. Morgan foundation provides $50,000 to the competition and YBI’s grant funding covers the other half.

Startup companies awarded will be the ones with strong business and technical skills and a business model with market opportunity. To be eligible, startups must be located or relocate to one of the 21 counties of Northeast Ohio.

Applications must align with the America Makes Technology Roadmap of design, material process, value chain and additive manufacturing genome.

Additional information on the America Makes Technology Roadmap can be accessed at americamakes.us.

To submit your application to AMPED, visit https://app.reviewr.com/s1/site/AMPED2016.