By Camas Frank ~

Cal Poly’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) partnered with Softec and the regional Economic Vitality Corp. to host the Fifth Annual TechPitch competition Oct. 21 and promote startups in San Luis Obispo.

Some big news as the event got under way was the announcement that the CIE’s Hothouse and Business Incubator Program this year will accept applications from small businesses not related to the University. Applications for the next period are due Nov. 22.

The TechPitch itself already had no such restrictions. Start-ups peddling new ideas in need of support competed for $5,000 and a chance to go on to pitch to Angel investors down the line. The audience also voted a la Dancing with the Stars, via cell phone for a crowd favorite.

Of course, for the six presenters, the chance to pitch at the competition and raise their profile to a half-full Alex Madonna Expo Center was the real prize going in.

The competitors were:

• Bottlefly — a software company for use inside supermarkets as a wine sales kiosk to target recommendations for shoppers. These entrepreneurs made the rather dubious claim that they’d invented a proprietary computer program capable of breaking down tastes. If that system functions as described, no doubt industry and government could use it for a myriad of more interesting applications than wine sales.
• Flume — an engineering company that developed a non-invasive water meter attachment to relay water usage data to the homeowner at home and on the go. The system has the potential to reduce water use by warning about leaks and monitoring trends. The City of SLO’s Utilities Department is looking into field testing the device with its customers.
• Ground Level Data — the lone drone-related company on the board, uses computer aided renderings to analyze data recorded on flights over farm fields and predict crop life cycles. They advertise 5%-8% yield increases, although large corporate farms in the Midwest already employ staffers to provide similar services.
• Higea Technologies — the winner of the overall contest — uses a proprietary magnetic nanotechnology to separate oil from contaminated water. Inspired by the 2010 Deep Water Horizon or Gulf Oil Spill its eventual goal it’s to clean up oceanic oil spills quickly, cheaply and in a more environmentally friendly manner than the detergents or crude mechanics in use at the time. While the judging panel found the promise of Higea to be the most “world changing,” the company will have to deal with years of EPA testing and federal approval processes. It will use the $5,000 prize money to file its first patent.
• N8SteinCo — Nate Stein, the crowd favorite of the contest, has developed a product to help restaurants, “significantly reduce the amount of water and time that food service workers use to pre-rinse dirty dishes.” Stein had the idea after years of working in his father’s catering business. A simple but effective solution, he has the industry connections and suppliers to build an easy-to-install unit with replaceable brushes.
• And lastly, Welkio — a visitor sign-in software company for offices aims to replace traditional company sign-in books with a techy front desk sign-in process. Thirty-five companies worldwide have signed up for subscriptions to the service.