Entering its ninth year in existence, entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators gathered for Bright Buffalo Niagara Entrepreneur Expo 2017 at in the newly renovated Hotel Henry on Wednesday.
At the day-long event, five finalists from a pool of 25 pitched their startup ideas to the audience. Rachel’s Remedies, a patent-pending wearable moist-heat technology that relieves pain for women breastfeeding, won the top prize of $20,000.
Recently partnering with Dr. Brown’s Baby, the company is entering the consumer market with strength and a team ready to take the product nationwide.
“This definitely opens up our channels of investors and contacts. And it spreads more than locally, so this is a great opportunity for us,” says founder and CEO Rachel Jackson.
In addition to the top prize, the People’s Choice Award, a $5,000 award, was presented to SweetSpot, an application that provides real-time parking information to users. The company uniquely uses artificial intelligence to identify parking spots moment to moment.
SweetSpot’s CMO Tamera Knight talked to UpstartNY about the future of the company.
“We got a great validation for our product that it speaks to a lot of people and the next step is getting some investor funding to launch it at UB and alleviate 40,000 people’s headaches. So that is where we would like to head next,” she says.
Bright Buffalo Niagara proved to be an exciting platform for new and upcoming Western New York entrepreneurs. The event sponsors included: Leadership Buffalo, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Upstate Venture Association of New York (UVANY), Z80 Labs and Print2Web.