Greater Cincinnati Venture Association starts 2016 with Breakfast Club at Braxton Brewery

Greater Cincinnati Venture Association kicks off its 2016 educational programming this week with the year’s first Breakfast Club. They’re held every other month to alternate with GCVA’s Joe Thirty gatherings to create a year-long schedule of educational and promotional programming for local tech startups and entrepreneurs.
 
Each Breakfast Club event features four speakers: three early-stage tech startups, who each give an eight-minute pitch about their venture, plus a “keynote” speaker talking about his/her entrepreneurship experience. They’re typically attended by between 100 and 150 entrepreneurs, investors and fans of the Greater Cincinnati startup ecosystem. The year’s first event is at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 10 at Braxton Brewery in Covington.
 
Entrepreneurs presenting at the event will include Atumsoft, a pair of chemists who launched a business to commercialize their technology allowing lab equipment to transfer data directly to the cloud. Their technology has the potential to be a major disruptor in product manufacturing and distribution.
 
Also presenting is SowOrganic, “the Turbo Tax for organic certification,” says Kevin Mackey, President of GCVA since December. The company designed software to streamline the process for growers and farmers to be certified as “organic” and for agricultural inspectors becoming certified as organic inspectors.
 
The third pitch will be given by Fanbloom, which targets social media “influencers” in specific geographic locations. The technology helps marketers effectively reach targeted audiences while still feeling very organic to audiences.
 
“We always try to curate companies who are prepared to pitch,” Mackey says. “So we ended up with all three of those because we wanted a good mix of tech startups.”
 
After the three pitches, the keynote will be given by Braxton Brewery founder Jake Rouse. His talk is designed as the morning’s educational section, a chance for early-stage startups to hear from someone else’s experiences.
 
“His story combines entrepreneurship with a specific focus on the trials and tribulations of being an entrepreneur,” Mackey says.
 
Rouse is himself a former tech entrepreneur and hasn’t entirely left that world behind in his brewing venture, since Braxton provides resources like open co-working space in its taproom to local startup entrepreneurs.
 
“One thing we’re going to be doing this year is trying some mixed-up locations,” Mackey says. “We want to highlight some more spaces that are a little more native to tech startups.”
 
Elaborating on Braxton’s involvement with and support of the tech startup scene, he adds, “People won’t usually associate a brewery with a place you might want to go in the morning, but startups work out of there every day.”
 
Despite the location, there will be no beer at the Breakfast Club event. Instead, coffee and light breakfast will be provided for those who register here.