“The most successful entrepreneurs I know are optimistic. It’s part of the job description.” — Caterina Fake, Flickr co-founder
Today’s issue:
June 9, 2020
ACCELERATING OPPORTUNITIES
Aviatra: Full-service accelerator for female entrepreneurs 
Photo by fotoinfot for Shutterstock
In Southwest Ohio, there are a number of organizations that provide entrepreneurs with a variety of resources. The mission of Covington-based nonprofit Aviatra Accelerators empowers underrepresented entrepreneurs—women—and is one of the few full-service accelerators that is industry-agnostic and focused on women.
Women come to Aviatra at all stages of their startup journey. Aviatra helps them develop a business plan, monetize their business, and connect with other people and organizations that can provide direction. More established entrepreneurs return to Aviatra when they’re ready to prepare for funding, growth, and future plans.
“We help women across all industries at any stage of their business cycle. I always say, ‘We help from idea to exit and everything in between,’” said Nancy Aichholz, President and CEO of Aviatra.
The nonprofit has an impressive board of directors as well. “I have the best board of directors in town,” Aichholz said. “The board provides fiduciary oversight and they are great ambassadors for our mission. They help our entrepreneurs connect with funding sources and get support from other organizations.”
APPLIED INGENUITY
Reimagining home sales 
Photo by Andy Dean Photography for Shutterstock
Despite upheaval from COVID-19, residential real estate is still the largest industry in the U.S. economy, with an estimated market value of almost $30T.
The annual price tag for commissions that go to real-estate companies and agents is about $300M in Cincinnati alone. Home buyers and sellers often get frustrated in what they're paying for in terms of the services offered by these firms. And there has been little innovation to change this legacy business model.
This may be changing soon. Enter Homeshake, a start-up that offers the first peer-to-peer home sales platform, removing realtors from the equation while enabling homeowners and buyers to become more active in the process. It was created by real estate professionals and technologists with the aim of creating a disruptive (and better) process.
The idea for such a new service came from Nick Rabin, an experienced real-estate executive in the Cincinnati area. His idea was then transformed to an actual operating company through the help of Cintrifuse, which brought together subject matter experts and industry professionals to further vet the idea in a Design Sprint, which was held at Cintrifuse’s Union Hall.
Homeshake’s website allows homeowners to upload photos, videos, and floor plans. Homeshake provides contract and closing services to help homeowners throughout the entire selling process, also making it easier for buyers.
The service will soon be expanding to other cities and all homes in Hamilton County have a profile on the company’s website.
Fleet vehicle management gets smart
Many of us find maintaining our own personal vehicle or vehicles daunting enough. But imagine trying to maintain an entire fleet of vehicles, ensuring that they stay on the road to meet your customer needs.
Mike Albert Fleet Solutions took a look at those maintenance needs and has announced the launch of AlbertIQ, a proprietary analytics platform that monitors the mechanical health of fleet vehicles.
The AlbertIQ platform uses serverless technologies to merge telematics data with the expertise of the Mike Albert ASE-certified maintenance team to provide fleet administrators with a prioritized list of mechanical issues and open recalls that need attention.
Fleet administrators can now resolve potential problems earlier to increase safety, prevent costly repairs, minimize driver downtime, ensure compliance, maximize vehicle life, maintain vehicle resale value, prevent missed customer appointments, and protect their company’s brand image.
In addition to vehicle health monitoring, the software also monitors the behavior of every vehicle in the fleet, tracking vehicle usage outside of business hours, and when daily and trip stops are exceeded, for example. It even watches the driver’s driving habits, making sure that best practices are followed with respect to driving, such as braking, cornering speeds, and more.
Monitoring vehicle health, vehicle behavior and driver behavior empowers fleet operators to protect their people and their assets and also allows a more streamlined maintenance strategy.
COVID-19 Watcher helps track disease cases A pair of University of Cincinnati students have developed an interactive dashboard app that tracks COVID-19 cases and deaths using data gathered by the New York Times. The app, called COVID-19 Watcher, was created by Benjamin Wissel, a student in the UC College of Medicine's Medical Scientist Training Program, and Pieter-Jan Van Camp, MD, a doctoral student in the Biomedical Informatics Graduate program. It offers a visual representation of data on every county and 188 metro areas in the US and allows users to compare disease progression between different cities and view per capita data.
“People are connected and viruses spread through city infrastructures,” Wissel said. “Our app is especially relevant in places like Cincinnati, whose metro area is split between three different states. The public benefits from additional sources that can provide up-to-date COVID-19 data for the country, state, county and city level.”
LET'S MAKE A DEAL
Cincy software startup ConnXus has been acquired Supply chain software startup ConnXus, located in Cincinnati, has been acquired by Coupa Software, which is based in California. ConnXus says it doesn’t plan any major changes that will affect buyers and suppliers, but that its products will now be supported by Coupa.
In an email to its customers, ConnXus said, “This acquisition is an exciting milestone for both of our companies. We are excited about the synergies that Coupa and ConnXus will bring to your supplier management efforts.”
The ConnXus platform “connects large enterprises with minority and women-owned suppliers,” as well as identifying those that are “veteran, disability and LGBT-owned.”
The company raised about $11.2 million in venture capital before being acquired, which landed it a spot on the “Greater Cincinnati's best-funded startups” list published by the Cincinnati Business Courier.
Details of the acquisition weren’t disclosed, but the company says it will provide more information during a webinar on June 24th.
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