by Graeme Thickins, MinneAnalytics Board Member

I was honored to again host our recurring startup pitch session. It was our 16th such session in the past decade. Over this time, we’ve had the opportunity to give a platform to more than 150 promising startups. The majority of these startups have gone on to success, collectively raising millions and creating thousands of jobs. A dozen of them have already been acquired. At this year’s Data Tech, we featured ten Seed to Series A startups across a variety of verticals, all having a strong data or AI focus. After the event, I asked the presenters what was one good thing that happened to them as a result of participating. Here’s what they said:

AngioInsight (bringing Ai to the cardiac catheter lab) – Sukirt Thakur, Senior Engineer:
“One great outcome for us was the opportunity to connect with a number of potential collaborators who are genuinely excited about applying advanced modeling and AI to cardiovascular health. The event brought together a uniquely engaged and informed audience who shared their invaluable feedback, which will help us grow.”

Babbl Labs (building a mass video intelligence engine) – Ramsey Shaffer, Founder/CEO:
“I got wonderful feedback from a few attendees, and a few investor/sales prospect meetings came out of our presentation. Learned a lot from some of the other presenters. Couldn’t have asked for anything better!”

Biometrica Health (delivering live, device-agnostic remote patient monitoring) – Anthony Dann, CEO:
“This event brought together exactly the kind of conversations we need more of—practical, data-driven insights applied to real healthcare challenges. It was an honor to share Biometrica’s work. Grateful to be part of a community so committed to moving the industry forward.”

Bloom Standard (a small, one-minute ultrasound device w/AI software for the front lines of care) – Annamarie Saarinen, Cofounder/CEO:
“I had the chance to catch up with VC Dave Dalvey in person. Even though we’ve been connected for a while, I had been waiting to reach back out once we were at Series A. It is always best to see someone in person versus just an email. It was exciting to hear he’s still interested in Bloom and our progress.”

HEARTio (predicting heart attacks with patented AI) – Michael Leasure, CEO:
“It was an awesome experience that brought together a lot of highly technically minded people for strong discussion around the use of AI in particular. I certainly learned a lot, not just from the panelists and the attendees but the other presenters as well — ways to present things I hadn’t thought about, ways people are thinking about issues, etc. It was a cool event, and way bigger than I was expecting.”

Objective Bio (what do you get when you marry a microscope with a robot?) – James Grabau, CEO:
“I connected with a JP Morgan representative at the VIP reception. And our R&D engineer had a new idea at the conference for a feature we can add to our Autoinjector robot. This was a good event at a very interesting venue.”

RADICL (accelerating team impact in the future of work) – Patrick Riley, Cofounder/CEO:
“The Data Tech startup session was a great opportunity to share the RADICL growth and traction story with Twin Cities technology peers and Twin Cities investors. We’ve already booked three local investor pitches within a week of the event!”

Sentinel Insights (real-time monitoring of data quality for the chaotic martech ecosystem) – Cara Caruso, President:
“We had an initial call with Rob Weber and reconnecting at the showcase was an excellent opportunity for us. I’ve been an advisor since 2022, but full time only 2 weeks at Sentinel Insights. So, learning our pitch was an excellent opportunity for me to become more entrenched with our team and messaging. And our CEO really valued the insights, as I did, from the VC panel — especially pushing us to use more AI for code development.”

The Jenny Project (on-demand simulated market research) – Matthew Walz, Founder/CEO:
“Thank you for the wonderful experience! Some good things came out of it: 1) met new founders, 2) met a potential collaborative partner and new business opportunity, and 3) met a new VC who fits our investment criteria. Overall, a wonderful experience to meet connections I otherwise would never have met.”

PDFs of the pitch decks for all ten startups are available to download at this link. Photos from the event can be viewed here.

The VC panel that followed the pitches was entitled, “How VC Investing Has Changed in the Past 5 Years – and What Startups Need to Know Today.” The panelists were Rob Weber, Managing Partner, Great North Ventures; Dave Dalvey, Managing General Partner and CEO, Brightstone Venture Capital; Mary Grove, Managing Partner, Bread & Butter Ventures; and Matt Miller, Founder & Partner, Headwater Ventures. I moderated the panel. Mary Grove captured the key takeaways very nicely in a LinkedIn post:

💡 The number of micro funds (sub $100M funds) deploying capital in the US is roughly half of what it was in 2021, driven by lack of liquidity. Valuations remain down (I’d say 20-25%, anecdotally) from the 2021 highs
💡 Continued excitement about AI and its potential, and this has also considerably lowered the pace and cost of starting new companies; investors are looking for true tech differentiation (or looking to define that)
💡 Capital efficiency is queen these days as the goal posts for raising seed, series A, and later stage rounds continue to move higher
💡 Aligning founder/investor expectations, goals and working relationship are as important as ever.

Thank you to all who attended the session! And please be sure to fill out the event survey you were sent.