Seven Promising Startups Pitched, But a Special Highlight Was the Collaboration and Networking During and After

by Graeme Thickins, Board Member, MinneAnalytics

It was the 18th Startup Showcase session I’ve hosted over the past twelve years at MinneAnalytics conferences, giving a platform to close to 200 startups over that time. Many of those startups have gone on to success, with more than a dozen already acquired (and one worth $3.5B as a public company today). The innovation just keeps flowing in our community, with data and AI continuing to play a major role in the success of our startup businesses here in Minnesota and beyond.

Yes, the pitches were fascinating. But what was especially notable this time was the interaction of the audience with the startups – and with each other – before, during breaks, and after the session. The buzzing was extraordinary! Far more than I’ve noticed at previous sessions. A special thank you to all who pitched – and to the attendees!

• Agent Agnes showed us an A2A (Agent-to-Agent) enablement platform for SMBs that allows them to be discoverable and transactable with other agents.
• CanaryAI is developing applied intelligence that builds predictive AI for kidney care, identifying patients at risk of deterioration and readmission, enabling earlier intervention and reducing avoidable hospitalizations. (Currently in the Mayo Platform Accelerate program.)
• Gudea presented its “stormtracker for the Internet,” a predictive narrative intelligence platform to equip organizations to detect emerging disinformation and anticipate threats before they escalate — preventing and mitigating crises.
• Intelligible connects your data to AI via a database layer of reasoning primitives. It converts structured enterprise data into reusable components that AI systems reason over directly, capturing institutional knowledge and enabling reliable analysis.
• Print Profit showed how it gives owners in the global printing industry real-time visibility and clear actions to improve performance. Acting as a smart co-pilot, it helps turn data into decisions, and decisions into profit.
• Rocket Inventory brings its decades of enterprise warehouse management systems expertise to SMBs by simplifying complex capabilities into an easy-to-use platform powered by real-time data, modern technology, and AI to help manage inventory and SKUs.
• SaffronHealth AI told us that nearly 70% of the $5T total cost of healthcare in the U.S. is preventable. It is addressing systemic inefficiencies by transforming fragmented data into actionable intelligence.

Here’s wishing all the best to these startups! You can access PDFs of all seven pitch decks, plus those of two special speakers we featured, Michael Petersen and Pat Dillon, here at this link.

After the pitches, we also heard from two VCs on how AI has, and hasn’t, changed venture investing – a big thank you to Grant Gibson of Great North Ventures, and Garrett Lauderdale of Idea Fund of La Crosse.

See you at our next Startup Showcase!