Entrepreneurial booster CTNext last week gifted $44,000 in grants to six startups at the most recent Entrepreneur Innovation Awards (EIA) in Hartford.
A subsidiary of Connecticut Innovations, the quasi-public organization said four of the top 10 Connecticut-based startups at the event were granted $10,000 each to help them spur business growth. The event was held at Real Art Ways in Hartford.
Canterbury-based Lactation Innovations, a startup developing non-invasive sensors that record how much milk a baby ingests, won the $2,000 Crowd Favorite award. Westport’s Secure Election Systems, which developed an iPad-sized electronic absentee voting booth, won the $2,000 Judges’ Favorite prize.
The top four winners include:
- Payball (Norwalk): Developing a digital process for amateur sport teams to pay officials, event staff and coaches.
- Peak Performance Leadership (Killingworth): Creating a rope protection system for military and first responders to increase product lifespan.
- Raise Green (New Haven): Creating a crowdfunding portal to finance renewable energy and climate solution projects.
- YouCOMM (Farmington): Developing a patient-caregiver communication system that will replace outdated call bell systems.
“The EIA Awards continue to showcase some of the most innovative and promising young companies across the state,” said Glendowlyn Thames, a Hartford city councilwoman and CTNext’s executive director.
CTNext awarded $54,000 in grants to six startups at its last EIA event in September.
Based in Rocky Hill, CTNext launched in 2012 and currently has more than 2,500 members.
