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Three women-owned startups will vie for a piece of $25,000 in EOSERA’s second EmpowHERment Pitch Competition on Nov. 14.
Audiolo, Bairitone Health, and Hangio were selected from a pool of applicants to pitch to three judges in front of a live audience during Global Entrepreneurship Week at the UNT Health Science Center’s Next Offices in Fort Worth.
Elyse Dickerson
First place will take home a $15,000 prize, and second place will earn $10,000. Prize winnings are sponsored by Simmons Bank and Higginbotham, respectively.
“Thanks to our sponsors, we are excited to have bigger and better prizes this year for our amazing applicants,” said Elyse Dickerson, CEO of EOSERA. “My dream was to provide the same opportunities that jump-started my business to other female entrepreneurs, and it's incredible seeing it become a reality. I want to wish each finalist the best of luck; there's some tough competition, but that's what makes it interesting.”
In addition to presenting sponsor Simmons Bank and Higginbotham, partners include Satori Capital, Tech Fort Worth, and UNT Health Science Center. Get tickets for the event here.
According to a press release, Audiolo is a first-of-its-kind web application that automates audio-asset management for animation studios like Netflix, Sony, and Nickelodeon, accelerating the entire production pipeline and saving studios millions of dollars per show.
Bairitone Health, based in Houston, is in minimal viable product stage with an ongoing clinical study. They have team, timing, and tech alignment to unlock a bottleneck on sleep apnea therapeutic delivery in a billion-dollar beachhead market.
The Hangio Hanger, made in Texas, can be bent in more than six ways to store delicate tops like turtlenecks and knitwear, can hold up to a one pound of clothing, and is travel friendly.
EOSERA is a biotech company targeting under-addressed healthcare needs in the ear care space. The company’s products are available in more than 28,000 stores nationwide and online. It recently formally opened its new headquarters in south Fort Worth.
These pitch competitions can be pivotal for startups.
Just ask Dickerson.
Before Dickerson and business partner Joe Griffin got Earwax MD off the ground and onto retail shelves, they had spent months in a laboratory on the campus of the UNT Health Science Center, where they had leased space. During that time, they had worked repeatedly with all kinds of wax and had finally found one formula they had developed that worked consistently on the various kinds of earwax.
Having collected “robust test tube data,” it was time to run a human clinical trial, but the principals of this self-funded project winced just a little when they were told the price tag of this part of research and development: $50,000.
It just so happened Dickerson saw an advertisement for a pitch competition in Dallas, hosted by the Dallas Entrepreneur Center and Comerica Bank.
The top prize: $50,000.
“This is where being an athlete and super competitive paid off,” says Dickerson, who earned 12 varsity letters while a student at Fort Worth Country Day, Class of 1993. “I went to my business partner and said, ‘I’m going to win that thing.’ I spent months on this eight-minute pitch. I ended up being one of the five finalists and got to pitch in front of a panel of judges, and we had literally eight minutes. It was a big room full of people and a panel of judges.
“I got up and pitched, nailed it, and we won the $50,000.”