January Showcase and Pitch Pit

Mouvit Showcase Presentation

Milan Bidare is the Founder and CEO of Mouvit, a startup that has developed an autonomous robot platform that lowers the development cost for companies entering the autonomous mobility space. Mouvit’s first application, a food & beverage vending bot for entertainment venues, was developed by a team with 100+ years of collective experience in business, technology, and product development, to prove out the technology for the beachhead market and bring early revenues to the company prior to the scaling up of the platform commercialization strategy. 

Milan’s position at Mouvit has involved mainly strategic business planning and execution, along with software development. With her strong background in engineering, she has led technical and non-technical teams to reach strategic goals. She obtained a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University, where she performed research in the Multi-Robot Systems Lab to implement a deep-learning based solution for improving vehicle mapping. As a woman entrepreneur, she is committed to supporting women in tech and bringing autonomous mobility to the masses. 

Pitch Pit

Selected entrepreneurs will each give a four-minute pitch of their business idea to a panel of investor judges in a “Shark Tank” format. Prototypes and visual aids are encouraged but no PowerPoint presentations. After each pitch, the judges will give detailed feedback and score the business. At the end of the evening, the person with the highest score will receive a $250 cash prize.

Competitors

Patricia Deldin - Mood Lifters. We offer a cutting edge, science-based wellness program that teaches people how to live happier, healthier lives. Our comprehensive approach is designed to address the complex biological, psychological, and social causes and consequences of mental health challenges. Our research shows that participants typically experience decreased depression, anxiety, or stress.

Arnold Kadiu – Intermode. We’re designing and building the Modal platform—a standardized electric vehicle platform with a marketplace of upfits and operating solutions to enable the future ecosystem of driverless goods movement. We work with each customer to fully understand their needs. Under it all, we built our standard EV skateboard like a car.

Jordan Shamir – BotNot. Our team has expertise successfully fighting bots at some of the largest retailers and has designed BotNot to enable Shopify Stores to prioritize their consumers to increase lifetime value, brand affinity and achieve better data fidelity. BotNot analyzes purchases in real-time without interrupting the user, eliminating the need for additional CAPTCHAs or frustrating tests.

Christien White - Imagine Chat. Through a Facetime-style video call, our mobile app gives kids the chance to speak with new and familiar superhero and fairytale characters, to help kids explore their emotions in a meaningful, impactful, and on-demand way. We will feature familiar characters who are in the public domain, such as Cinderella, as well as original characters.

Judges

Soha Khedkar is a dual MBA/MPH candidate at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. She currently serves as an Investment Associate on the student-led Zell Lurie Commercialization Fund, which invests in seed stage startups in the SE Michigan community. Prior to business school, Soha spent her career in healthcare strategy and operations at DaVita, a Fortune 500 healthcare provider, where she collaborated closely with operators and experts to create and develop large patient care solutions. Soha has a personal passion for tackling some of the largest challenges in healthcare access and equity, and has served on the boards of the Mental Health Association (SE Florida) and the American Red Cross (CO & WY).

Dave Morin is a serial entrepreneur, executive and consultant.  He has co-founded multiple software companies and through his firm, Care Technology Advisors, provides advisory services to technology firms, universities and researchers on commercialization and growth strategies.  Dave is the Chairperson of Samaritas, one of Michigan’s largest nonprofit health and human services agencies and serves on the boards of MichBio and AlertWatch.

‘Tember Shea, is Portfolio Manager at Invest Detroit Ventures. ‘Tember joined ID Ventures as Portfolio Manager October 2018 and focuses on actively supporting IDV’s portfolio companies. ID Ventures is the most active early stage investor in the state and has invested in over 125 Michigan-based companies across multiple sectors. Her role includes monitoring the growth of the IDV portfolio and actively working with IDV’s existing companies to help improve their opportunities for success. ‘Tember was previously responsible for leading inGAGE™, Inforum’s strategy to position Michigan as the Midwest hub for high-growth women entrepreneurs. ‘Tember led Inforum’s statewide membership cultivation and engagement strategy for more than 2,000 members and 80 companies.

Passionate about strengthening and diversifying the entrepreneurial eco-system in Southeast Michigan, ‘Tember utilizes her skills, experience and network to transform and connect the community. She attended Central Michigan University and the Venture Capital Institute. She serves on the board of the New Enterprise Forum (NEF) and is a member of the Venture Capital Platform Community.

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