Expanded ‘Startup Summer’ program graduates first cohort
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The Mill, a non-for-profit center for entrepreneurship in Bloomington, said this week that six collegiate business founders completed its 2023 Startup Summer program, which was expanded this year to include participants from throughout the state.
The businesses involved in this year’s cohort ranged from software to musical curriculum to energy bars.
The Startup Summer program launched in 2022 as a pilot involving business founders from Indiana University. The program, which ran from May 17 through July 26 at The Mill, provided stipends of up to $4,500 to the founders to cover housing costs, allowing them to focus solely on their businesses.
This year’s founders were celebrated during a public showcase Thursday and had the opportunity to give a five-minute pitch for their startups.
The list of founders features:
- Brady Anderson – Founder of Prospect XR, which provides a reputation system for online community building that already has thousands of users.
- Rod Baradaran – Founder of rScan, a South Bend-based company that has developed an app to reduce the amount of time it takes to sell secondhand products online. The company won the Crossroads Collegiate Pitch Competition earlier this year and reported $400,000 in revenue.
- Charlie Edmonds – Founder of Pocket, which provides musical curriculum base don traditional Black gospel music that she says is typically underrepresented in musical instruction.
- Matthew Joseph and Roscoe Bell – Founders of Noveltor, a reflective and action-based software platform for therapists to share with their clients.
- Fabian Granqvist – Founder of GrandQvist, which produces energy bars from plant-based, whole food ingredients for athletes. The company won first place at the Indiana Tech Innovation Challenge and its products are already sold at the Fort Wayne Farmers Market.
The businesses also received an investment from the Flywheel Fund, a micro-VC operated by The Mill.