Austin FC and Q2 Announce Dream Starter Competition Finalists

Five Austinite entrepreneurs are one step away from a six-figure boost to their start-up endeavors: Adrianna Cantu, Anthony Gantt, Roman Gonzalez, Beth White, and Hope Young. 

They are finalists in the first Austin FC Dream Starter Competition -- a joint initiative between Austin FC and official community partner Q2 Holdings Inc., in collaboration with DivInc.  

Cantu, Gantt, Gonzalez, White and Young will participate in a Pitch Contest on June 10 at Q2 Stadium, from which one winner will be chosen to receive $100,000 to jumpstart and/or accelerate their new business venture.  

Launched in May, the competition will occur annually and recognize local entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups whose ingenuity and vision enrich the whole Austin community. Below is a summary of the five businesses.  

Adriana Cantu, Founder | Company Web Site

Revealix helps prevent diabetic wounds and amputations through a mobile imaging & virtual patient monitoring platform. Their Diabetic Foot Health as a Service provides the missing digital infrastructure to scale prevention across physician practices, health systems and communities, both nationally and globally. 

 We have a global, national and public health crisis at our feet, particularly for communities of color. Every 20 seconds, someone loses a lower limb to diabetes. In the US alone, we spend $109 billion every year on diabetic foot disease complications These complications are the leading driver of avoidable emergency room and hospital admissions for people with diabetes. 

Hispanic and Black Americans experience amputation rates 2-8 times greater than their non-POC counterparts. Eighty-five percent of these complications are preventable if we can identify the risk early enough and then provide timely referrals and treatment. With Revealix’s innovative Thermal Signature & Mapping Technology, doctors can conduct a quick and valid foot check to pick up on eminent and future risks of diabetic foot complications.  

Revealix will make diabetic foot health simple, smart and scalable. 

Founder, Anthony Gantt | Company Web Site

Every year, half a million service members relocate with little to no help to decrease the intense stress that comes with moving. At Ease is changing how federal travelers (civilian & military) look for temporary lodging arrangements during relocation moves and temporary travel.  

We provide active-duty military members, their families, Department of Defense employees, military contractors, and federal employees with traditional and alternative accommodations which meet Federal regulations.  

Our booking platform distinctively addresses the needs of our travelers with unprecedented ease-of-use, reimbursement transparency, and reliability. We diversify accommodation listings on our all-exclusive distribution channel. Partners who list their properties are seeing increased revenue by hosting our heroes. For the federal traveler seeking vacation rentals to hotels because the dollars stretches further, their family will have more room with more privacy, and needing assurance with reimbursements, using our booking platform puts them...At  Ease!  

Having to move multiple times a year can be terribly disorienting and stressful. At Ease helps those who serve and protect us, feel at home. 

Founder, Roman Gonzalez | Company Web Site

Gardenio is a new kind of garden club membership for new food growers. Every three months, we send you everything you need to grow your own organic food at home with app-based tools and support to help you as you grow. We’re on a mission to reconnect people to their food, their neighbors, and themselves.  

In your first season with Gardenio, you tell us about your setup, and we’ll send you three "plantkits" including a container and saucer made from rice hulls, a live organic plant based on your preferences, the right premium soil and mulch to match it, and a plant guide. If your plant dies for any reason in the first 90 days - that's all good, we'll send you another one. And you get continual 1:1 support via our app for any issues that arise. Every three months we send you a new plantkit for your garden and continue the journey. With Gardenio, you don’t have to grow it alone. 

Founder and CEO, Beth White |Company Web Site

The global pandemic changed the how and where we work overnight. Employees have moved from busy offices to remote work in their homes. Companies are now managing their people from distributed locations across the world.  

Yet, the model for employee support and engagement has not changed, and it is inefficient, costly, and hinders productivity and engagement. Today, when employees need internal assistance, they are asked to send an email to HR or create an IT help desk ticket … and wait for a response, sometimes hours or days later. This model does not allow for immediate answers and live agent support is often cost-prohibitive.  

With MeBeBot, employees receive instant answers to their IT, HR, Ops and Sales Enablement questions. Their valuable time is spent on customers, generating revenue and strategic work, while cutting costs related to employee support. 

MeBeBot's Intelligent Assistant is "like the Alexa for the workplace." MeBeBot seamlessly installs (in Microsoft Teams, Slack or as a web chat) to automate answers to employees' frequently asked questions. What makes MeBeBot special is our AI platform, that includes a dashboard with real-time usage data and insights, with managed services to ensure accuracy of answers to drive employee adoption. 

MeBeBot's vision is to automate tedious workflows and administrative processes while providing valuable insights, to drive the human capital health of any organization. 

Founder, Hope Young | Company Web Site

Millions of U.S. residents are struggling with loss of mobility due to a neurologic condition such as a stroke, Cerebral Palsy, or Parkinson's disease. These conditions cause walking to become so impaired the person falls and these falls cause a devastating health decline. The problem is also accelerating rapidly globally, especially in the aging 65 and over demographic. 

Biomedical Music Solutions, Inc. (BMS) is a SaaS technology-enabling services company that disrupts traditional therapy by delivering effective, non-pharmaceutical treatment options. By precisely applying music to activate areas of the brain related to desired medical outcomes, BMS’s SoundStep™ helps individuals improve their gait, improve their balance, and reduce falls. 

So far we have over 500,000 global users who have improved their walking and balance. Many users no longer need walkers or canes. Some even run again. Over nine independent studies have been published, three of them in leading medical science journals in the last year with 100% of these published studies showing improved gait and balance when using Soundsteps™. 

SoundSteps™ uses proprietary audio outputs that were composed and recorded by a team of leading musicians assembled by BMS' founder and world-renowned music therapist Hope Young. 

Q2’s mission to build strong and diverse communities by strengthening their financial institutions aligns with Austin FC’s community pillar of inclusivity through equity. In collaboration with DivInc and its aim to connect underrepresented entrepreneurs with the resources needed to build profitable, high-growth companies, the Austin FC Dream Starter funds will aid Austinites in overcoming financial barriers to attain entrepreneurial success. 

The Pitch Contest, held at the Q2 Field Club in Q2 Stadium, will consist of a panel presentation. Each finalist presentation will be evaluated by a diverse selection of representatives from Austin FC, Q2 Holdings Inc., DivInc and other executives from the Austin entrepreneurial community. The inaugural Austin FC Dream Starter winner will be announced to the public and honored with a check presentation during halftime at the Austin FC vs. San Jose Earthquakes match presented by Q2 on June 19.