University of Cincinnati
09/23/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/23/2026 13:59
Cincinnati entrepreneurs on the rise, with UC’s help
Cincinnati entrepreneurs on the rise, with UC's help
The UC Venture Lab's latest cohort demonstrated its business acumen on Demo Day
11 minute read September 23, 2026 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share on Reddit Print Story Like
Eight startups took the stage at the University of Cincinnati's 1819 Innovation Hub, pitching their businesses to a room filled with regional investors, entrepreneurs and business leaders, and marking a major milestone in their journey from promising ideas to scalable ventures.
Demo Day was a celebration - of business breakthroughs, milestones met and graduation from the prestigious UC Venture Lab. As members of an eight-week business accelerator program, they discovered crucial market insights, connected with skilled entrepreneurs in residence and gained essential skills for scaling their startups.
Venture Lab Demo Day was a breakout moment for these talented teams, but just one piece amid a steady stream of triumphs. Read on to learn about each of these companies' paths to success as they build Cincinnati's entrepreneurial edge.
Inlayer: Verified human communications right arrow down arrow
- Team members: Patrick Dahlstrom and James Lee
AI-driven phone scams have become increasingly, and concerningly, common.
Venture Lab graduate Inlayer wants them to become part of the past. By verifying a human's presence at the point of origin for a call, the company's founders believe AI-generated fraud and robocalls can be entirely filtered out.
Inlayer team members presenting at Demo Day. Photo/Mary Dwyer
Here's the Inlayer model:
- The caller rings the person they'd like to talk to.
- That person verifies their presence and identity with a direct, physical tap.
- Proof transfers over to the call's receiver.
- The recipient confirms the intended human was on the other end of the call and picks up.
Inlayer already serves over 45 companies, generating almost $1 million in revenue from annual subscriptions for "Phonism," its top product. The company is headquartered at the 1819 Innovation Hub, embedding itself as a critical piece of the Cincinnati Innovation District.
TissueVue: Pressure injury data collection right arrow down arrow
- Team member: Mike Jackson
For healthcare providers, getting Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement for pressure injury patients can mean navigating a maze of documentation, compliance requirements and fragmented records. TissueVue is developing a new way to bring that information together, using scanning technology to capture, document and track tissue conditions in one place.
TissueVue presenting on Demo Day. Photo/Mary Dwyer
The company's scanning device collects various pieces of critical data - which most care facilities document separately - to accurately detect, record and track pressure injuries. By doing so, TissueVue will improve the typical patient experience while simplifying processes followed by healthcare providers.
The stakes are significant for healthcare organizations seeking payment approval. More accurate, centralized documentation would make patient records easier to track, strengthen compliance challenges and consolidate injury-related evidence.
TissueVue, with its innovative scanning and documentation methods, plans to become the connective tissue holding patient records together.
ContentCraze: Short-form video creator right arrow down arrow
- Team member: Nick Ginex
Short-form videos may be everywhere, but producing them on a regular schedule remains time-consuming for creators and brands. ContentCraze hopes to ease the burden of creating TikToks, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts by turning a simple brief into a polished, ready-to-publish video, combining AI-powered production with human oversight.
ContentCraze during Venture Lab Demo Day. Photo/Mary Dwyer
The startup's platform handles much of the work behind the scenes. ContentCraze generates a script, edits the video after filming and returns a polished output.
By pairing automated production with human judgment, ContentCraze helps creators and brands produce more content, scale campaigns and maintain the quality that audiences expect.
ContentCraze delegates tasks between AI and people:
- Brands control the narrative, visuals, calls to action, payout and posting requirements.
- Artificial intelligence handles script creation and workflow at scale.
- Creators edit initial scripts and then film videos based on them.
There's already plenty of interest in ContentCraze, making it a strong match for the Venture Lab. The company boasts over 3,000 creators in its network and has multiple paying brands.
DonorStream: Political donor intelligence right arrow down arrow
- Team member: Charles Bishop
Political campaigns have thousands of potential donors in their databases, but knowing who to reach out to, when to call them and how much to ask for can be a challenge. DonorStream is designed to help campaigns turn fragmented donor information into a prioritized fundraising strategy.
Here's how DonorStream works:
DonorStream during Demo Day. Photo/Mary Dwyer
- Campaigns upload known donor and prospect records to the platform.
- DonorStream analyzes political giving records and other signals.
- The platform identifies and scores potential donors based on their likelihood to contribute.
- The result is a ranked list that helps campaigns focus their outreach for maximum impact.
For campaigns operating on tight timelines and limited resources, that prioritization can matter. DonorStream helps campaigns avoid the consequences of inefficient outreach such as missing likely donors, contacting someone too late or asking for less funding than a prospect may be willing to give.
While current platforms can help campaigns identify potential supporters, only DonorStream focuses on the next question: Which prospects are most likely to give?
Encore Arena: K-pop mobile app right arrow down arrow
- Team members: Vivian Comer, Natalie Harvey and Varsha Govardhanam
K-pop music has built a global fandom of over 150 million people, generating nearly $9.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone. But much of the K-pop industry remains rooted in physical merchandise, leaving significant money on the table from the potential digital card game market.
Encore Arena founders speaking at Demo Day. Photo/Mary Dwyer
Encore Arena sees an opportunity to tap into that passion with an interactive, online card game where fans collect, compete and connect. The startup is developing an app that allows its audience to collect digital K-pop cards featuring their favorite artists and battle other players. The startup's goal - beyond scaling successfully - is to foster relationships through a shared love of K-pop.
Inspired by the Pokemon and baseball card industries, which are well-known and highly monetized, Encore Arena aims to do the same in its own sphere. The founding team plans to generate revenue through in-app purchases, battle passes and advertising.
But for the founders, the opportunity goes beyond monetizing collectibles. They envision Encore Arena as a community where fans can share their love of K-pop, deepen their knowledge and build connections through competition and play.
Faradyne: Circuit board debugging tool right arrow down arrow
- Team members: Luv Patel and Shloka Shah
When an advanced circuit board fails, engineers can spend hours, and sometimes days, trying to find the problem. That debugging can consume up to 40% of hardware and embedded systems engineers' time, making it costly enough that companies may choose to replace defective boards rather than repair them. Venture Lab graduate Faradyne sees another path forward.
Faradyne during its Demo Day presentation. Photo/Mary Dwyer
The startup's AI-powered assistant helps engineers diagnose circuit board problems in as little as hours, combining data sheet intelligence with structured reasoning and detailed analyses. Then, Faradyne offers register-level guidance and step-by-step troubleshooting plans to rescue boards.
Faradyne adds value in multiple ways:
- Faster debugging time lets engineers focus on higher-value work.
- Companies avoid unnecessary circuit board replacements.
- Board replacement costs can be devoted elsewhere.
- Time is preserved for innovation and building shippable products.
Rather than frustrating engineers and wasting organizations' time and money, Faradyne offers a faster path from a failed board to a problem solved. By simplifying circuit board debugging, the startup is eliminating a challenge that has plagued engineers for years.
SentinelPatch: CNC bearing failure monitor right arrow down arrow
- Team members: Srividya Bade-Vinod and Samarth Saxena
For manufacturing companies, 20- to 30-year-old CNC machines aren't usually a problem - until, one day, a critical component fails without warning, bringing production to a standstill.
SentinelPatch at Demo Day. Photo/Mary Dwyer
SentinelPatch is designed to give these producers an early warning before a bearing failure turns into a costly emergency repair. The startup's tiny magnetic mount attaches to a CNC machine's bearing housing. It monitors the equipment to detect early signs of bearing failure and alerts manufacturers so they can schedule maintenance before the machine stops operating.
Setup is simple with SentinelPatch. After a 24-hour baseline period, the technology can send text alerts when it detects potential issues. This could save businesses thousands of dollars in lost production and emergency service costs.
It also addresses a growing challenge for companies relying on legacy equipment: Warranties and service contracts often exclude older CNC machines, leaving manufacturers with fewer options when something goes wrong. In filling this coverage gap, SentinelPatch's approach to predictive maintenance helps keep factories - and the machinery they depend on- running longer.
VHSMO: Retro digicam, minus the hassle right arrow down arrow
- Team members: Teja Sree Aalla, Dhruv Bhilare and Aryan Metkar
What's old is new again. The digital camera is having a very 2000s comeback.
VHSMO's presentation during Demo Day. Photo/Mary Dwyer
As young people flock to the grainy, nostalgic look of early digicams, VHSMO is designed to capture that same distinctive image without the inconveniences of early models.
The game-changer with VHSMO is an added feature digicams never had: instant wireless image transfers. Users can snap a photo and share it directly with their friends without ever needing cables or card readers.
The nostalgia is translating into strong demand, as VHSMO's Instagram page already boasts almost 30,000 followers. The startup's preorders are sold out ahead of the product's initial release, with the first digicams expected to reach customers soon.
Where startups find a path forward
Building a startup takes more than a good idea. Founders need capital, market intelligence, experienced mentors and the ability to test whether they've got a viable business plan.
The 1819 Venture Lab brings those resources together, providing Cincinnati's largest pool of nondilutive capital while helping entrepreneurs move from early-stage concepts to investable ventures. Companies exit the Venture Lab with the ability to evaluate product-market fit, pitch for startup funding on Demo Day and gain personalized innovation insights.
Founders follow one of three paths as they move through the Venture Lab:
Founders working in the 1819 Venture Lab. Photo/Steve Ziegelmeyer
- Digital Pre-accelerator: An online course intended for early-stage entrepreneurs as they seek foundational knowledge of venture-building.
- Venture Lab Accelerator: An eight-week program offering one-on-one mentorship from entrepreneurs in residence, access to exclusive market research and guidance on what it takes to launch and scale a business venture.
- Venture Lab NEXT: A 10-week cohort-based program for UC students with viable startup ideas, concluding with $10,000 in nondilutive funding.
As a top business accelerator in Cincinnati, the Venture Lab has graduated successful telehealth startups, robotics companies and AI intelligence firms, among others. Could yours be next?
Register or apply at each Venture Lab program's page to claim your place in Cincinnati's innovation ecosystem.
Frequently asked questions
What is the UC Venture Lab? right arrow down arrow
The UC Venture Lab is a business accelerator that offers training for aspiring entrepreneurs as they launch or scale their startups. It equips UC students and community members with the knowledge, funding and relationships to turn their business plans into coherent strategies.
What are the Venture Lab's programs? right arrow down arrow
There are three Venture Lab programs: the Venture Lab Pre-accelerator, the Venture Lab Accelerator and Venture Lab NEXT. The Pre-accelerator is ideal for newcomers to the startup space, while the flagship Venture Lab Accelerator is meant for founders farther along in their entrepreneurial journeys. Venture Lab NEXT, meanwhile, equips University of Cincinnati students who have strong business ideas with the funding and wisdom to succeed.
How do I apply for the UC Venture Lab? right arrow down arrow
The best way to apply for a Venture Lab cohort is by going to your specific program's homepage and filling out the application form at the bottom of each page. After that, you'll hear back from the Venture Lab team on next steps.
Featured image at top: View into the 1819 Venture Lab. Photo/Gregory Glevicky
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University of Cincinnati published this content on September 23, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on September 23, 2026 at 19:59 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]