After hundreds of applications – seven companies made the final cut for our annual $50k AI Pitch Competition w/ Flybridge Capital. Here they are, starting with the winner.
Winner: Nexterity
Robotics for industrial maintenance. Founder: Lindsey Elliott.
Industrial maintenance still runs on manual labor, with pipefitter crews working in extreme environments amid a worsening trade labor shortage. Nexterity’s Geometra is a 25-pound robot that clamps onto a pipe and torques four bolts at once, operated by a single technician from more than 20 feet away with a gamepad-style controller. Faster and safer than a full crew, built for the refineries and plants that need it most.
The Finalists
Conversent
Turning audio and video archives into AI training data. Founder: Bob Tacconi.
Speech audio is the gap in AI training data: no high-volume source of structured, rights-cleared speech datasets exists today. Conversent helps content producers turn their audio and video archives into exactly that. Bob built AI products at Amazon for Alexa and Kindle, so he has lived the data supply problem from the buyer’s side.
Elm AI
AI agents for supplier operations. Founder: Advait Raykar.
Supplier ops teams at major brands still run on emails, spreadsheets and tribal knowledge. Elm AI replaces that with AI agents that work around the clock on supplier onboarding, compliance and sourcing, starting with responsible sourcing, where the pain is most urgent.
Healink
AI-native care coordination for dentistry. Founder: Roza Ghamari.
Most dental treatment plans never get completed, a major revenue leak for practices. Healink is an AI-powered patient portal that keeps treatment on track. Roza spent 14 years as an engineer at Google and Meta, and her brother is a practicing dentist, so the feedback loop between clinic and product is as tight as it gets.
KredFeed
Real-time invoice financing for Mexican manufacturers. Founder: Luis Sanchez.
Mexico’s small manufacturers face a massive financing gap because banks will not lend against receivables. KredFeed, a licensed lender, gives them cash for unpaid invoices in real time, with AI handling underwriting, collections and compliance.
Mason
AI litigation intelligence. Founder: John Dema.
Mason knows what you need to prove and finds what you need to prove it. John is a veteran trial lawyer who spent years inside billion-dollar cases and built the tool he wished he had.
SAIFE
Insurance against AI failures for the mid-market. Founder: Anmol Kandola.
As AI systems make more decisions, insurers are backing away from the risk. SAIFE is building insurance against AI failures, starting with governance software that generates the risk data needed to underwrite coverage.
Congratulations to Nexterity and all the finalists. If you are a founder building something ambitious, keep an eye on Lynx Collective for the next one.