Lofty Ventures

Science On Call is a subscription-based tech support platform for restaurants. Help with POS, internet, Wi-Fi, online ordering & more—just one call or text away, even on nights & weekends! A Techstars Farm to Fork Accelerator portfolio company (2021), Food Foundry (2020)

Mycocycle is an environmental remediation company that offers a process to decarbonize waste streams using fungi via mycoremediation. Treatment through our engineered ecosystems renders a non-toxic biomass available for use in the manufacture of new products. Our clients are waste management companies, landfill operators, material recycling facilities, manufacturers of petrochemical materials who want to become closed-loop in their process, and advanced materials manufacturers.

SmartCert supports the entire product development lifecycle and optimizes and accelerates parts purchasing and selling for global supply chains. The network’s unparalleled offering of lot traceability in the sub-tier supply chain sets it apart as a catalyst for exponential growth, welcoming over 100 new companies monthly and enabling seamless document transmission across 25+ diverse industries.

ANKA is a platform to discover, buy, and sell African fashion, arts, and crafts. ANKA’s goal is to allow African creation lovers to live their passion while allowing the creators to live from theirs. ANKA facilitates transactions and exchanges directly between buyers and sellers on both sides of the world, in a user-friendly and secure way.

Project Admission is a tech platform that works directly with the live event industry to expand ticket distribution. By helping brands, influencers, and fans buy and sell authentic tickets through direct and social channels, we capture more revenue, reach new audiences, and collect more data through identity-based ticketing.

Take 400 seconds and listen to the PechaKucha story: pechakucha.com/presentations/pechakucha-company-overview. PechaKucha (Japanese for ‘chit chat’) has over 65,000 sign-ups for our new beta product, PK Create, that helps people become better storytellers (think Twitter meets Pinterest) and produce better virtual events (think Zoom with TED Talks, but democratized and more fun). Our growth is all organic and we’ve been able to build a brand known by content creators and event hosts all over the world (140+ countries). Sean Smyth, CEO, has 20+ years in tech, most recently an early employee at Groupon who served as a global GM/VP; John Brooks, CTO, former start-up CEO with 20+ years dev experience. We're based in Chicago with a small community management team in Tokyo. We’re raising a $3M Seed and looking to connect with investors interested in consumer/media/social.

Ascent builds life-saving technology for first responders, delivering real-time location and physiological alerting through the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) platform. Its software integrates with smartwatches to enhance firefighter safety, accountability, and operational decision-making on the ground. Ascent’s technology is deployed across major U.S. metro departments and is expanding internationally through partnerships with OEMs and distributors. Backed by government contracts and venture funding, Ascent is redefining situational awareness for emergency response.

Inverse is a metaverse game platform and studio building the next-generation of digital community and social experiences. These experiences include virtual events, multiplayer games, and branded worlds on web/mobile that can be customized, monetized, and augmented by NFTs.

Kanary provides solutions to assist people in protecting their digital identities. Kanary detects and removes unnecessary personal data from any website that could put people in danger. Kanary monitors the locations of people's data on the internet. Kanary specializes in data used in account takeovers, impersonation attempts, and spam.

Upkey is a provider of remote career readiness and talent engagement tools for students, universities, and companies. The company's platform provides students with innovative tools including personal branding services and materials, vast network reach of jobs and opportunities, and on-demand services based on professional needs, enabling competitive candidates to polish, present, and brand themselves more effectively and amplifies their success in transitioning into the professional world. UpKey was founded in 2016 by Amir Badr, Mark Pawloski, and Mo Bitar.

ReloShare is the first and only alias-based hotel booking platform for government and social services organizations. The company's software includes capabilities such as real-time inventory display, client booking, billing, and more. ReloShare's real-time instant booking transforms a time-consuming procedure that is now measured in days into a simple process that is measured in minutes.

Fluent Forever is a mobile application that builds the most powerful language learning platform. This revolutionary app help to learn any language fast and retain it forever.

Retail Aware develops a real-time, sensor-informed analytics platform to help brands and retailers analyze and track information to determine the actions they need to take. Its sensor analytics platform provides shelf-level data on impressions, dwell time, product engagement, and audience demographics, and operational factors such as temperature and stock outages without the use of cameras.

Resonado Labs develops innovative audio hardware solutions that deliver a wide spectrum of new possibilities for sound reproduction. We are on a mission to bring real innovation to the audio market, starting at the hardware level. We have developed audio hardware products ranging from miniaturized sub-woofer drivers for all-in-one integrated sound bars to long range sonic projection arrays capable of delivering a hyper directed sound beam audible at distances of over 1500m. With a core focus on transducer design and engineering, we are capable of high velocity innovation and development on a never ending quest to continually improve the acoustic performance of our products through endless experimentations with materials, motor structure architectures, industrial and system designs. We are pushing our proprietary transducer technology into new industries through both simulation engineering environments and rapid prototyping with physical materials on site at our Chicago headquarters and in conjunction with our commercial partners.

Inverse is a metaverse game platform and studio building the next-generation of digital community and social experiences. These experiences include virtual events, multiplayer games, and branded worlds on web/mobile that can be customized, monetized, and augmented by NFTs.