Tuesday, April 22

Apr 22
The W Hotel, W Nashville 300 12th Avenue South Nashville, TN 37203-4006
Southeast Venture Showcase, Day 2

SVS goes full-throttle, with the first round of startups representing the best innovations from the region’s leading universities and national lab.  Choose a sector – life sciences or physical sciences – or bounce around between sessions.  Don’t miss the morning keynote with the nation’s top venture capital firms, or the luncheon featuring Chancellor Daniel Diermeier of Vanderbilt; Commissioner Stuart McWhorter from the State of Tennessee; or the success story that is DRIVE at Emory University!

Jonathan Godfrey

Image of Jonathan Godfrey, Senior Vice President Head of Regional Commercial Banking at 5/3 Bank (Fifth Third)

Jonathan Godfrey serves as senior vice president and head of regional commercial banking.  In this role Godfrey has strategic responsibility for the middle market and business banking segments, across our national footprint.  He works directly with regional leaders to bring clients the Bank’s leading-edge solutions and extensive commercial services and is involved with the middle market expansion across the united States. 

Sponsor

5/3 Bank (Fifth Third)

Your business requires custom solutions to meet the specific moments you’re navigating. Fifth Third’s industry experts are ready to help with tools designed to make business more efficient and solutions built specifically around your goals.
Presentations

Showcase: Imagine Devices

April 22, 2025 9:25–9:45 AM
Strategy 1
Sectors
Session Type

Infants born extremely prematurely present significant clinical and population health challenges. Advances in clinical vital sign monitoring can drive improvements in survival and long-term outcomes in this vulnerable population. Our company develops a multifunctional feeding tube that simultaneously provides vital sign monitoring by sensors embedded in a feeding tube indwelling inside the patient's esophagus instead of using irritant skin-mounted sensors. Trinity tube is the next-generation solution for neonatal vital sign monitoring.

Showcase: Pike Robotics

April 22, 2025 10:25–10:45 AM
Strategy 2

Pike Robotics designs and builds inspection robots that can go into explosive atmospheres and other hazardous environments to collect necessary data, vital to repair and maintenance work. Our beachhead market is inspection of oil and oil-refined product storage tanks with robots, making the entire process safer, less costly, and more accurate, which also helps to reduce a large source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Showcase: Atlas Endoscopy

April 22, 2025 11:15–11:35 AM
Strategy 1

Atlas Endoscopy is revolutionizing gastrointestinal diagnostics with a groundbreaking robotic system that performs painless, unsedated colonoscopies using magnetic guidance and an ultra-flexible endoscope. Our innovative technology eliminates the need for sedation, decontamination, and lengthy recovery times, allowing patients to complete procedures in just 30 minutes. Designed for both upper and lower GI applications, our solution enhances accessibility, reduces healthcare costs, and increases capacity by enabling satellite center,out-of-hospital use in clinics and GP surgeries worldwide

Showcase: ProsumerGrid, Inc.

April 22, 2025 11:15–11:35 AM
Strategy 2

We provide decision support software and analytical services for the economic analysis of renewable energy resources on the electric grid. We are developing an innovative platform that can determine the optimal operational regimes and optimal deployment (as in type, location, size) options of energy resources anywhere on the grid (Transmission/Distribution/microgrid an customer).

Luncheon Keynote - "Innovation is Rarely Linear"

April 22, 2025 11:40–1:00 PM
Great Room
Session Type
Luncheon Keynote - "Innovation is Rarely Linear"

Discover the groundbreaking innovations coming out of DRIVE.  DRIVE exists to help bridge the gap between scientific discovery to helping patients. Follow the unlikely path to market of the drug MOLNUPIRAVIR, the world’s first oral direct-acting antiviral drug for COVID-19. Initially licensed to DRIVE, who guided it through IND, it was then sublicensed and eventual licensed to Merck, where it became a multi-billion success. Hear how the process generated a dynamic ongoing partnership to develop follow-on drugs of impact.

Speakers:

  • David Perryman, JD - COO of Drive Innovations
  • Dr. Todd Sherer - Associate Vice President for Research Administration, Emory University

Showcase: Orion Therapeutics

April 22, 2025 1:05–1:25 PM
Strategy 1
Sectors
Session Type

Orion Therapeutics is a delivery platform-enabled RNA therapeutics company. We pair a proprietary lipid nanoparticle GENESYS™ delivery platform that entirely excludes ionizable cationic lipids with a vascular RNA therapy pipeline. Our safe, versatile, scalable, and targeted delivery platform can be leveraged across a broad range of disease applications to advance RNA therapies to market internally and in partnership.

Showcase: Annate Bitherapeutics, Inc

April 22, 2025 1:30–1:50 PM
Strategy 1
Sectors
Session Type

Annate Bitherapeutics is developing a therapeutic platform that utilizes ApoL1, a naturally occurring component of the innate immune system. It is guided by our proprietary bispecific antibodies to become selectively lethal to cancer cells. This innovative mechanism complements existing therapies, with strong efficacy in multiple myeloma and promising preclinical results in pancreatic cancer models, demonstrating the platform’s broad potential across multiple tumor types.

Showcase: ShowerStream

April 22, 2025 1:30–1:50 PM
Strategy 2

Abstract Engineering Inc. has developed Shower Stream, an IoT smart shower that saves hotels $15 per room per month and prevents costly steam & humidity building damage by solving the problem of shower behavioral waste while dramatically increasing guest satisfaction and enabling hotel brands to automate bathroom maintenance at scale.

Showcase: Azome Therapeutics, Inc.

April 22, 2025 1:55–2:15 PM
Strategy 1
Sectors
Session Type

Azome is developing first in class drugs to revolutionize the treatment of severe inflammatory diseases and injuries including bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), exacerbations in idiopathic lung fibrosis (ILF), acute lung injury, acute kidney injury, and sepsis for which there are currently no preventative and a limited set of therapeutic options.

Showcase: Minus Filtration

April 22, 2025 1:55–2:15 PM
Strategy 2

Minus Filtration revolutionizes water treatment with our patented nanofiltration technology, effectively removing PFAS, salts, and emerging contaminants without chemicals. Amid growing global water quality challenges, our retrofit-ready membrane systems deliver a versatile, scalable solution that outperforms traditional methods across multiple contamination types. This proven technology presents a compelling investment opportunity in the $800B water infrastructure market.

Showcase: Empath Biosciences, Inc

April 22, 2025 2:35–2:55 PM
Strategy 1
Sectors
Session Type

Empath Biosciences has developed a revolutionary drug discovery platform that overcomes barriers to scaling therapeutics from nature’s biodiversity, de-risks each step of the development process, and efficiently yields novel therapeutics. The lead, proof-of-principle chemical series is currently in IND-enabling studies and scheduled to be in the clinic in 2026.

Showcase: dbTwin, Inc.

April 22, 2025 3:25–3:45 PM
Strategy 2

80% of all business data is structured data in the form of tables and databases but regulatory constraints like HIPAA, CCPA & GDPR make it difficult and costly for enterprise data-teams working regulated data.   dbTwin is a enterprise platform that unlocks secure, data-driven innovation in sectors like healthcare, finance and tech by letting data-teams create private but realistic versions of their databases critical for training AI models, prototyping analytics workflows and functional testing of software/products.

Cocktail Reception and Networking on the Rooftop – PROOF!

April 22, 2025 4:15–6:00 PM
PROOF Rooftop
Session Type
PROOF RooRooftop -  The W Hotel Nashville

Join the innovators and investors attending the Southeast Venture Showcase at PROOF! This spectacular indoor/outdoor space on top of The W Hotel features 270-degree views of downtown Nashville, plus local beers, delectable light bites and a bespoke menu of craft cocktails. Enjoy local music and take in eye-catching art like Reverie, a morphing-light sculpture by Nashville-based Cour Design. Or admire iconic photographs from Jim Marshall, known as the "godfather of rock 'n roll photography."