At this past summer’s Grep-a-Palooza, GrepBeat had the privilege of hosting the inaugural “Demo Day” pitches for the Launch Powered by KPMG accelerator—a program that was introduced early in 2025 (and which we wrote about in more detail here).
The Grep-a-Palooza event saw an impressive slate of startups take the stage, with ventures ranging from innovative robotics, to smart fabrics for sleep aid, to vision training for athletes and more. And on Tuesday evening, just a little over four months removed from wrapping up its inaugural cohort, the Launch/KPMG team showcased another equally promising and diverse group of startups.
The accelerator’s second cohort “Demo Day” took place at the Innovate Carolina Junction, where an enthusiastic crowd of attendees from around the startup and innovation ecosystem packed the house to witness the presentations. The event started with half an hour of networking time (complete with delicious chicken skewers, cheesecake bites, and an open bar), after which Dedric Carter and Sheryl Waddell of Innovate Carolina and Brad Jenkins of KPMG US spoke about innovation and offered welcome remarks.
Launch Chapel Hill Director Emil Runge then stood up to speak about the process and goals of the Launch/KPMG accelerator, stressing its mission of “putting the companies in better position to go after enterprise customers.” He also discussed the program in the context of the Triangle ecosystem and its spirit of collaboration. “One of the true competitive advantages of this region is kindness,” he noted.
Following Runge’s remarks, Jordan McAlister, who leads Enterprise Innovation and University Partnerships for KPMG US, took over to emcee the pitches. She also revealed that there would be an audience vote following all of the presentations, with prizes standing by in extremely UNC-flavored luggage for the winners.
From there it was on to the pitches. Eight startups pitched, with the aim being to wrap up within tight, four-and-half minute windows. The Launch/KPMG folks also arranged for established area investors and entrepreneurial support professionals (including Jan Davis of RTP Angel Fund and UNC itself) to spectate and take notes that founders could gain access to following the event.
Here’s a bit of what we learned about the second-cohort startups:
- Caffeine (which GrepBeat has written about previously) presented a solution for the myriad problems facing businesses adapting to AI—including employee spend, hosting issues, and the general confusion of adapting enterprise to AI. Their solution is to flip the equation with an AI that learns your enterprise, enabling organizations to self-host and build with an in-house model that learns their workflows. As Co-Founder and CEO Dustin Allen put it, “You can’t work without Caffeine.”
- Scyntek (which was pitching at home in Chapel Hill, and which was also part of CED’s most recent GRO Incubator cohort) was presented by co-founders Vignesh Sriram and Bryce Menichella, who opened with the tragic story of a man whose life was unexpectedly claimed by complications from deep-vein thrombosis (DVT). Abnormal blood flow often goes undiagnosed until it becomes a significant problem, and Scyntek offers a solution to make that progression less frequent: a tool with which people can conduct one-minute, non-invasive scans at home to detect abnormal flow and potentially save lives.
- Amidon was presented by Founder and Managing Director Richard Kristof. A different sort of venture on the Triangle startup scene, Amidon is designing next-gen “building armor” to protect critical locations from ballistic, fire, and even electromagnetic threats (among other hazards). Their material science solutions offer insurance companies the chance to “harden” buildings, with needs and opportunities to do so becoming particularly apparent in the rapidly growing category of data centers.
- Fizz Studio is another startup native to Chapel Hill and was pitched on Tuesday night by Founder and CEO Doug Schepers. Fizz Studio provides “custom AI narratives” for enterprises, delivering data visualization with one crucial distinction: accessibility. The startup’s “visual-voice interface” and use of voice assistants ensure that data is accessible whether or not a screen can be viewed.
- Monthly is a startup that made it to the Launch/KPMG accelerator all the way from Mexico. Presented on Tuesday evening by Co-Founder and CTO Sergio Sepulveda, this company is using AI to help SMBs organize their financial data into clear, investor-ready reports. Sepulveda noted that in addition to the U.S. market, his team aims to use the product to provide a “competitive edge” to SMB owners in Latin America as well.
- Focus Cubes is another company GrepBeat has written about in the past (and one that pitched at Grep-a-Palooza as well, incidentally). It’s a startup that is focused on promoting employee wellness through preemptive stress management. The platform uses AI to identify stress before an employee is necessarily even aware of it, then deploys targeted interventions, mitigating stress and, by extension, burnout potential. As Founder Charith Wickrema said Tuesday night, the end goal is to “promote resilience to build performance.”
- Saku Biosciences was presented by Co-Founder and CEO Mark van Zee. This early-stage life sciences startup is fueling biotech innovation through a patent-pending process that isolates high-producing cells, which can then be sent to scientists for efficient use (and increased revenue). Van Zee referred to this practice as “generating cellular assets.”
- BRILL Neurotech made it to Launch/KPMG all the way from Illinois and was pitched by Co-Founder and CEO Mehmet Gunal. The startup is developing a brain imaging headset that spots neurons firing in real time, enabling it to detect “thoughts” 100 milliseconds before action is taken. Gunal framed the tech as a solution for our “inability to connect mind to machine” and noted that BRILL’s product can even go so far as to detect a subject’s intention.
Following these outstanding pitches—most of which even fell within Jordan McAlister’s monitored time windows—an audience vote awarded the Caffeine team with the grand prize (or rather, baby-blue suitcase full of grand prizes). And so wrapped the second cohort of the Launch Powered by KPMG accelerator program. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for the third.
If you missed the event or want to relive it, have a look at some more photos from Tuesday night below:
