On Thursday evening, the Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) showcased and celebrated the 10th cohort of its GRO Incubator program with a “Demo Day” at Raleigh Founded.
The GRO Incubator is a 12-week program held on a biannual basis. Through personalized coaching, targeted workshops, and access to relevant industry experts and an invaluable network, the incubator aims to provide early-stage tech and life sciences founders with the tools and knowledge they need to scale their businesses.
The fall 2025 cohort celebrated on Thursday evening consisted of five startups tackling problems ranging from locating clean public restrooms, to monitoring HVAC systems, to predicting toxicity in medical research.
Before the #GRO10 founders took center stage, CED Startup Programs Lead Preet Mankad welcomed a panel of GRO alumni to discuss what they’d gotten out of the program and offer advice to the new batch of founders joining the GROlumni ranks.
The panel consisted of Tim Jones (Jobvious), Mike Desai (Truentity), Brennan Barber (Theralinq), and Claire Benton (TeachBase). Collectively, they discussed some of the key ways in which they’d benefited from their time in GRO, with a particular emphasis on gaining community, sifting through customer discovery, and identifying early gaps in their startups and skillsets. Each panelist was also prompted to offer advice to the presenting founders. Some of their wise words were as follows:
- Tim Jones: “It’s going to take longer than you think.”
- Claire Benton: “Really make sure you care about your customer and what you’re doing; make sure you actually like it, because the days you don’t feel like doing it, you have to like it enough to do it anyway.”
- Brennan Barber: “Progress is not linear. There are going to be difficult days, and love for what you’re doing will get you through those moments and help you grow.”
- Mike Desai: “Don’t over-analyze; don’t wait for the product to be fully designed; get out into the field and… build early champions.”
Following this alumni panel, the CED team handed things off to the #GRO10 founders, each of whom was introduced by their respective personal coach from the program. Here’s a quick recap of the pitches that ensued:
Squadies (Presented by Founder & CEO Ryan Brown) is introducing the “bathroom trust score” as a means of helping consumers identify clean and reliable restrooms in stores and restaurants. Squadies is working to partner with major chains on the basis that high percentages of store visitors are seeking restrooms, and highly scored restrooms will thus attract customers and boost brand loyalty. Ryan stated that the startup is “on a mission to be the Michelin Star of ‘clean.'”
Home Dock (Presented by Founder & COO Andrew Katz) is looking to shift how we approach home repairs, operating on the theory that “everyone is working hard, but nobody’s winning.” The startup’s app-based platform serves as an all-in-one hub where needed repairs and renovations can be recognized and homeowners, agents, and/or vendors can interact with full transparency, leading to more efficient, intentional, and affordable repairs.
Bearbull (Presented by Founder & CEO Cameron Joyner) is putting a new spin on gamified stock trading by marrying two ever-popular hobbies: trading and fantasy sports. The startup’s platform will allow users to join together in various types of leagues, within which they will select stocks (as one might select players for a fantasy football roster), make hypothetical investment decisions, and compete based on the strength of those decisions.
FlashPath (Presented by Founder & CEO Sara Selitsky) is “redefining toxicology for the AI era.” Sara explained that some 30% of drugs currently fail clinical trials due to toxicity, and humans and animals alike suffer along the way. By putting a wealth of data through its AI, FlashPath is aiming to predict toxicity before it happens, helping drugs that will ultimately fail do so faster, cheaper, and less harmfully.
IntelliCAIR (Presented by Co-Founder & COO Sam Ferrel) is building smarter HVAC systems for homes. Addressing the issue that 99% of HVAC systems have “no intelligent monitoring capability,” this startup is building in smart sensors (12 per system) that provide visibility and early warnings—the effect being “like a technician living in your system 24/7.” This kind of monitoring can save homeowners thousands on repairs and prevent technicians from being overwhelmed by full repair needs.
This was an impressive cohort addressing range of problems across entirely different areas with innovative and convincing solutions. (As CED’s Jay Bigelow put it, regarding the fact that it was ~1 million and five degrees in the room, “the pitches were just that hot!”) It was also a group that, through ties to program alumni, coaches, and the CED team, demonstrated the value of community at the core of GRO.
Congratulations to these new GRO-graduated startups, all of which we’ll be keeping our eyes on!
If you missed this Demo Day, or attended and want to look back at it, here are some photos from the event:
