AgriNovus Indiana Awards $75k to Entrepreneurs at Velocity Demo Day Event
AgriNovus Indiana, an initiative to grow the agbioscience economy, today announced Chicago, Ill.-based Integrated Dynamics, Indianapolis, Ind.-based NanoBio Designs and South Bend, Ind.-based NutriPop have won Velocity, securing each company $25,000 to advance their tech-enabled businesses that address many of the toughest challenges facing the agbioscience economy.
In partnership with the Indiana Corn Marketing Council, Indiana Soybean Alliance, Elevance Health, Beck’s Hybrids, Ag Alumni Seed and Gutwein Law, Velocity challenges students, startups and existing companies to create solutions to fill research-defined gaps in three critical areas: bioinnovation, farmer-focused innovation and food is health.
“Velocity was launched to inspire innovation that addresses three critical forces of change facing our food and agbioscience economy today and well into the future,” said Geoff Zentz, senior director of innovation at AgriNovus Indiana. “We look forward to working with all three winning companies on their continued innovation that spans the entire agricultural value chain – from the farmgate to the consumer.”
The 2025 Velocity winners for each track include:
BioInnovation
Integrated Dynamics offers a High-Temperature Fermentation (HTF) biomanufacturing platform that allows customers to leverage their existing infrastructure to process low-cost biomass for new markets. The platform seamlessly integrates with existing biomanufacturing infrastructure, transforming low-cost feedstocks into high-value products. Integrated Dynamics has received investment and grants from Illinois Ventures, 1517 Fund and Department of Energy’s ENERGYWERX. The company is led by Henry Markarian, Niranjan Kulkarni, Jake Sweed and Dr. Corey Kennelly.
Farmer-Focused Innovation
NanoBio Designs provides rapid, on-site and cost-effective DNA testing services for seed suppliers and grain distributors to verify the presence, absence or levels of targeted genetic markers in samples. The simple, on-site self-service allows for quick trait confirmation, cutting down on the nearly three days’ time it takes to receive test results from a laboratory. NanoBio Designs has received capital investment from Elevate Ventures and Purdue Foundry. The team is led by Ryan Skaar, Todd Kielkopf and Dr. Derek Lyons.
Food is Health
NutriPop is a revolutionary healthy snack made from popped water lily seeds that addresses the growing demand for high-protein, low-calorie, plant-based snacks. The product delivers nutrition with 67 percent less fat, 20 percent fewer calories and 50 percent more protein than traditional popcorn. The company has secured a Letter of Intent from one food service distributor and is preparing for its launch in July 2025. NutriPop is led by University of Notre Dame students Ujaswin Jain, Rishi Reddy, Audrey Chung and David Nemer.
Velocity aligns with a report from EntreWorks in partnership with AgriNovus and the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP). The study, Unlocking IP: Leveraging Indiana’s R&D Assets to Boost Entrepreneurship, recommends continued growth of challenge series to further entrepreneurship and innovation across the state. Velocity is an evolution of AgriNovus’ previous Innovation Challenge Series focused on farmer innovation and food security.
Source: AgriNovus Indiana