5 Across continued to gain momentum at the standing-room-only February kick off event. This February crowd arrived energized and remained engaged throughout 5 pitches from Lexington’s thriving entrepreneurship community (even two young, dream-filled entrepreneurs in the front row).

This event made 5 Across history as the crowd met the first “5 Across baby”, Awesome Inc Director Keith McMonn’s first child, named after a crowdsourcing activity at the finals in December. Please join everyone in welcoming “Maxwell Jude”. Keith & Melody & baby

Keith thanked the generous sponsors:

Then the room quieted down as the contestants prepared to jump into their stringently-timed 5 minute opportunity to impress the listeners but most importantly, the panel of wildly talented judges.

1. Michael Hartman from FrogDice
2. Brian Evans from BTwebgroup.com
3. Aldona Valicenti from LFUCG
4. David Goodnight from Bluegrass Angels

And so, the pitches began!

In order of appearance:

1. EZ Turn : EZTurn: With the tenacity and disciplined he learned from his time as an NFL player, Chase Minnifield has spent the last years building a growing labor company. He began looking for an app that would assist in the communication and time crunch issues of the “Student Housing Turn” and when he couldn’t find one, he decided to create his own. Minnifield brought along Lincoln Ogata and together, they built EZ Turn: “an easy to use streamlined turn tool that boosts efficiency, saves money, documents turn and provides communication along with transparency from the site to the corporate offices.”

2. Penge : Brittany Joiner has a vision - a vision to make personal finance socially acceptable to discuss. As she came out of college and hit the job force, she felt under-prepared, overwhelmed, and struggling to figure out finances on her own. She created spreadsheets and hundereds of Google searches, but she couldn’t find a reliable source that made things easy enough to be practical. Instead, she turned to her friends - and that’s where her vision was born. What if there was a platform you can use to crowdsource information from your community to help you figure out your financial journey, hold you accountable, and encourage you along the way?

3. Kare Mobile : It’s no secret that going to the dentist is a hassle. Finding one you like, with availability, takes your insurance, doesn’t requires hours taken off work… Kare is here to solve those problems. Kare connects patients to dentists close to them, with availability, and that take their insurance. But beyond that, they’ve built the first mobile-dentists office that will come directly to the comfort of your own home or office to service your dental needs! They offer full-service connection to any dental problems.

4. Vet’s Day Off : Veterinarians are some of the most overworked and overwhelmed practitioners in the US. They notoriously work 7 days a week and suffer from exhaustion and compassion overload have one of the nation’s highest percentages of suicide population – Vet Data takes these issues seriously and is looking to become the “Airbnb of the vet industry.” They want to utilize the already-standard “relief veterinarian” idea and quickly and easily connect relief vets with vets who desperate need a break. They will help vest provide quality services while also maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

5. Toggle Health : Dubbed “the Roku of the operating room”, Toggle Health is a healthcare technology company with the goal of transforming the operating room. In today’s ORs, if a surgeon needs to adjust their reference photo on their monitor, they have to leave the patient, manually adjust the monitor with the mouse, and leave the room to re-scrub back in. It’s time-consuming, costly, and puts patients at risk. Toggle is combating this broken system by connecting surgeons to their digital case data in the OR using a sterile, wireless controller while our enabling software provides a smart-tv like user experience, allowing surgeons to easily toggle between their desired applications and devices.

Once all 5 companies had presented, the judges left the room to privately decide on the results while the audience members took time to congratulate the contestants on successfully completing their pitches.

Winner of the AwesomeVote app winner (and winner of $50 from Kinetic): Toggle Health!

And most importantly, winner of the February 2019 5 Across was KARE MOBILE!

The judges cited the company’s bright future in multiple markets - under-served populations, prisons, schools - as their final decision-making factor. Congrats to Kare Mobile - your startup community can’t wait to see you succeed!

See you all in April!