Meet the Fall 2026 Fellowship Cohort
Garrett Fahrbach, Director of Fellowship
October 12, 2026
Meet the Fall 2026 Fellowship Cohort
A closet full of clothes with nothing to wear. A hiring team trying to figure out who’s really behind an application. A business owner piecing together schedules and payroll. An athletic program looking for more information about an athlete’s concussion recovery.
These are the problems bringing four Kentucky startups to Awesome Inc’s Fellowship this fall. We’re excited to welcome SYMI, TraumaScore, TalnFlo, and TrueTym to our startup accelerator program.
The one-year, mentor-driven program gives founders a place to work through the decisions ahead with experienced mentors and other entrepreneurs. Here’s a look at what our newest companies are building and what they hope to accomplish.
SYMI: A little less “What should I wear?”
SYMI is bringing personalized styling to people who want help making sense of their wardrobes. The Louisville-based company combines AI-powered style advice, a digital closet, and shopping options in one app. Its focus is familiar to anyone who’s stared at a full closet and still struggled to put an outfit together.
Behind the product is more than 25 years of experience in celebrity styling, fashion design, and costume design. That background gives SYMI a foundation in helping real clients decide what to wear, now being translated into a tool people can use on their phones.
Some in the Awesome Inc community have already met SYMI on the 5 Across stage. The company won our September pitch competition and is now joining Fellowship to gain mentorship as it brings the app to more users.
TraumaScore: Developing a new way to track concussion recovery
Richmond-based TraumaScore is developing a portable saliva test designed to measure brain-related biomarkers after a concussion. The goal is to give clinicians and athletic programs additional biological information to consider alongside symptoms and functional testing during recovery.
The team is focused on making that measurement practical at the point of care, with athletic programs in contact sports as its primary market. TraumaScore has a prototype and is working toward pilot testing. The technology is still in development, and its intended role is to support clinical decisions about recovery and return to play.
TraumaScore won our April 5 Across pitch competition and is now taking its next step in the Awesome Inc community. Through Fellowship, the team wants to build relationships that help it move toward market. It’s a stage where connections with clinicians, prospective customers, and experienced founders can help shape the work ahead.
TalnFlo: Putting a verified person behind the application
TalnFlo is tackling a problem on both sides of hiring: candidates need a way to show who they are, and employers need confidence in the applications they receive.
The Independence-based company combines identity verification, short video introductions, and AI-assisted applicant ranking. Candidates create a verified profile they can carry into applications, while employers can bring verification and video screening into the applicant tracking systems they already use.
The founding team brings experience building and selling both staffing and software companies. With the platform launched and paying customers on board, TalnFlo is joining Fellowship to strengthen its enterprise sales approach and learn from mentors who have scaled business-to-business software. Like SYMI, the team also pitched at our September 5 Across event.
TrueTym: Connecting the work behind every shift
For a small business, a last-minute scheduling gap can create work that carries all the way through payroll. Louisville-based TrueTym is building a workforce platform that connects shift management, attendance, and payroll so owners and managers can spend less time moving information between separate tools.
Its platform includes automated shift management and workforce analytics, with a focus on the needs of small and midsize businesses. The team has been refining the product through feedback from early customers and payroll experts, drawing on experience working with businesses that depend on frontline employees.
TrueTym’s goals for Fellowship are practical: clearer priorities, a stronger go-to-market strategy, and a community of founders working through similar growth challenges. The team also wants to contribute by sharing what it learns along the way.
A place to build alongside other founders
Each company enters Fellowship with different questions to work through, from preparing for pilots to reaching more customers. Our role is to help founders find the people, feedback, and resources that make those next steps more manageable.
Alongside mentorship and founder relationships, Fellowship offers access to creative and development services, coworking space, and pro bono legal and accounting support. We’re glad to welcome these four teams into the community and get to work with them this fall.
Building a startup in Kentucky? Learn more about Fellowship and how to apply.