We sourced the community, built a roster of Greater Washington’s hottest enterprises and innovators, and narrowed that list to the ecosystem’s 50 elite.
Then Thursday afternoon, we celebrated those fast-growing, move-making players: DC Inno’s 2020 Inno on Fire winners. All had banner years — for expansions, launches, fundraises and pivots — and all in a time of profound, unprecedented change.
The virtual event brought together business leaders, entrepreneurs and people from the very ventures we gathered to recognize. We also had a discussion about the pandemic’s impact on the D.C. region’s startup environment and where we’re headed, with three big local names: Kate Goodall of Halcyon, Marcus Bullock of Flikshop, and Seth Goldman of Eat the Change and, formerly, Honest Tea.
Finally, we revealed this year’s Blazers: the trailblazers leading the charge and driving the change that will come to define this community. A panel of judges from the region’s innovation economy voted and selected them, one from each category.
Here they are:
Sorcero (B2B Technology):
The D.C. cognitive technology company raised $3.5 million this June, about two years after it went live with an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot for employees. It came to the market as a service for life sciences companies, designed to expand into other industries beyond health care. Kolkata, India-native Dipanwita Das started Sorcero in August 2017 and invested her own money to get the product to market until raising $1.2 million in her first round. Sorcero has grown revenue more than 500% in the first half of this year. Das has a background in international development and on the product side of other startups like social impact consulting firm 42 Strategies, which she founded in 2014 and led for four years. She’s also part of the Mindshare class of 2019 — and made DC Inno’s 50 on Fire of 2018.
FlikShop (Lifestyle & Consumer Tech):
The D.C. tech platform — the “Instagram for prison” that turns digital messages into postcards for incarcerated family members — has only seen traction increase as prisons restrict visitors in the age of coronavirus. Flikshop went live in 2012 after its founder, Marcus Bullock, served eight years himself and wanted to connect people in his former position to the outside world through mail. His idea grew and gained attention, landing the company a slot in an accelerator backed by Grammy-winning artist John Legend, Techstars Anywhere and, most recently, Georgetown’s Halcyon incubator. The company has also spun out the Flikshop School of Business, a training program with a series of classes that teaches skills — from coding to communication — to inmates to narrow the employment gap. Bullock’s also one of the Washington Business Journal’s 2020 40 Under 40 honorees.
Novavax (Biotech):
For the Gaithersburg biotech, 2020 is the year of a new narrative. After a rocky 2019 — including a devastating late-stage clinical trial failure, a delisting threat from the Nasdaq and the sale of its manufacturing business — the company jumped into the Covid-19 arena in January with plans to develop a vaccine candidate. Novavax needed partners, which it found in Emergent BioSolutions, and Swedish companies AGC Biologics and PolyPetide Group, plus more. It also needed funding, which it secured: $388 million from the Norway-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, $60 million in the form of a Department of Defense contract, and more than $200 million from selling its own stock. And it succeeded in phase 1 clinical trials, though there’s still a long way to go. The vaccine maker, led by CEO Stanley Erck, saw its stock price climb, then skyrocket as high as $190, after starting the year at $4 per share.
Somatus (Health Care):
The McLean kidney care startup raised $64 million in Series C financing, bringing the 4-year-old company’s total funding to more than $105 million. Somatus said that capital will help to scale its model across the U.S. and invest in its technology, fueling its larger plan to expand its comprehensive care model for patients with chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, to meet them where they are, prevent hospital visits and readmissions. Those steps would help ensure a foothold in the fast-growing dialysis market for Somatus, led by co-founder and CEO Ikenna Okezie. The startup now serves more than 20,000 kidney disease patients across six states.
Anacostia Organics (Cannabis):
The pandemic brought some good news for the legal medical cannabis industry, deeming it “essential” and, therefore, keeping doors open. Anacostia Organics, the first medical marijuana dispensary east of the Anacostia River, felt that benefit, but still needed help. So owner Linda Mercado Greene, appointed to city’s ReOpen DC Committee and chair of the D.C. Medical Cannabis Trade Association, sought help from Mayor Muriel Bowser and the department of health to protect patients and staff — implementing online ordering, door and curbside pickups, and home deliveries. Greene’s business has doubled, if not tripled, with a spike in out-of-state patients, she said. And she’s hiring to accommodate the increase. Then her storefront was vandalized during the first weekend of protests by an unrelated group, forcing her and her team to board up the site with plywood in the middle of the night, she said. So after learning about the local paint the storefronts movement, Greene commissioned artist Luther Wright to create a mural on the boards, she said, now a tourist attraction “for families and people of all ages and races.”
IonQ (Software):
College Park’s IonQ closed an $84 million round this June, including the $55 million in Series C venture funding it raised in the fall. The company is using that fresh capital to both hire and continue expanding its technology, as it works toward rolling out the world’s most powerful quantum computers. Those products would solve problems beyond the capacity of conventional devices, with major applications in fields such as medicine and chemistry. The business was founded in 2015 by Christopher Monroe, a University of Maryland physics professor, and Jungsang Kim, an electrical engineering and physics professor at Duke University. It’s now led by Peter Chapman as president and CEO.
Parabon NanoLabs (Inno Picks):
The small Reston DNA technology company has quietly made news for cracking cold cases across the country — and, this year, it got its own TV docuseries on ABC. “The Genetic Detective” follows Parabon’s genetic genealogy division and head of the unit, CeCe Moore, as her team dominates what’s become a rapidly growing intersection with law enforcement. Parabon, founded by husband-wife team Steven and Paula Armentrout in 1999 as a computing software provider, gradually transitioned into DNA technology before that niche really even existed. Then two years ago, the company recruited Moore to build out its genetic genealogy division, around the time West Coast authorities caught one of the most prolific serial killers in history. Since then, Parabon has been involved in more than 500 police cases and generated leads resulting in more than 100 positive identifications of suspects. And those numbers continue to rise.
Seth Goldman, Eat the Change (Individual Innovators):
In November, Seth Goldman decided he’d be stepping away from Honest Tea, 22 years after launching the bottled tea company out of his Bethesda kitchen and growing it into a massive global brand. Within a week, the Coca-Cola-owned company said it would relocate to its parent’s Atlanta headquarters. But not only did Goldman leave Honest Tea in a good position; he started cooking up his next venture — to effect climate change, through food. That manifested as Eat the Change, a platform he started with his wife, Julie Farkas, to help people make the connection between their environmental footprints and what they eat. Its for-profit side encompasses businesses that make it easy for consumers to choose foods free of animal products, like PLNT Burger — a vegan fast-casual joint from celebrity chef Spike Mendelsohn in which Goldman is now an investor. And through its not-for-profit arm, the husband-wife team has also committed to donating $1 million over the next three years to nonprofits supporting the same mission.
Halcyon (Community):
The District nonprofit, which runs a Georgetown incubator for social entrepreneurs, has spent the last year introducing new initiatives to support more social impact ventures, led by CEO Kate Goodall. In January, Halcyon rolled out a new program for startups in the city’s opportunity zones. It’s also building an angel investor group, raising a $6 million fund to invest in its fellows and their startups for the first time, and shepherding its latest cohort through the incubator, which started in 2014. Since then, its alumni have raised more than $100 million in investments and created more than 1,000 jobs, per Halcyon’s count.
Check out the 2020 Inno on Fire Winner Video below:
Missed the virtual celebration? Don’t sweat it. You can view it here.
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