TOMORROW afternoon, July 8, the Venture Studio Demo Day at the University of Memphis will serve-up a fistful of potential breakthrough commercialization spinouts in front of innovators and entrepreneurs across Tennessee, the nation and perhaps beyond.
During the event 2:00-4:00 p.m. CDT, founders of six emerging enterprises will present before both an in-person audience within the "Fishbowl" facility of the Fedex Institute of Technology on the UM campus and via a simultaneous MS Teams webcast. Registration is via pop-up form here or via the UM Calendar.
The founders participating tomorrow are leading "emerging ventures built around innovative university IP across sectors including biotech, health, AI, and advanced technologies."
This week's Demo Day founders are operating in the domains of earthquake monitoring, hypermobility, biomed, wellness, and urinary tract infection (UTI).
Some of the founders have garnered early support from, among other sources, UM's Patents to Progress (P2P) program and from the Tennessee Technology Advancement Consortium (TTAC) created by nonprofit Tennessee Technology Development Corporation dba Launch Tennessee.
The half-dozen startups listed below are presenting tomorrow. They are drawn from among 16 startups now on the Fedex Institute directory:
IZALCO TECH INC., registered in Delaware and Tennessee, aims to offer technology for automated earthquake monitoring, with real-time alerts that can enable proactive action and rapid response to seismic signals. It currently prioritizes clients focused on clean-energy infrastructure. Its detection and interpretation of "low-magnitude microseismic signals in real time" is said to afford operators a "continuous picture of subsurface activity during geothermal development, carbon storage, and stimulation operations. This work is being advanced through early pilot deployments and partnerships with operators, research institutions, and strategic investors in the energy transition." The venture is led by founder Thomas H.W. Goebel PhD, who is an associate professor in the university's Earthquake Physics Group and Center for Earthquake Research and Information (CERI). Izalco is the name of a volcano in El Salvador that is linked to some of Goebel's research.
CUESHUB INC., registered in Delaware in and in Tennessee in 2022 as a for-profit public benefit corporation, is developing "wearable AI to help people live near the top end of their happiness potential by transforming the way they live, work, and interact with one another," according to the LinkedIn page of CEO and Co-founder Santosh Kumar PhD. Timothy Hnat is CTO and Co-founder, and is chief software architect of the university's MD2K Center, which is "developing 'Big Data' solutions to quantify physical, biological, behavioral, social, and environmental factors that contribute to health and wellness in daily life." The CuesHub app is available online. Related release.
P3ARL TECHNOLOGIES INC., registered in Tennessee in 2025, says it is focused on creating higher-performing powder dispersion solutions for a range of medical and manufacturing applications. Dry, cohesive micro- and nanosized powders are essential in many industries. The company is supported in part by the UM Research Foundation and the core intellectual property was patented in 2022. P3ARL is led by Ranganathan Gopalakrishnan PhD, an associate professor in UM's department of mechanical engineering. Resources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
CHROMATOCARE INNOVATIONS INC., registered in Tennessee nearly a year ago, says it is improving, testing, and certifying "non-invasive sensor that indicates whether a patient has a urinary tract infection (UTI) before the onset of symptoms, allowing providers to initiate care sooner, decreasing the cost of care and lowering the chances of potentially deadly complications. The venture was co-founded by Amber Jennings PhD and Jermiah Tate PhD, and is led by CEO Andy Tomaswick MBA. Amita Sekar PhD, a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, is chief consultant for technology strategy and Development.
UPCYCLE FARMA CORPORATION, a Memphis-based Delaware Corporation, says it is developing "a family of sustainable farm animal healthcare products. Its first product is a proprietary natural antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory biomaterial that is food-safe and sustainable that heals wounds and infections in sows, preventing premature culling" of livestock. Founder and Acting CEO is the aforementioned Amber Jennings PhD, associate professor of biomedical engineering. CTO is Pavel Qaladize MS.
MIGHTY ZEBRAS™ BIO (dba for The Zebra Lab LLC), a vintage-2025 Tennessee firm, says it "unite researchers and advocates to develop the first targeted therapies for Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders & Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (HSD/hEDS)..." The company's CEO and Founder: Art Tubbs MS. Tubbs, who describes himself as a "rare-disease innovator," is also a UM graduate research assistant clinical research director for the abovementioned Upcycle Farma. For more on HSD/hEDS, see this rundown on the forthcoming July 24-26 Ehlers-Danlos Society event in New York City.
Formation of the UM Venture Studio has been led by Ido Sarig MBA, who is also adjunct faculty and part-time director of tech commercialization at UM, among other venture interests. Related Sarig story.
VNC research indicates that while FedEx Corporation partners in multiple ways with U.Memphis, The FedEx Institute of Technology building itself was funded by FedEx Corporation founder Fred Smith personally.
Smith, father of 10, a Mississippi native and Yale University graduate, died in June 2025. The Commercial Appeal reported UM President Bill Hardgrave's comments on Smith's impact on the UM campus.
In addition to business and community credentials, Smith was a veteran of U.S. Marine Corps combat aviation during the Vietnam War. VNC
.last edited 1428 7 July 2026