Fast Pitch 2011 Finalists

2011 Fast Pitch Competition Winner – Fresh Picked

Fresh Picked builds, owns and operates low-capital cost, rapidly deployable hydroponic greenhouses collocated with commercial distribution centers. We sell all the premium fresh produce we grow to the retailer operating the distribution center for sale at their local stores. Our produce is delicious, locally grown, all natural, pesticide and herbicide free, extremely fresh and delivered on the day of harvest. We establish comprehensive forward contracts with our clients that we use as leverage to obtain the necessary capital financing for facility installation.

Our unique technology and financing strategy allows us to offer stable prices that are competitive with conventional agriculture, create significant positive environmental impacts, access mainstream markets, ensure high growth rates and generate large amounts of profit. Ultimately, we offer fixed price lettuce that is not exposed to traditional sources of agricultural risk and simplifies the supply chain of our customers.

Biogas & Electric

NOxRxTM is Biogas & Electric’s first product, and it is the next generation solution to reduction of NOx emissions generated by combustion of biogas from anaerobic digestion facilities. NOxRxTM is an add-on reaction chamber which attaches to an existing anaerobic digester and biogas engine. The reaction chamber uses a patent pending process involving the ammonia contained in the waste stream from the digester to neutralize the NOx emissions from the biogas engine. The ammonia rich liquid waste stream from the anaerobic digester travels through NOxRx’s patent protected reaction chambers where the ammonia reacts with the exhaust from the biogas engine to the NOx from the exhaust stream. Installing NOxRxTM is uncomplicated and can be either installed on existing biogas engines, or on newly constructed projects. The benefits of NOxRxTM to the end-user are lower installation and operating costs, ease of operation, and effectiveness.

BWA

The innovation, Building Waste Air Regeneration Device, is a patent pending uniquely designed air flow channel, with special air capture blades to power multiple small/micro or special designed disc generators with ease by using waste airflow, but without obstructing the airflow. The key is to use a small amount of air flow to power multiple turbines. After the air is passed though the fist turbine, the remaining air can still be used to power the next turbine.

HIVE

HIVE Lighting designs, manufactures and sells plasma light fixtures to the Film, TV and Digital production industries. HIVE is the first and only company currently using this new technology in this $1.5 billion market. HIVE’s lights are less expensive, brighter, produce better quality light, run cooler, last 30X longer, lack heavy & expensive ballasts, and are 2X to 8X more energy efficient than existing Mercury (HMI) & Tungsten based lights. Each light saves a user up to $3,000 a year.

HIVE has 4 working prototype models: Fresnel, Softlight, Spacelight, and Floodlight. The fresnel, which uses a special lens to spot and flood, is the most popular and versatile type of production light. HIVE’s 180 Watt Fresnel “Hornet” EPL will produce the equivalent light output of a 575 Watt HMI Fresnel, but with better light quality (full spectrum), less heat, 30X longer bulb life, and without a heavy and expensive ballast. Beyond these benefits, HIVE’s unique hexagonal housing design allows virtually infinite “honeycomb” multi-light linkages.

IO-Mega

IO-Mega seeks to be a leader in the production of low cost, high value products using agricultural waste streams. This mission provides an eco-friendly solution by finding uses for abundant agriculture industry waste streams while simultaneously meeting huge unmet market needs in the food and supplement industry (namely, low cost omega-3 fatty acids). Omega-3 fatty acids are an important food supplement in the burgeoning functional food market.

IO-Mega has defined an end-to-end process to grow algae strains with high omega-3 production capability using waste sugar (agriculture waste stream) as a carbon source. After harvest and drying using a novel, cost efficient method, total lipid is extracted using another proprietary method. IO-Mega has a prototype designed that will meet early commercial scale demands. This system has been tested and provides yields up to 95% of the total lipids. From this lipid fraction, omega-3s are further purified using standard techniques.