26 Startups, Three Minutes Each, Pitching for Dollars at Kinect Capital’s 43rd Investors Choice Conference this Thursday, September 3rd

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

✅ Twenty-six companies are scheduled to make three-minute investor pitches on Thursday, Sept. 3 during the 43rd annual Investors Choice Conference produced by Salt Lake City-based nonprofit Kinect Capital.

✅ The field stretches across AgTech, AI, biocomputing, ClimateTech, consumer products, energy storage, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, robotics, VR, and more to give investors a concentrated look at unusually diverse, early-stage deal flow.

✅ Kinect Capital says more than 850 companies have participated in its annual capital conference during its four-decade history, with alumni including Ancestry, High West Distillery, Myriad Genetics, Omniture, and Recursion, plus over $10 billion in alumni-company exits.

31 Aug 2026 — SALT LAKE CITY — Three minutes. That's how long 26 entrepreneurs will have this Thursday to convince a room packed with investors that their companies deserve another conversation.

Not necessarily a check, and definitely not even a term sheet; nope, the goal is generating enough interest to earn the next meeting.

That's essentially the financial proposition behind the 43rd annual Investors Choice Conference, the 3 September 2026 flagship capital event of the Salt Lake City-based nonprofit, Kinect Capital.

And at the center of the day will be the startups.

Kinect Capital's newly released presenter sheet identifies 26 companies expected to pitch, each attempting to compress its

🔹 Problem,

🔹 Solution,

🔹 Market opportunity,

🔹 Competitive advantage, and

🔹 Investment proposition

into approximately three minutes of stage time.

I may not be a math wiz, but if all 26 firms receive exactly three minutes, that's just 78 minutes of combined pitch time.

For the investors in the room, however, the underlying proposition is considerably larger:

Twenty-six possible investments, partnerships, and/or introductions delivered rapid-fire in a single day.

More than 40 Years of Connecting Companies and Capital

The history behind the Investors Choice Conference gives the gathering more weight than the typical startup pitch competition.

Founded in 1983 as the Wayne Brown Institute, Kinect Capital operates today as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization connecting entrepreneurs with mentors, investors and other capital resources.

The organization says more than 850 companies have participated in its annual capital conference during the past four decades.

{AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have been a volunteer mentor, mentor team leader, and a paid and volunteer communications consultant to Kinect and its predecessor brands for over 35 years.}

Among Kinect's alumni are firms like Ancestry, High West Distillery, Myriad Genetics, Omniture, and Recursion, just to name a handful.

In total, Kinect Capital reports over $10 billion in exits among alumni companies.

Its website also states that two out of three founders participating in its programs raise capital within 12 months.

Historically, some of those introductions have turned directly into financing.

For example, Kinect Capital says WellDog entered discussions with multiple venture and angel investors after participating in Investors Choice and subsequently closed a $1.5 million Series B approximately four months later with an investor it met through the conference.

In other words, the three-minute pitches are intended to be beginnings, not endings.

What Investors Will See This Thursday

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the 2026 field is its breadth.

A. Life Sciences and Healthcare

Life sciences and healthcare represent one of the strongest concentrations for this year's Investors Choice event.

For example,
⚫️ Salt Lake City-based Anziva Pharmaceuticals is developing pharmaceutical treatments;

⚫️ Bloom Surgical has developed technology designed to restore visualization during minimally invasive surgery; and

⚫️ Intactis Bio is pursuing biocomputation using living neural tissue.

That broader healthcare and life-sciences cohort also includes

▪️ Breath of Life,

▪️ CAIRA,

▪️ Cocoon by Tuckline,

▪️ Critical Medical Devices,

▪️ Knip,

▪️ Qonscious Health, and

▪️ Radyx BioScience.

B. Technology

Technology investors will find an equally broad AI, software, and data contingent at this week's event. For example,

⚫️ Agtools provides agricultural and food-supply-chain intelligence;

⚫️ Altruvia is building AI-enabled software for nonprofits;

⚫️ Botco.ai develops AI agents, including applications for healthcare and regulated environments; and

⚫️ Parlay provides AI-enabled sales coaching and analysis.

Meanwhile,

▪️ Noro is developing life-sized remote-work collaboration systems;

▪️ TrackFly connects specialty retailers, brands and sales professionals around industry data; and

▪️ Verso AI is building an AI-driven music platform focused in part on customizable, family-safe listening.

C. Physical Technology

Physical technology is represented as well.

⚫️ Blue Collar Robotics is combining robotics with remote human operation in pursuit of automated physical labor; while

⚫️ OmniTrek is developing a harness-free omnidirectional treadmill aimed initially at defense, public-safety and other VR training applications.

Meanwhile,

▪️ BiThermal Technologies is developing chip-based heating and cooling technology;

▪️ Chief Mountain Renewable Energy is focused on hydrogen-centered energy storage;

▪️ Climformatics combines climate modeling and machine learning to produce localized climate and energy forecasts; and

▪️ Pollen Sense sits at the intersection of environmental sensing, public health, and AI, as it uses digital microscopy and machine learning to identify airborne particles such as

▪ Pollen,

▪ Mold,

▪ Dust, and

▪ Smoke.

And then there are businesses that fit less neatly inside traditional venture categories, firms that I categorize as miscellaneous offerings.

D. Miscellaneous

In the Miscellaneous category, offerings range from moisture blockage to a provider of Airbnb-like spaces to outdoor recreation gear. For example,

⚫️ DRYOUT has developed moisture-removal technology designed to protect hard goods and electronics from moisture damage;

⚫️ Esslyo is developing rentable private outdoor recreation and entertainment spaces; and

⚫️ Pingora designs outdoor packs and gear.

The Alphabetical List

The present roster includes companies from across Utah and several other states, making Investors Choice both a showcase for homegrown startups and a channel bringing outside deal flow into Utah's investment community.

Below is a list of all 26 presenting firms shown in alphabetical order, with their headquarters city and state shown (when identified), along with the presenting executive from each company, plus his/her LinkedIn profile link (if one is known).

✅ Agtools (Irvine, California), Martha Montoya;

✅ Altruvia (Provo, Utah), Fritz-Carl Morlant;

✅ Anziva Pharmaceuticals (Salt Lake City, Utah), Simerdeep Singh Gupta, PhD;

✅ BiThermal Technologies (Salt Lake City), Jeff Turner;

✅ Bloom Surgical (Salt Lake City), Jacob Sheffield;

✅ Blue Collar Robotics (Lehi, Utah), Hank Crawford;

✅ Botco.ai (Scottsdale, Arizona), Rebecca Clyde;

✅ Breath of Life (Provo), Elizabeth Jeffrey;

✅ CAIRA (Salt Lake City), Jillian Hall;

✅ Chief Mountain Renewable Energy (Utah), Derek Roy;

✅ Climformatics (Fremont, California), Subarna Bhattacharyya;

✅ Cocoon by Tuckline (Spanish Fork, Utah), Casandra Bradley;

✅ Critical Medical Devices (McCall, Idaho), Chantell Williams;

✅ DRYOUT (South Jordan, Utah), Romney Williams;

✅ Esslyo (St. George, Utah), Todd Elkins;

✅ Intactis Bio (Salt Lake City), Daniel Rodriguez-Granrose, PhD, PSM;

✅ Knip (Newtonville, Massachusetts), Caitlin Wege;

✅ Noro (New York City, New York), Tommaso Trionfi;

✅ OmniTrek (Provo), Bennett Mortensen;

✅ Parlay (Lehi), James Biesinger;

✅ Pingora (Salt Lake City), CJ Whittaker;

✅ Pollen Sense (Provo), Kris Klein;

✅ Qonscious Health (La Jolla, California), Jarik Conrad;

✅ Radyx BioScience (Boulder, Colorado), Stephen Morrissey, OMD;

✅ TrackFly (Sandy, Utah), Stephen Baird; and

✅ Verso AI (Lehi), Jonathan Bernal.

In total, that's 18 of the 26 firms coming out of Utah (including Chief Mountain Renewable Energy), plus

🔺 Six from Salt Lake City,

🔺 Four from Provo,

🔺 Three from Lehi,

with the other Utah cities having only one participant each.

From outside of the state, however, the 2026 edition of Investors Choice will have presenting firms from Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Massachusetts, and New York.

More than Startup Pitches

The Sept. 3 program extends well beyond the three-minute presentations, however.

For example, the current agenda includes a keynote fireside conversation with Sorenson Capital Co-Founder and Partner, Fraser Bullock, interviewed by Olympic gold medalist, Peter Vidmar.

Separately, an ICON panel will feature Open Technology Ventures General Partner Travis Oliphant, creator of NumPy and SciPy and founder of Anaconda and OpenTeams, alongside Jeanette Bennett of Colliers Utah , and Park City Angels Co-Founder Ted McAleer.

The conference is also scheduled to recognize several business and entrepreneurial figures through its ICON Awards, including Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Guitar Hero entrepreneur Kai Huang, and Bullock.

The day will conclude with a dedicated Founder Connections session, giving investors and presenters an additional 90 minutes to turn those brief stage appearances into longer conversations.

Want to Attend? You Have to Apply.

Investors Choice is not an open-door conference where purchasing a ticket automatically guarantees admission.

Instead, prospective attendees submit a request to attend through the official Investors Choice registration page, but Kinect Capital says every registration is individually reviewed and must be approved before the applicant can attend.

Preference is given to active

✔️ Startup and angel investors,

✔️ Venture-capital professionals,

✔️ Family office executives,

✔️ Institutional investors,

✔️ Industry leaders,

✔️ Kinect Capital alumni,

✔️ Mentors, and

✔️ Board members.

The exact venue in Midvale, Utah is disclosed only to approved attendees.

Me? Yeah, I'll be there.

I also plan to attend the two VIP events the day before.

So if you're there too, please come by and say hello.

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