The Cade Museum for Creativity & Invention has announced that Anchor Biologics has won the 2019 Cade Prize, receiving a $25,000 cash prize. Anchor Biologics (Gainesville, FL) has discovered enzymes that suppress inflammatory diseases. “The Cade Prize is extremely important in raising our profile. Our goal is to find business partners and compete for the capital needed to get our new localized anti-inflammatory to market. We are incredibly grateful for this enabling support”, said Ben Keselowsky and Greg Hudulla, founders of Anchor Biologics.
Capacitech Energy (Orlando, FL) won the $15,000 Second Place Cade Prize for its high-power, high-density conductor that increases battery life and capacity; Path Optical Systems, Inc. (Tampa, FL), won the $10,000 Third Place Cade Prize for its small and affordable fiber optics that transport information at the speed of light; and ExtremeComms Lab (Fort Lauderdale, FL), the Fourth Place Cade Prize winner, receives $10,000 of in-kind services to support acceleration for its underwater wireless communication technology. Funding for the Cade Prize competition was generously provided by the Community Foundation of North Central Florida.
Cade Co-Founder Richard Miles said, “This is our 10th year running the Prize, and it’s great to see how the competition has expanded. We had competitors from across the entire state, and from every major research university.” The Cade Prize, established in 2010, has become Florida’s pre-eminent invention and innovation competition. It rewards entrepreneurs, inventors, researchers, and pre-seed and early-stage companies with an original idea that has market potential.
The Final Four were selected from 16 Semi-Finalists, which also included: Ator Labs, Inc. (Tallahassee, FL); Auxadyne (Gainesville, FL); Florida Insect Control Group, LLC (Gainesville, FL); HealthSnap (Miami, FL); Dr. Steven Kass (Tallahassee, FL); Locus Agriculture Solutions, LLC (Orlando, FL); Nano Discovery, Inc. (Orlando, FL); NiekAab Desal, LLS (Gainesville, FL); PQSecure Technologies (Fort Lauderdale, FL); SciKey Diagnostics (West Palm Beach, FL); Sea’s the Future, LLC (Jacksonville, FL); and Thor ORE (Orlando, FL). Learn more at CadeMuseum.org/CadePrize.
The Cade Prize celebrates pre-seed and seed stage innovations and has been a key part of the journey for past Finalists and Winners. Chris Morton, CEO of
2013 Cade Prize Winning firm NanoPhotonica noted “Winning the (Cade prize) grant was a really important step for us.” Nik Kundra, founder of 2011 Finalist Partender said, “The Cade Prize…prepared our team to present our idea to funders and partners.”
Cultivating Invention & Innovation in Florida: Miles added: “The Cade Prize is a reflection of our commitment to innovation in the entire state. This year we’re especially excited to partner with the Florida Inventor’s Hall of Fame and Florida’s top research universities in recognizing and promoting the best new ideas in Florida.” The state of Florida is recognized as a leader in innovation and invention, and in 2017, the top two patent-producing Florida universities (USF & UF) produced 227 patents (more patents than the three NC Research Triangle universities, UNC, Duke, & NC State, with 189 patents combined.) From 2010 to 2015, three Florida institutions, the University of Florida, University of South Florida, and University of Central Florida, garnered 1,111 patents (each being in the top 20 U.S. schools.) Miles noted “The Prize directly benefits the Cade Museum’s educational goals. Virtually all of our Sweet 16 finalists end up teaching a class on their technologies to the general public and school groups at the Cade Museum.”
