StartVirginia: Heard Around Virginia October 2024

Fairfax County announced Sept. 13 that it has awarded eight companies grants as part of the second cohort of the Fairfax Founders Fund (FFF). The fund, which supports the growth of the county’s startup ecosystem, provides technical assistance and $50,000 grants to startups developing innovative technology solutions and demonstrating business growth opportunities. The second FFF cohort includes agriculture tech company KAPPA AgTech; software company Karambit.AI; biotech company Magna Labs; rechargeable battery developer NanoNiFe; data science firm Pluribus; IT services company NIOSolutions; plasmonics wireless communications company Saltenna; and ZipID, which produces Form I-9 compliance software. (News release)

Coworking company Gather Workspaces announced plans in September to open its Gather West End location in Henrico County’s Innsbrook area in Spring 2025. Gather’s first post-COVID addition will expand its footprint to eight locations statewide, with five in the Richmond area and three in Hampton Roads. Gather West End will occupy 19,452 square feet at 4101 Cox Road. Designed to accommodate more than 300 people, the location will feature 92 private offices of varying sizes, with amenities including a video recording and podcast room, eight conference rooms and a 30-person training room. (News release)

NeoSwap AI, a Richmond company that offers an AI-powered multiperson exchange marketplace for nonfungible tokens, is now called Tulle. The company said the rebrand is meant to reflect its sharpened focus on liquidity solutions for low-volume cryptocurrency markets like Solana and Bitcoin. Tulle operates a technology stack, called TulleKit, that combines intent capture, prediction models and advanced trade-finding algorithms to facilitate multiparty swaps. The company says its approach boosts trading volumes in low-liquidity environments, significantly improving market efficiency. Founded in March 2022, Tulle had raised more than $3 million in its pre-seed round as of early September. (Richmond Inno)

No Limbits, a Richmond adaptive clothing company led by CEO Erica Cole, has landed a $50,000 grant from Progressive Insurance to be used toward the purchase of a new commercial van for the business. The company was one of 20 small businesses from across the country to score grants from the Mayfield Village, Ohio, insurance giant through its Driving Small Business Forward program. No Limbits makes clothing for amputees and wheelchair users and has expanded to other garments for specific disabilities. (Richmond Inno)

The Regional Accelerator and Mentoring Program (RAMP) in Roanoke has accepted
nine startups into its fall RAMP cohort and inaugural On RAMP pre-accelerator program. The programs will run concurrently, with RAMP-in-Residence participants moving through 12 weeks of business acceleration and On-RAMP cohort developing early-stage businesses. RAMP-In-Residence cohort members are: Drivingo (Blacksburg); DentAI (Richmond); N-Factor (Blacksburg); and Portcullis Research (Blacksburg). On RAMP participants entrepreneurs are Rufus Pasley (Roanoke); Edward Gaines II of Eudaemonia.ai (Stafford); Amethyst Edmond (Roanoke); Douglas Pitzer of Stroke of Genius (Roanoke); and Toni Sperry of Pod Farms (Pulaski). (News release)

PEOPLE

Manassas aviation startup Electra.aero has named former Boeing executive B. Marc Allen its new CEO, succeeding founder John S. Langford, who will remain chairman of the Manassas-based aviation startup. Allen spent the bulk of his career, nearly two decades, at Boeing, which has been headquartered in Arlington County since 2022. Most recently, he served as the Fortune Global 500 aerospace and defense contractor’s chief strategy officer and senior vice president for strategy and corporate development. Founded by Langford in 2020, Electra has about 45 employees. Langford previously co-founded Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences. Electra conducted the first successful test flight of its prototype hybrid electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) commercial aircraft in November 2023. (VirginiaBusiness.com)