GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., June 13, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, announced this week’s round of $5,000 investments from submissions to startgarden.com. These include Underwear Nation, a premier, men’s underwear of the month club, and YesCam, an engagement ring box with a digital camera inside.

Start Garden Selection
The idea selected this week by the Start Garden team for funding is Underwear Nation (strt.gd/x1OD), a men’s underwear of the month club that selects the best designs featuring the latest trends and styles from underwear designers world-wide and presents those in a focused, well-designed and uniquely curated retail experience. The $5,000 from Start Garden will help Underwear Nation setup an ambassador and affiliate program.

“We are obsessed with undies, and our experts are working around the clock to curate the best collection of men’s underwear from around the globe and ship them directly to our members or ‘Citizens,’” said Jerrad Matthew, founder of Underwear Nation.

Public Selection
The idea selected by the most endorsements from visitors to startgarden.com is YesCam (strt.gd/x0MD), a video camera in a ring box that allows users to record proposals from a first person perspective. The Start Garden investment will allow YesCam to sell to and experiment with 15 to 20 jewelry stores across Michigan.

“A proposal is one of the largest milestones in a couple’s relationship. Friends or family currently try to capture the moment from a distance, but YesCam allows an up-close, first-person reaction to this life-changing moment,” said Russell Fyfe, creator of YesCam.

Each idea receives a $5,000 investment, pending the completion of the investment agreement, which can be found on startgarden.com.

The fund’s management team takes submissions through startgarden.com. Ideas with potential to become businesses can be submitted. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

Each Thursday at noon the ideas on startgarden.com are stored in the database, and the slate is cleaned for the next week. Anybody who has already submitted an idea and wants it reconsidered for the next week must go back to the website to resubmit. The next round of $5,000 investments will be announced Thursday, June 20, after the noon deadline.

The next Update Night is Thursday, June 27. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., June 6, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, announced this week’s round of $5,000 investments from submissions to startgarden.com. These include Shop Flow, management tools to help manufacturers run more efficiently, and Your Chauffeur, an on-call driver service to help people under the influence get home safely with their own vehicle.

Start Garden Selection
The idea selected this week by the Start Garden team for funding is Shop Flow (strt.gd/x3xD), a software company focusing on developing business process applications to help manufacturers save time and energy by applying agile/lean methodologies and common sense to their shop management workflow. The $5,000 from Start Garden will help Shop Flow secure commitments from at least five manufacturers.

Public Selection
The idea selected by the most endorsements from visitors to startgarden.com is Your Chauffeur (strt.gd/x0BC). Using foldable electric scooters and bicycles, the Your Chauffeur team is on-call  to “take the keys” from people leaving the bars and drive them, and their cars, home. The Start Garden investment will allow Your Chauffeur to invest in another electric scooter and hire additional drivers for better coverage and responsiveness.

“People who enjoy the nightlife can often have too much fun. Unfortunately driving is not an option, but they need their car the next day, that’s where Your Chauffeur steps in,” said Chad Becker, founder of Your Chauffeur. “We’re on-call for the bar scene, but could also be useful for people who need rides home after doctor visits or special events.”

Each idea receives a $5,000 investment, pending the completion of the investment agreement, which can be found on startgarden.com.

The fund’s management team takes submissions through startgarden.com. Ideas with potential to become businesses can be submitted. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

Each Thursday at noon the ideas on startgarden.com are stored in the database, and the slate is cleaned for the next week. Anybody who has already submitted an idea and wants it reconsidered for the next week must go back to the website to resubmit. The next round of $5,000 investments will be announced Thursday, June 13, after the noon deadline.

The next Update Night is Thursday, June 27. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 30, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, announced this week’s round of $5,000 investments from submissions to startgarden.com. These include Brewhouse Apps, a specialty app for craft breweries, and CinePerks, a streaming content aggregator for movie rentals.
Start Garden Selection
The idea selected this week by the Start Garden team for funding is Brewhouse Apps (strt.gd/x52C), a software company focusing on developing business process applications to help craft breweries. Their first app, Keg Hound, will allow breweries to know where their kegs are, what is in them, and for how long they have been gone. The $5,000 Start Garden investment will allow the company to create a prototype.

“There are more than 2,000 craft breweries in the United States, and very few companies creating software for the industry,” said Christopher Davis, founder of Brewhouse Apps.

Public Selection
The idea selected by the most endorsements from visitors to startgarden.com is CinePerks (strt.gd/x6qD), a movie “perks” aggregator that allows the user to earn points based on movie rentals and streaming content from leading video providers, including Amazon, Redbox, Netflix and iTunes directly from a single website. CinePerks will use the $5,000 to experiment with a national retailer and movie chain.

“CinePerks will offer rewards for all the major film studios’ products, provide access to streaming and rental content from a single website, and allow customers to redeem their cash back for movie theater tickets,” said Philip Holmes, creator of CinePerks.

Each idea receives a $5,000 investment, pending the completion of the investment agreement, which can be found on startgarden.com.

The fund’s management team takes submissions through startgarden.com. Ideas with potential to become businesses can be submitted. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

Each Thursday at noon the ideas on startgarden.com are stored in the database, and the slate is cleaned for the next week. Anybody who has already submitted an idea and wants it reconsidered for the next week must go back to the website to resubmit. The next round of $5,000 investments will be announced Thursday, June 6, after the noon deadline.

The next Update Night is Thursday, June 27. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 23, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, and opportunities for further investment, tonight held their monthly Update Night. Start Garden will take ERG! Energy Bars (strt.gd/x9cz) to the next stage with a $20,000 investment.
ERG!, created by Dennis Bean-Larson of Traverse City, Mich. are all-natural, unprocessed, Michigan-sourced energy bars, which come in a variety of flavors. They are suitable for athletes or for anyone looking for a healthy, non-processed, afternoon pick-me-up. Since its initial Start Garden investment, the company expanded its direct sales network and now has two distributors with access to nearly 100. ERG! received its initial $5,000 on March 14, 2013.

“There are thousands of new food products that come out every year, but the difference comes in the vision for the product or brand and the founder’s ability to make growth happen,” said Mike Morin, portfolio manager at Start Garden. “Dennis has shown a tenacity to make ERG! big from the beginning, including establishing early distribution partners, quickly scaling his supply chain and manufacturing process to stay ahead of demand while controlling quality.”

Update Night offers teams that have received an initial $5,000 investment a chance to provide an update to the public on their projects. Teams have three-minutes to present before a live audience and explain how the money was used to complete an experiment that proved their idea is desirable, feasible or viable. Following the presentations, a panel of advisors discusses each project and announces which projects Start Garden will continue to invest in. 

Six additional entrepreneurs presented during Start Garden’s May Update Night, but did not proceed to the next level of investment. These include:
• Duba Steaks (strt.gd/x3Oy)
• The Flush Down (strt.gd/x51z)
• Pop in Gym (strt.gd/x8vy)
• Thought Design (strt.gd/x0jA)
• Two Women & a Hoe (strt.gd/x4ky)
• U-Turn (strt.gd/x5Pz)

“Companies that set out with a grand vision and specific goals to reach that vision think and act differently. This is specifically what we’re looking for with "artisanal" product creators, are they more motivated by the crafting of the product or the building of the business, and how do they bring those activities together,” added Morin.

In a dramatic twist, Start Garden chose to fund Jan Bills, founder of Two Women & A Hoe, with a new $5,000 investment. While her original idea was to franchise Two Women & A Hoe, her new concept, Garden Hoe, is a line of functional and stylish work pants, designed for women.

“Jan surprised us with her update. She came back with a completely new idea, built upon her successful brand, Two Women & A Hoe. She also brought a new relationship with a great mentor,” said Rick DeVos, CEO of Start Garden. “She is an experienced entrepreneur, with a strong mentor, which gives us confidence in her ability to see the project through.”

The Start Garden management team accepts ideas with potential to become businesses through startgarden.com. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

The next Update Night is Thursday, June 27. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 16, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, announced this week’s round of $5,000 investments from submissions to startgarden.com. These include Seat Side Service, an app that brings concession stand service to the bleachers, and CHIEF, an indoor gunfire detector.

Start Garden Selection
The idea selected this week by the Start Garden team for funding is Seat Side Service (strt.gd/x2OC), a mobile application for Android and iOS devices that allows fans at a sporting event or concert the ability to order food, drinks and merchandise and have it delivered directly to their seats. It processes credit cards and directs commissions so it simplifies concessions for venues. The $5,000 from Start Garden will help the company test the product in various venues.

“As a sports enthusiast, I experienced firsthand the frustration of inefficient concession management. We have carefully designed and developed a product that benefits fans and the venues,” said Barak Dean, founder of Seat Side Service.

Public Selection
The idea selected by the most endorsements from visitors to startgarden.com is CHIEF (strt.gd/x9MC), innovative technology that detects the sound and location of gunfire and automatically notifies municipalities that a shooting event has occurred. The technology is designed to reduce the amount of time it takes to alert the authorities in order to reduce their response time. The $5,000 Start Garden investment will help the company create its first prototype.

“Gunfire detectors have been deployed in 61 US cities, using special audio technology, it can pinpoint the location and the type of weapon that’s been fired, our goal is to deploy and inform public safety officers as quickly as possible to help save lives,” said Joseph Stein, founder of CHIEF.

Each idea receives a $5,000 investment, pending the completion of the investment agreement, which can be found on startgarden.com.

The fund’s management team takes submissions through startgarden.com. Ideas with potential to become businesses can be submitted. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

Each Thursday at noon the ideas on startgarden.com are stored in the database, and the slate is cleaned for the next week. Anybody who has already submitted an idea and wants it reconsidered for the next week must go back to the website to resubmit. The next round of $5,000 investments will be announced Thursday, May 23, after the noon deadline.

Funded teams give a public presentation about what they did with their $5,000 investment during Update night. The next Update Night is Thursday, May 23. Following the presentations, the Start Garden team announces which projects they will continue to fund at $20K and higher. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 9, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, announced this week’s round of $5,000 investments from submissions to startgarden.com. These include Circus of the Mind, a community festival that presents critical world issues, and Snap Script, a mobile medication app.

Start Garden Selection
The idea selected this week by the Start Garden team for funding is Snap Script (strt.gd/x0oC), a mobile app that allows the user to take a photo of a pill bottle to organize medications, improve adherence and compliance, and monitor for drug-to-drug interaction risk. The $5,000 from Start Garden will help the company launch its first release.

“Other medication apps require users to manually input their prescription information, Snap Script streamlines data acquisition for users automatically by allowing them to simply take a picture of their pill bottles and have the information organized instantly,” said Brian Ingle, founder of Snap Script.

Public Selection
The idea selected by the most endorsements from visitors to startgarden.com is Circus of the Mind (+COM) (strt.gd/x8sC), a traveling, community festival that presents a series of themes addressing critical issues of today--art, culture & politics.

“Circus of the Mind is an immersive, traveling experience, think TED meets Cirque de Soleil, which embed itself within a city’s with its own physical architectural space, where users interact with the content intellectually, emotionally and physically,” said Maurice Jacobsen creator of Circus of the Mind.

Each idea receives a $5,000 investment, pending the completion of the investment agreement, which can be found on startgarden.com.

The fund’s management team takes submissions through startgarden.com. Ideas with potential to become businesses can be submitted. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

Each Thursday at noon the ideas on startgarden.com are stored in the database, and the slate is cleaned for the next week. Anybody who has already submitted an idea and wants it reconsidered for the next week must go back to the website to resubmit. The next round of $5,000 investments will be announced Thursday, May 16, after the noon deadline.

Funded teams give a public presentation about what they did with their $5,000 investment during Update night. The next Update Night is Thursday, May 23. Following the presentations, the Start Garden team announces which projects they will continue to fund at $20K and higher. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 2, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, and opportunities for further investment, today hosted more than 70 investors from the Midwest region for the organization’s first-ever Investor Day. Lake Michigan Credit Union and Varnum LLP sponsored the event.

Start Garden Investor Day was designed to help cultivate Michigan’s investment culture and build awareness of current activity taking place within the region’s startup community. The organization brought together eight of its portfolio companies, all early-stage startups, to present before investors. These included Fetchnotes, Greenlancer, Hip Shot Dot, IMRSV, Local Orbit, OXX, Siliskin and Verifiy Valid. All eight reached a stage that they wanted an opportunity to introduce themselves to the community.

“While our business environment requires a culture that is friendly to entrepreneurs, it also requires an investment culture that is friendly to early stage startups,” said Rick DeVos, CEO of Start Garden. “When startups are reaching that point of a fast expansion, they need hundreds of thousands rather than tens of thousands of dollars, and that requires a community of investors who will help take them to the next stage.”

As mentioned, the eight companies that presented during Start Garden Investment Day included:

FETCHNOTES
Fetchnotes tries to sort out the “junk drawer” of our brains, that includes tasks for work, groceries we need to buy, books we want to read and any number of things that pop up when someone gets busy. Fetchnotes is an intuitive way to grab a thought in the moment, share it with another person, or return to it when it’s most relevant.

GREENLANCER
As demand grows for green energy projects, building contractors struggle to navigate the engineers and processes needed to get from feasibility studies to construction. By focusing on discreet steps, Greenlancer drastically reduces the surplus time and soft costs of the green contracting process, moving each project along a virtual assembly line.

HIP SHOT DOT
First-person shooters are among the most popular category of video games, the Hip Shot Dot device is an LED red-dot sight that attaches to a television or monitor to significantly increase the accuracy for the user. This simple, stand-alone device works with every video game platform and integrates seamlessly into the game experience.

IMRSV
IMRSV’s Cara software can turn any web-enabled camera into an intelligent sensor to create a new way to measure the world. It provides real-time, anonymous audience analytics from any environment. Cara enables new methods measuring people, based on age, gender, attention span, distance and more.

LOCAL ORBIT
The farm-to-table movement has grown more than 18 percent every year for nearly a decade, while conventional food systems have flat-lined at one percent. Local food systems require new market makers to crate and manage supply chains that connect farmers to buyers. Local Orbit facilitates this $8 billion market with an affordable and simple supply-chain management software.

OXX
The home appliances industry is built entirely around the “nester.” OXX Products is creating a new category of rugged appliances for the tens of millions of workers and outdoor enthusiasts who spend a significant portion of their lives in the field.

SILIKIDS
For years, plastic has been the material of choice for moms who want a durable, non-shattering way to feed infants and toddlers. Recent studies have revealed the amount of toxins leaching into food from the plastic. Silikids has created a patented, silicone “skin” (Siliskin) that makes a standard drinking class non-breakable and non-toxic.

VERIFYVALID
While electronic payments have become ubiquitous, payments by check remain the standard for business and banks still process more than 24 billion paper checks every year. VerifyValid has created a safer service that their customers use to send checks through the Internet and print using plain paper, eliminating the costs of printing and shipping and saving companies an average of $1/check.

Unlike any other program, each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community endorses another idea through startgarden.com. An idea can come from anyone, anywhere, and each idea receives $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Since April 2012 Start Garden has invested in 95 projects through startgarden.com.

Each Start Garden investment receives a combination of financial, intellectual and social capital. Each person who receives the initial $5,000 investment has 60-90 days to experiment and then return to give an in-person presentation at Update Night. Ideas can receive additional funding, up to $500,000, to continue to move forward in the program. As of this date, there are 30 simultaneous experiments taking place at the $5,000 level.  Additional detail about Start Garden and its programming can be found at startgarden.com.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., May 2, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, announced this week’s round of $5,000 investments from submissions to startgarden.com. These include New Era Green Energy, a new design of anaerobic digester, and Sportsman Tracker, a web-based prediction tool for hunting and fishing.

Start Garden Selection
The idea selected this week by the Start Garden team for funding is New Era Green Energy, LLC (strt.gd/x25B), which has created a new approach to anaerobic digestion that thoroughly digests any organic waste at a much faster rate, with a byproduct of high quality methane [natural] gas and high quality liquid fertilizer. The Start Garden investment will allow New Era to build a second small digester to do an independent study to validate its system.

“The New Era digester uses a special bacteria to process waste at a much faster rate, which means the devices can be smaller and placed at the location where organic waste is produced, such as restaurants, schools, farms, among others,” said Wayne Craker, founder of New Era. “Our digester will create clean green energy while eliminating the odor of a commercial garbage receptacle.”

Public Selection
The idea selected by the most endorsements from visitors to startgarden.com is Sportsman Tracker (strt.gd/x80B), which uses an adaptive algorithm to analyze past hunting and fishing activities to generate the best places and peak times for sporting activity. The company will use the Start Garden investment to develop for the new Sencha Touch platform and create a multi-platform mobile application.

“Unlike other sporting apps, Sportsman Tracker learns from your past hunting and fishing outings and generates new predictions based on your hunting and fishing activity,” said Jeffrey James Courter creator of Sportsman Tracker.

Each idea receives a $5,000 investment, pending the completion of the investment agreement, which can be found on startgarden.com.

The fund’s management team takes submissions through startgarden.com. Ideas with potential to become businesses can be submitted. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

Each Thursday at noon the ideas on startgarden.com are stored in the database, and the slate is cleaned for the next week. Anybody who has already submitted an idea and wants it reconsidered for the next week must go back to the website to resubmit. The next round of $5,000 investments will be announced Thursday, May 9, after the noon deadline.

Funded teams give a public presentation about what they did with their $5,000 investment during Update night. The next Update Night is Thursday, May 23. Following the presentations, the Start Garden team announces which projects they will continue to fund at $20K and higher. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., April 25, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, and opportunities for further investment, tonight held their monthly Update Night. Start Garden will fund two projects, totaling $40,000, Con Artist Crew Gallery, a Grand Rapids art gallery collective, and Organicycle, which coordinates curbside composting for West Michigan homeowners.
Update Night offers teams that have received an initial $5,000 investment a chance to provide an update to the public on their projects. Teams have three-minutes to present before an open audience and explain how the money was used to complete an experiment that proved their idea is desirable, feasible or viable. Following the presentations, a panel of advisors discusses each project and announces which projects Start Garden will continue to invest in. 

Next round of funding for each project starts at $20,000. Companies moving to the next round of funding include:

Con Artist Crew Gallery (strt.gd/x5gy), founded by Magdalene Law and Reuben Garcia, Con Artist Crew offers a gallery space and artist studios to build a creative community with outreach programs to educate the public and create art experiences. The Con Artist team used Start Garden’s initial $5,000 investment to create a website and in the process created a software, mobile app platform and instant notification system that could be licensed to other galleries. Con Artist received its initial $5,000 on February 7, 2013.

“Con Artist is bringing the art gallery experience online without ignoring the physical gallery, and it created a hosted software offering that can be used by every small-to-midsized gallery around the world,” said Benjamin Gott, resident entrepreneur at Start Garden. “Of course we don’t know how this will end-up, other websites like art.sy are have tried to bring the gallery experience online, but we are excited about the results Con Artist received from their experiment and we want to explore more."

Organicycle (strt.gd/x9My), founded by Justin Swan, is a curbside recycling service for food, paper, yard and pet waste, and other items suitable for composting. The company follows a traditional recycling model to help homeowners and businesses divert organic waste from local landfills and into renewable processes such as composting and waste-to-energy generation. Organicycle used the Start Garden investment to develop a strong residential program in the Grand Rapids market.  Organicycle received its initial $5,000 on February 21, 2013.

“The Organicycle team was relentlessly experimental in their market testing and we admired that quality,” said Rick DeVos, CEO of Start Garden. “While the project will not be without its challenges moving forward—differentiation, market expansion—we feel Justin and the team are equipped to take and expand the curbside composting idea.”

Six additional entrepreneurs presented during Start Garden’s March Update Night, including: Bike Light, Craft House, KBrakes, Retro Rental and Schedfull.

The Start Garden management team accepts ideas with potential to become businesses through startgarden.com. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

The next Update Night is Thursday, May 23. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., April 25, 2013 -- Start Garden, the $15,000,000 seed fund that selects individual ideas each week for investments, announced this week’s round of $5,000 investments from submissions to startgarden.com. These include Fancy Fray, a vintage wedding rental website, and Integrisync, a cloud synchronization tool for the accounting industry.

Start Garden Selection
The idea selected this week by the Start Garden team for funding is Integrisync (strt.gd/x8FB), a synchronization management service that leverages the power and security of file sharing platforms like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft SkyDrive. It allows the user to synchronize any file, even database files from popular accounting software, with complete confidence that the current file or data is the latest version. Integrisync will use the Start Garden $5,000 to test a 30-day free trial of their service to new users.

“Integrisync takes the process of coordinating data with a CPA/Accounting firm from days and weeks, down to mere minutes,” said Rick Irvine, founder of Integrisync

Public Selection
The idea selected by the most endorsements from visitors to startgarden.com Fancy Fray (strt.gd/x89x), which bills itself as “Anthropologie for weddings,” rents items such as antique chandeliers, velvet couches, vintage buffets, windows frames, and other reclaimed items for weddings. The founders will use the Start Garden investment to add more “word-of-mouth” worthy pieces to our inventory and leverage them during May/June weddings and integrate the social impact into marketing outreach. 

“We love vintage/urban design, and while other vintage rental companies focus more on props/décor, we aim to transform a space for a couple’s special day,” said Mindy Peterson.

Each idea receives a $5,000 investment, pending the completion of the investment agreement, which can be found on startgarden.com.

The fund’s management team takes submissions through startgarden.com. Ideas with potential to become businesses can be submitted. Each week the Start Garden team selects an idea and the broader community on the website endorses another idea to receive $5,000. Start Garden can continue to invest up to $500,000 in a single idea. Learn more about submission criteria at startgarden.com/help/criteria.

Each Thursday at noon the ideas on startgarden.com are stored in the database, and the slate is cleaned for the next week. Anybody who has already submitted an idea and wants it reconsidered for the next week must go back to the website to resubmit. The next round of $5,000 investments will be announced Thursday, May 2, after the noon deadline.

Funded teams gave public presentations about what they did with their $5,000 investment during the April Update night. Following the presentations, the Start Garden team announced which projects they will continue to fund at $20K and higher. Those included Con Artist Crew (strt.gd/x5gy) and Organicycle (strt.gd/x9My). The next Update Night is Thursday, May 23. Learn more about Start Garden events at startgarden.com/events.