The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation has announced the 10 semi‑finalists for its Breakthru Startup Pitch Competition, which will conclude on the evening of March 19.
The New Brunswick government’s innovation agency announced last year it was resurrecting the Breakthru brand. The competition had been held every two years before the pandemic and was a major part of NBIF’s mission.
The revised edition of Breakthru offers a total prize pot of $200,000. The top three teams will enter due diligence with NBIF for an equity investment of $100,000 for the first prize and two second prizes worth $50,000 each. More than 80 early-stage teams entered the competition.
The awards ceremony will be live-streamed.
Here are the semi-finalists:
Clearance Central AI Solutions Inc. | Ashish Deshmukh
Clearance Central is on a mission to make life easier for students, newcomers, and everyday people – by uncovering hidden deals and opportunities that most never see.
Hexoris | Lance Keddy, Isaac Richard, Joshua James Pothier
Hexoris is developing a reactor process to create ultra-low-carbon-emission graphitized anode materials. These materials will help lower the carbon intensity of Li-ion batteries.
Infralytix | Ethan MacLeod, Jeremy J. Bowmaster
Infralytix has developed a Bridge Weigh-in-Motion (BWIM) platform that measures vehicle weights directly from bridge response, achieving less than 5 percent accuracy at highway speeds with minimal installation time. This patent-pending technology is validated across multiple New Brunswick highway sites.
InspecTrack | Kazi Mahfuz Mamtazur Rahman, Farhan Fatei Faheem
InspecTrack transforms home inspection through AI-powered computer vision, AR smart glasses, automated defect detection with instant repair cost estimation, and an integrated financial services marketplace.
LigandQI | Mostafa Javaheri Moghadam, Stijn De Baerdemacker
In the past year, Moghadam went through Lab2Market to explore a proposal to develop software that enhances computational drug design by providing quantum-level accuracy in ligand-receptor interactions.
Luvera AI | Tessa Tristianti
Luvera.ai is an AI visibility platform in the prototype stage, built to solve a major blind spot every business faces: the inability to see how often their brand is mentioned inside conversational AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini, and which competitors are appearing instead.
Mulli Swing Solutions| Brycen Munroe, Matt Ryan, Ethan Belliveau, Alex Khoshbakhtian
Fredericton-based Mulli Swing has developed sensors that attach to the grip of a golf club, producing data that helps golfers and their coaches analyze the player’s grip and swing.
Ozone | Michael Doiron, Nathaniel Dryden, Dominic Losier, Jake Profit
Hockey lacks modern, dynamic training technology, the team said Ozone addresses this gap with the PAPPI, an innovative puck-passing system capable of tracking players and delivering accurate, multi-puck passing drills that replicate real game scenarios.
Urai AI Corp. | Shanthi Shanmugam, Vagmi Mudumbai
The company is working on a developer-first platform to build natural voice agents with real-time, interruptible dialogue that talk and listen like humans.
VoltCube | RajyaLakshmi Kotamraju, Girish Babu Venkatappa, Srinivas Tangella
Voltcube delivers modular, AI-optimized microgrids combining solar, wind, battery storage, and atmospheric water generation that deploy in just weeks. Its plug-and-play system aims to achieve 90 percent renewable energy coverage with 30 percent cost savings versus grid power.
