Zoetic Motion is a startup focusing on providing mobility support to people in physical therapy. Using artificial intelligence (AI) powered assistance, they are building a platform that allows patients to guide themselves through home exercises. The platform provides real-time feedback to patients by detecting and correcting their form during movements.

Zoetic Motion is making the recovery process more accessible and convenient, ultimately creating a better experience for patients, said Zoetic Motion founder and CEO Zeeshan Khan.

Khan thought of the idea for the startup while taking an Interdisciplinary Senior Design Project I Course (ENGR 463) at Cal Poly. Through the class, Khan partnered with other Cal Poly students to create Muscle Ninja, an attachable sensor that informs users of muscle activation during exercise.

Khan and his team brought the idea to the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s (CIE) Summer Accelerator program in 2021. 

The Summer Accelerator is a three-month program that provides hands-on mentorship and resources needed to build a business. To help grow startups, Accelerator participants gain access to $10,000 in seed funding. Muscle Ninja, now known as Zoetic Motion, was one of the nine startups accepted into the program in 2021. 

Through the Summer Accelerator, Zoetic Motion pivoted from a wearable hardware prototype to a software solution. Khan said the Summer Accelerator helped organize his team’s thoughts, explore more ideas, and de-risk their business. 

After completing the Summer Accelerator, Zoetic Motion joined the CIE Incubator and has been working to build out Zoetic Motion’s mission since then. 

“Since joining the Incubator program, I don’t think I would have had access to the same resources that I did,” Khan said. 

The Incubator allowed Khan to connect with people genuinely interested in his product and with real experience in the entrepreneurship world, he said. 

“It is a great, safe environment where there is someone there to check on your work, check on your progress, and help you stay accountable for the milestones that you set,” Khan explained. 

The Incubator has connected Zoetic Motion with various fundraising opportunities, including AngelCon, an annual pitch competition hosted by the Cal Poly CIE Small Business Development Center (SBDC) where six tech-driven startups compete to win more than $100,000 in equity-backed funding.

After leveraging resources from the Incubator, Khan said he felt more prepared to pitch in front of investors at the upcoming AngelCon event. 

Khan said he is excited to partner with various physical therapy clinics and clinicians. Zoetic Motion now has a business model that allows them to earn income through subscriptions while providing revenue back to the clinics. Khan said Zoetic Motion is now in the hands of users and is steadily gaining more traction.

Their team is giving back to their patients and clinics by making therapy more accessible and providing physical therapists with valuable insights into recovery outcomes.

In addition to providing Zoetic Motion a great setting to fail and receive feedback, the Incubator also allowed Khan to learn about his business and ultimately grow from it. 

“If you want to test yourself out or give yourself a challenge, entrepreneurship is the way to go, especially in the Incubator program,” he said. 

Quantum Energy is a software service in the energy industry that is helping finance and organize the future of energy while optimizing economic, environmental and health outcomes.

Their platform is creating a more sustainable future and maximizing business’s financial outcomes by bringing new data-driven insights to energy decision-makers. 

The idea for the startup originated after co-founder Andrew DeMille, multi-exit Software as a Service (SaaS) startup founder, reconnected with his friend and co-founder Dr. Daniel Howard, who has a Ph.D. in Energy and Environmental Engineering. 

With DeMille’s and Dr. Howard’s combined passion for the environment, they recognized the importance of considering potential impacts on our health and planet when making energy decisions.

DeMille was involved with the Cal Poly’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Small Business Development Center (SBDC) through his previous software company, CoachNow. The SBDC introduced DeMille to the CIE Incubator program. 

The CIE’s two-year Incubator program helps develop early-stage startups into financially secure and scalable enterprises. Entrepreneurs in the Incubator program are provided with mentorship, funding opportunities and other resources to develop their business. 

Since joining the Incubator, DeMille has benefitted from advice given by mentors and peers to combat startup challenges. He described the Incubator process as “invaluable.” 

“Being able to come in and have access to a network of peers who are also building startups, also going through the trials and tribulations and sharing successes together. That has been super, super helpful,” DeMille said. 

In addition to helping Quantum Energy co-founders expand their network, the Incubator also connected them with fundraising opportunities.

Following the Incubator, Quantum Energy competed in, applied and was accepted as a top six finalist in the SBDC’s annual AngelCon pitch competition which hosts six tech-based startups in an annual pitch competition to win $100,000+ in equity-backed funding. 

Quantum Energy competed as a finalist in AngelCon 2023 and won the Audience Choice Award, receiving $1,300 in prize money from the crowdfunding campaign. 

“The Audience Choice Award means so much to us,” DeMille said. “It just felt like an acknowledgment of a solution whose time has come.” 

DeMille said the Incubator program helped him prepare to pitch at AngleCon. Receiving feedback from different angles and experts demystified the presentation of their startup, he explained. 

Quantum Energy is now working on an initiative to add a new purchaser-caused avoided emission impact label to the renewable energy credit market. This label will be applied to energy so that, for the first time, businesses can make healthy decisions for profit, people and the planet. 

DeMille thanks the Incubator program for helping Quantum Energy build momentum and encourages entrepreneurs to apply. 

“There is nowhere else that I can imagine where you can get this level of access to resources and support as a startup founder to move forward and to make your vision a reality,” DeMille said.

Vetama is a mobile veterinary franchise that provides a convenient pet care option for both animals and their owners. The startup supports veterinarians’ and technicians’ personal success by allowing them to practice independently. 

 The idea for the business originated after co-founder and Cal Poly animal science graduate Jacob Wright shadowed two veterinarians, who soon became his business partners. They discussed the harsh future of the veterinarian industry due to poor quality of life and corporate constraints. Their goal was to find potential ways to help empower future veterinarians. 

 While working together in their mobile veterinary practice, the co-founders sparked the idea of using their mobile practice as a template and soon developed a franchise model. 

 A year later, after Wright received his Masters of Business Administration from Cal Poly, he and his co-founders, Dr. Raffy Dorian and Dr. Daniel Gutman, created Vetama. 

 Vetama provides consulting and coaching to help veterinarians run their own business when, how and where they want. 

 Shortly after founding Vetama, the co-founders joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Incubator, a two-year program that provides everything necessary for early-stage companies to develop into successful enterprises. The program connects entrepreneurs with resources including mentorship, networking events and funding opportunities.  

 Before joining the Incubator program, Wright said that Vetama had minimal sales, few leads and no exposure to veterinary conferences. The Incubator connected Wright to the proper resources and mentorship to develop their entity into a growing business.

 “The doors just kept opening, it’s almost overwhelming,” Wright said. “You get to talk to crazy smart people, and they offer their time essentially for free for you to pick their brain.” 

 Wright said participating in the Incubator created a sense of community, as well as several opportunities to receive advice from fellow entrepreneurs. 

 “You’re going through the same stress of fundraising, you’re going through the same stress of not knowing, literally not having any templates or anything created for your customers and being around other people in the same situation yields more creative ideas,” Wright explained. 

 Vetama is currently working on developing a new role for technicians to offer ambulatory services in their area. They’ve also recently launched their first location in Salem, Oregon and plan on debuting their second location by July.

Past Incubator participants advised Wright that the more he puts into the program, the more he will get out of it. 

“That could not be more true,” Wright said.

ARTIFEX is creating a data processing software that allows architects and designers to input data points and receive automated floor plans. Users can then export that data and use it to inform the next stage of the design process.

The idea for the tool stemmed from research that co-founder Elijah Williams conducted while pursuing a Master of Science in Architecture with Cal Poly. Williams’ original idea was for a hardware device that used a laser to collect measurement data. He brought that idea to the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) in 2021 and joined the CIE’s Hatchery, a startup incubator for Cal Poly students.

Around that same time, Anna Baytosh, a Cal Poly Masters in Business Administration student at the time, approached the CIE looking to get involved and learn more about the startup process. The CIE connected her with Williams, and she joined ARTIFEX just in time to apply for the CIE’s Summer Accelerator program.

The Summer Accelerator is a three-month program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed to build a business, including $10,000 in seed funding. ARTIFEX was one of the nine startups accepted into the program in 2021.

By the end of the Summer Accelerator, ARTIFEX had successfully raised a small round of pre-seed capital. Baytosh, who had originally planned to leave ARTIFEX after completing the program, joined Williams as an official co-founder and became the startup’s COO.

Following the Summer Accelerator, ARTIFEX joined the CIE’s two-year Incubator program, which is designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable and scalable businesses. It connects founders with resources that can help facilitate growth, such as mentorship, networking events and funding opportunities.

“The Incubator provides a wealth of resources, from accounting, legal, marketing, finance — anything you really need to get your startup off the ground,” Baytosh said. “For us, it was about the Incubator helping us build that structure around what we had already created in the Summer Accelerator.”

Since joining the Incubator, ARTIFEX has pivoted from their original hardware idea to a software solution. They’ve also begun fundraising.

The Incubator has connected ARTIFEX with several fundraising opportunities, including AngelCon, an annual pitch competition hosted by the Cal Poly CIE Small Business Development Center (SBDC), where tech-driven startups from California’s Central Coast compete to win equity-backed funding.

ARTIFEX participated in AngelCon in 2022, and although they did not raise funding from the competition, Baytosh said it was still “an awesome experience.”

She described the preparation for the competition as a “pitch bootcamp.”

“We were able to hone our pitch and our strategy,” she said. “And we were able to meet more people that we were able to raise funds from later.”

In addition to helping the ARTIFEX co-founders meet prospective investors, the Incubator also introduced them to a community of fellow entrepreneurs.

“I would say, for a venture-backed startup, a network of advisors, investors and fellow founders is absolutely crucial because that’s what’s going to keep you going,” Baytosh said. “Those network connections are going to get you to the next step.”

Tallyfor is using online automation to ease the process of completing business taxes.

The idea for the startup originated while Peter Wen was working as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) at Xero, an online accounting company. Wen realized much of the work a CPA completed manually could be automated — so he set out to build a product to do just that.

Now, Wen is the co-founder of Tallyfor, a startup he described as “the tax calculation layer for the internet.”

Tallyfor improves online accounting software so that it is able to complete business taxes by moving data from source transactions to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filing.

“Everyone has to do tax returns, right? And it’s actually quite an arduous job,” Wen said. “So what Tallyfor does is help automate (the process).”

Wen began developing Tallyfor in 2018. Three years later, he brought the startup to AngelCon, an annual competition hosted by the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in which tech-driven startups on California’s Central Coast compete to win funding for their businesses.

Tallyfor won the competition and was awarded the top prize of $145,000 in equity-backed funding.

“AngelCon was a lot of fun,” Wen said. “It was really a great way for us to kick off our business.”

Following AngelCon, Tallyfor joined the CIE Incubator, a two-year program designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable and scalable businesses. The program provides participating startups with resources that can help facilitate growth, such as mentorship, networking events and funding opportunities.

For Wen, the most valuable part of the Incubator is the community. Through the program, Wen has had the opportunity to connect with his fellow entrepreneurs.

“Being a startup founder, I always say, is a bit lonely,” he said. “It’s always challenging finding like-minded founders and people who support you. Joining the Incubator program was very helpful in finding people to support you in those early stages.”

In early April of 2019, Donald Lee accompanied his wife Christine to a routine ultrasound appointment.

The Lee’s were expecting twins — they were not expecting to spend the following weeks in the hospital.

During the ultrasound appointment, Christine was diagnosed with a short cervix, a condition that can increase the likelihood of preterm birth. She was immediately rushed to a hospital across the street. 

“We never went home after that,” Donald said. 

Christine laid in the hospital with her feet elevated higher than her head for three weeks in an attempt to prevent preterm birth. She eventually gave birth to twin daughters at 24 weeks — about four months earlier than typical.

Premature infants are often born with underdeveloped lungs and immune systems, according to the American Pregnancy Association. Most require medical support in order to survive for the first few weeks of their lives.

The Lee’s spent over 5 months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

“I asked a lot of physicians during that time, ‘What could we have done differently to prevent this?’” Donald said. “The answer across the board was the same: There was nothing we could have done.”

That answer wasn’t good enough for Donald. 

With a background in mechanical engineering, he set out to invent a medical device that would prevent preterm births. He began researching and prototyping and, eventually, developed a product that would become the foundation of Novocuff, a maternal healthcare startup working to reduce infant mortality caused by preterm birth.

Donald’s daughters are now three years old. They’re healthy. They go to preschool. They beat the odds.

But not all families are as lucky. Roughly 20 percent of infants born at 24 weeks do not survive, according to an American Medical Association journal.

Novocuff is working to change that.

There are a million deaths worldwide attributed to preterm birth, but 75 percent of those deaths could be prevented by delaying labor, Donald said.

Novocuff’s medical device can extend pregnancy for women at risk of delivering their children prematurely. The silicone device is vaginally inserted and supports the body’s natural anatomy, applying compression to the cervix. It’s also adjustable, so physicians can change the compression as the patient’s body changes throughout the course of the pregnancy.

After developing the device, Donald was unsure how to bring that solution to market — so he reached out to a former colleague, Amelia Degenkolb, who was on the founding team of Alydia Health.

Alydia Health, formerly InPress Technologies, was a startup working to prevent postpartum hemorrhage, or excessive bleeding after giving birth, with their device, the Jada System. Degenkolb was one of the engineers who developed the Jada System.

Alydia Health was acquired by American pharmaceutical company Organon & Co. in 2021 for $240 million.

“It was all over the local news that Alydia was acquired by Organon for $240 million, and I assumed (Degenkolb) would be free,” Donald said. “And so I called her and I asked if she could meet for coffee.”

Donald arrived at Skippers Coffee with a presentation and pitch to convince Degenkolb to help bring Novocuff to market, but Degenkolb only needed to look at one page of Donald’s work before agreeing to join.

She became the CEO of Novocuff, handling the startup’s business relations, fundraising and FDA approval process. Donald became the startup’s official CTO, handling the development of their product.

Degenkolb said she was excited to start fresh with Novocuff and felt like she was “going in eyes wide open” after seven years with Alydia Health. “I  know about a lot of the potential pitfalls and detours that we can now avoid, and I have the right contacts and support to help us succeed in a much quicker way,” she said.

The Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) was a key resource in the success of Alydia Health — so Degenkolb brought Novocuff to the Cal Poly CIE.

“It was a natural fit for us,” Degenkolb said. “I had already been through this process once with (Alydia Health), and so we did it again.”

Novocuff joined the CIE Incubator, a two-year program that provides startups with the resources needed for smarter, faster growth. It connects participants with mentors, consultants and potential investors. Alydia Health participated in the same program in its early stages and graduated in 2012.

The Incubator also provides opportunities to earn funding through pitch competitions, like the CIE Small Business Development Center (SBDC) AngelCon. AngelCon is an annual event where tech-driven startups on the Central Coast compete to win equity-backed funding. Novocuff participated in AngelCon in 2022 and won $70,000 in equity investment.

With that funding, Novocuff is one step closer to accomplishing their goal of saving babies’ lives.

Donald said he hopes to eventually take Novocuff global. The device’s design is purposefully simple so that lower-income nations can utilize the device, even in the absence of a highly trained physician. 

“Globally, there’s about 15 million preterm labor cases,” Donald said. “Our aim is (for) our device to be straightforward enough and simple enough to use globally (so that) we can bring down that millions of deaths significantly.”

AcreCloud is a startup maximizing efficiency on farms by providing farm management software tools to farmers and farm laborers.

The idea for the startup originated when co-founder Elias Cabrera took over his family’s 800-acre pistachio farm and realized the farm was not running as efficiently as it could be. There were no data-tracking systems in place, which made it difficult to make informed decisions about which crops to plant or harvest — so Cabrera, who had a background in mechanical engineering, began to develop a platform to organize work orders.

Cabrera eventually presented the idea to Jim Cogan, who had previously worked in economic development, and together, they set out to build AcreCloud.

AcreCloud technology currently allows users to track work orders and expenses, but will soon expand to include purchasing and payroll, according to Cogan, the startup’s COO.

Shortly after the startup was founded, AcreCloud participated in AngelCon, an annual competition hosted by the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Small Business Development Center (SBDC) where tech-driven startups on the Central Coast compete to win equity- backed funding.

AcreCloud won the competition and was awarded $135,000 in equity investment.

Following their win at AngelCon, AcreCloud joined the CIE Incubator, a two-year program designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable and scalable businesses. The program provides participating startups with resources that can help facilitate growth, such as mentorship and networking opportunities.

“AngelCon was our first introduction to the Incubator, and we made such great connections with mentors and impressive, high-level folks in software and innovation,” Cogan said. “It was a no-brainer to join the Incubator and get to spend time with those folks.”

Incubator programming also includes monthly peer-to-peer roundtable discussions, which allows entrepreneurs to learn from one another and build community.

“Misery loves company, but so does success,” Cogan said. “You wind up celebrating with (other entrepreneurs) and leveraging each other’s networks. On our in-person days, I spend a lot of time talking with my fellow entrepreneurs.”

Zeste Farms is a startup leveraging vertical farming — the growing of crops in vertical layers, often in a climate controlled environment — to grow leafy greens and herbs.

The idea for the startup originated while co-founder Stan Kaplita realized that existing indoor vertical farming technologies were not being used to their full potential.

“I saw challenges with traditional farming with climate change, water scarcity and land scarcity, and I came to the realization that what can be grown inside will be grown inside,” he said.

Now, Zeste Farms has developed an efficient method of indoor vertical farming that requires lower operating costs and eliminates the “green premium,” or the additional cost of clean technology compared to that with greater greenhouse emissions.

Zeste Farms utilizes their innovation to grow unadulterated produce, which provides consumers with maximum nutrition and maximum flavor.

Early in the startup development process, Zeste Farms got involved with the Cal Poly Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, joining their Incubator. The Incubator is a two-year program designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable and scalable businesses by connecting participating startups with mentors, networking opportunities and resources that facilitate faster, smarter growth.

Kaplita, whose professional background is in engineering, said he joined the Incubator because his professional background led to an emphasis on engineering a product rather than developing a business.

“We were so lopsided as a company when we started out,” Kaplita said. “(The Incubator) pushed us in terms of marketing and sales.”

The Incubator provided Zeste Farms with the resources needed to grow from an idea to a startup. Through the program, Kaplita said he learned how to refine business pitches, market effectively and manage a startup.

“I look at the CIE as a critical resource and support for our company,” he said.

The Incubator has also created several networking opportunities that have been especially valuable to Zeste Farms, according to Kaplita. He was introduced to a business consultant who specializes in biological and agricultural technology who he meets with bi-weekly. The program also put Kaplita in contact with an angel fund that later invested in Zeste Farms.

Kaplita added that he benefits from the Incubator’s frequent guest speakers, who are able to provide different perspectives on the startup development process. Their advice can provide “a different approach to solve a problem,” Kaplita said.

The wealth of resources offered by the Incubator ultimately provide startups with a stability that Kaplita said he is grateful for.

“The CIE can help guide the ship a little bit,” he said. “It’s very approachable, very friendly. I feel very fortunate to have been in this area and to use the resource here.”

TRIC Robotics is revolutionizing pest control, using ultraviolet light in place of chemical pesticides to help farmers control pests and disease.

“You can think of our solution like a giant Roomba,” said TRIC Robotics founder and CEO Adam Stager. “It’s tractor scale, and it carries these lights up and down the rows to control the pests.”

The idea for TRIC Robotics originated while Stager was pursuing his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Delaware. While in school, Stager met United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists who had spent ten years researching ultraviolet light as a substitute for chemical pesticides. 

Stager eventually decided to turn the innovation into a business — but although the research that inspired TRIC Robotics originated in Delaware, Stager realized his startup might be more successful in California.

California is largely recognized as the leading contributor to United States agriculture, producing 75% of the nation’s fruits and nuts, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. 

California also grows 90% of strawberries in the United States, so in 2021, Stager drove across the country to bring TRIC Robotics to West Coast strawberry farms.  

Once in California, Stager discovered the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Incubator, a two year program designed to help early-stage startups develop into financially stable, scalable businesses. The Incubator provides participating startups with mentorship, networking opportunities and resources that help facilitate smarter, faster growth.

TRIC Robotics officially joined the Incubator in August 2021.

The Incubator helped Stager grow his professional network after coming to California, he said. The program also connected Stager with pitch competitions, as well as mentors who helped prepare him to compete.

In 2022, TRIC Robotics enjoyed a notable winning streak, earning the Audience Choice Award at the Central Coast Innovation Awards, the Central Coast Economic Forecast and AngelCon.

AngelCon is an annual competition, hosted by the Cal Poly CIE Small Business Development Center (SBDC) where tech-driven Central Coast startups compete to win $100,000 in equity backed funding. 

“AngelCon was a great experience for us,” Stager said. “The Incubator really prepared us so that we could get into AngelCon and be really competitive, and once we got there, the mentors really helped us prepare for a round of funding.”

The Incubator program is also associated with Cal Poly, whose College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) is the international leader in undergraduate agriculture education. Stager said he has leveraged this resource, bringing high-achieving CAFES students onto the TRIC Robotics team.

Stager said participating in the Incubator also introduced him to a community of fellow entrepreneurs, many of which are working in a similar industry. He is able to collaborate and engage with other Incubator participants and learn from their experience. 

“It can be a lonely journey of being an entrepreneur, but being a part of the Incubator not only gives you access to resources, mentors and classes that teach you how to take the next steps in your startup, but it’s also a great forum for communicating with other founders,” he said.

By Miranda Knight

Can computers taste? Cal Poly chemistry graduate Katerina Axelsson says so — and she has the data-backed artificial intelligence (AI) innovation to prove it.

While doing chemistry work at local wineries in college, Axelsson noticed that wine scoring was inconsistent and subjective, quickly seeing a need for more transparency in the wine industry and a better understanding of what consumers really want.

“I saw an opportunity to make the subjective wine scoring process more objective,” she said. “I figured that, instead of the 100-point critic system of wine scoring, the answer was in the chemistry.”

So, Axelsson went straight to the lab, where she spent two years innovatively testing wine as a human would taste it, rather than simply for quality control like a typical lab.

By the end of this, she had gathered a mass of data that needed processing, so she set up a meeting with Alex Dekhtyar, the head of the computer science master’s program. The proposed thirty-minute meeting ended up lasting four hours, landed her a business partner in Dekhtyar and was the start of her entrepreneurial journey.

“Around that time, I joined the HotHouse Summer Accelerator for a sort of similar product idea, a wine tasting kit that educated people about wine,” she said. “After that, I went into the HotHouse Incubator where we started getting data from the recommender deployments. That’s kind of when the wheels started turning.”

Thus, Axelsson pivoted her concept and turned it into Tastry, the technology-driven AI company she is the CEO and founder of today.

“The data we were gathering on consumer preferences was unprecedented and led us to build an insights dashboard, like a software product,” she explained. “Now we’re in the business of not only telling consumers what to buy, but telling retailers what to stock and wineries what to make and where to sell it.”

During Tastry’s two years in the incubator until its 2017 graduation, and for some time after, the team fully dove into B2B technology to vertically integrate into the wine industry. Now, they have released their BottleBird app and have plans to launch “Powered by Tastry” software on e-commerce wine websites to keep in touch with consumers.

But while the startup has a history of upward success, Axelsson says that it hasn’t always been easy to be seemingly “selling a rocket ship when people were only looking for a faster horse.”

“We’re making some pretty big claims,” she said. “To say that we can predict how a product will perform in the market just based on the chemistry is almost not believable. And I couldn’t just say this is faster and better and cheaper than what the industry was already using because there’s nothing out there like it. I had to really gain customer trust.”

However, Axelsson confidently utilizes efficacy tests to show, rather than tell, that there is validity in Tastry’s technology. Not to mention, Tastry has no shortage of customers on the Central Coast.

“San Luis Obispo [County] is the perfect environment for this type of company because we’re directly embedded into the wine industry, with the added benefit of being right next to Cal Poly which has a lot of talent to pull from,” Axelsson noted. “Plus, having access to the CIE helped surround me with an incredible network of like-minded people, mentors and investors.”

With that being said, Axelsson doesn’t plan on moving Tastry out of San Luis Obispo anytime soon —  there’s still so much opportunity to tap into and plenty of local wine for her computers to taste.

You can find out more about Tastry at https://tastry.com/ or learn how we can help you grow your SLOcal business today through our HotHouse Incubator program.