Company Lab Partners to Launch First Reverse Pitch Program

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- A Chattanooga startup incubator, the Company Lab (Co-Lab), is launching the first of its kind program.

Co-Lab is partnering with a state incubator, TennSMART, to hold the inaugural Sustainable Mobility Reverse Pitch program.

A reverse pitch according to Co-Lab flips the concept of an entrepreneur pitching an idea to investors on its head.

Instead, companies will present problems they have been unable to solve to startups, researchers, and students, and invest in who they believe has the best idea pitched to them to solve that particular problem.

Co-Lab says the unique opportunities available in Chattanooga such as EPB’s Quantum Network and UTC’s self-driving car test bed provide start ups with a unique opportunity.

The CEO of Co-Lab, Tasia Malakasis, said, “What those winners will receive for their ideas is that they get to work on those world-class test beds, again that don’t exist anywhere else in the world, and work with leading industry partners to develop that solution, and take that solution to market.”

The contest runs through November 10th and the winners will get to present their ideas in December in Nashville.

Applications opened up today.