Orlando-based HyCarb among Final Four in Competition for 8th Annual Cade Museum $50,000 Prize

ORLANDO, Fla. – HyCarb, Inc., a University of Central Florida Business Incubator client in the Central Florida Research Park, is one of the four finalists in the 8th Annual Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention competition in Gainesville, which will award a $50,000 prize to the Florida company determined by judges to have the most promising new technology.

Tony Longhurst, chief operating officer at HyCarb, said the firm has been working toward completing their first five product prototypes – light-weight, less toxic, long-lasting, environmentally-friendly and safer batteries with no thermal runaway, created  with HyCarb’s patented graphene and carbon nanotube technologies.  The $50,000 Cade Prize would help accomplish that goal.

Two rounds of judging started the end of May with over 100 applicants narrowed down to a “Sweet 16” on July 5 and four semi-finalists by July 31.  The final round of competition will be held at an “Inventivity Bash” Sept. 23 at the Cade Museum in Gainesville. The winner will be announced at the end of the day.  Cellvana Biotechnology of Tampa, PlasmaChip of Gainesville and SmartJet of Tallahassee are the other finalists.

“We are delighted that HyCarb’s innovation that will revolutionize batteries, conductivity, sensors, and more, is among the Cade Prize final four. This is an honor and recognition that is propelling our visibility and market potential,” he said.

“HyCarb is also among four UCF Business Incubator clients who achieved the Cade Prize final four in the past five years. Feynman Nano and Hesperos, Inc. were in the Final Four in 2016 and Nano Discovery in 2012,” said Incubator Site Manager Carol Ann Dykes.   “Other incubator companies have been among the Cade Museum’s “Sweet 16 over the years,” she added.

The Cade Museum $50,000 cash prize is made possible by a grant from the Community Foundation of North Central Florida, with legal services provided by Saliwanchik, Lloyd & Eisenschenk, intellectual property lawyers of Gainesville.

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Contact Information:

Sigrid Cottrell, CEO, HyCarb Inc., 619-302-4958  sigrid@hycarbinc.com

Carol Ann Dykes, Site Manager, UCF Business Incubation Program, 407-206-2426 carolann.dykes@ucf.edu

Larry Vershel or Beth Payan, Larry Vershel Communications, 407-644-4142 Lvershelco@aol.com

About HyCarb, Inc.

HyCarb, Inc. is a Florida-based, woman-owned small business, headquartered at the University of Central Florida Business Incubator in Research Park. HyCarb is currently developing leading-edge batteries and will branch into other energy storage and energy harvesting devices, as well as smart sensors, for IoT and wearables, in the future. HyCarb uses graphene and carbon nanotube technologies to deliver safe, efficient, state-of-the-art products and systems for advanced nano-materials and energy storage systems. HyCarb aims to create enough value for carbon-based products that there is no need to burn fossil fuels or waste carbon dioxide out of our smokestacks and tailpipes.

About the UCF Business Incubation Program
The University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program is a community resource that provides early-stage companies with the tools, training and infrastructure to become financially stable, high growth/impact enterprises. Since 1999, this award-winning program has helped over 390 local startup companies reach their potential faster by providing vital business development resources.

With seven facilities throughout the region, the UCF Business Incubation Program is an economic development partnership between the University of Central Florida, the Corridor, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia Counties, and the cities of Apopka, Kissimmee, Orlando and Winter Springs. For the 2014/15 and 2015/16 fiscal years, the activities of these participating firms have helped to sustain more than 4,710 local jobs and have had a cumulative impact of over $725 million on regional GDP and over $1.3 billion on regional sales. During the same period, the program has returned $7.41 in state and local taxes for every $1.00 invested in the program.  For more information, visit www.incubator.ucf.edu.