Summerfest TechAI Announces 20 Global Pitch Competition Finalists

MILWAUKEE, WI – Milwaukee World Festival, Inc. (MWF) is excited to reveal the finalists for the Pitch Competition at the eighth annual Summerfest Tech, the Midwest’s premier tech event. Taking place June 23-26, 2026, this year’s conference will spotlight the evolving landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The popular Pitch Competition also returns, sponsored by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), with 20 finalists from around the globe, including three from Wisconsin.

The 20 Summerfest TechAI finalists will be competing for a $5,000 cash prize for each pitch track, along with other prizes, on June 24 and June 25 at 3:00 p.m. at the Westin Milwaukee Downtown. To view judges, review committee, and coaches for the competition, click HERE.

New this year, the competition will introduce a Disruptive Tech track, keeping the program at four category tracks – Advanced Manufacturing, Food/Beverage/Agriculture, Fin & InsurTech, Healthcare/Biotech, and Disruptive. Each track will feature a “Fan Favorite” award, allowing attendees to vote live for their top pitch, with two tracks presented each day.

The 2026 Summerfest TechAI finalists are as follows:

Wednesday June 24, 2026 – 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Advanced Manufacturing, Food/Beverage/Agriculture

• Bluana Foods (Gura Humorului, Suceava, Romania): provides shelf-stable vegan sashimi. Our HMHNI tech creates 12-month ambient life with authentic texture. We decouple protein from the cold chain, pricing 40% below real fish.
• eGrowth Corp (Calgary, Alberta, Canada): redefining agriculture with AI-driven, geothermally heated & cooled greenhouses that produce fresh food year-round. Its systems replace imports with reliable, low-carbon local supply using a fraction of the water and no fossil fuels.
• Green Steel Environmental (Boulder, CO): upcycles a waste product from steel manufacturing, repurposes it as a natural phosphorus and sulfur removal agent for wastewater treatment plants, and returns the nutrient-rich material to the earth as fertilizer.
• Maize (Madison, WI): building digital infrastructure for local farm-to-table supply-chains through enhanced regional connectivity, supply visibility, and simplified commerce.
• Mayim Flow (Palo Alto, CA): uses non-invasive sensors, AI and ML to predict liquid leaks and cooling failures 48–72 hours before they occur in data centers, agriculture, and critical infrastructure, preventing downtime, water waste, and catastrophic damage.

Fin & InsurTech

• ArvoFin (Raleigh, NC): turns financial statements and planning reports into AI-generated, narrative-driven proposals in minutes. Firms can track proposal engagement to improve conversions, increase advisor efficiency, ensure consistency, and maintain compliance.
• Okkanti (Madison, WI): delivers infrastructure that helps doulas and other whole-health specialists operate, collaborate and get paid efficiently.
• Shamel Studio (Los Angeles, CA): OS for Film & TV Production. AI-powered tools for film logistics & finance, automating scheduling, budgeting, and cost reporting, replacing weeks of manual work with hours and reducing costly errors.
• Ternwheel Inc. (San Francisco, CA): the operating system for live entertainment, combining tour logistics, communication, budgeting, settlements, and banking into one platform for artists, managers, and production teams.
• Ticker (Atlantic City, NJ): is a social investing platform where investors share verified brokerage activity and learn from real trades. No screenshots, no hype. Consumer product on the surface. Proprietary behavioral data infrastructure underneath.

Thursday June 25, 2026 – 3:00-5:00 p.m.

Healthcare/Biotech

• Phoenix (St. Louis, MO) building a below-the-knee prosthetic and subscription service designed to make prosthetics more affordable, easier to maintain, and customizable for patients.
• Persperion (San Diego, CA): building ConTAQ: a reusable, non-invasive, fingertip-touch-based sweat test strip for needle-free glucose and metabolic insights, with a path to a broader biomarker platform.
• TinyMoves (Cambridge, MA): turns ordinary smartphone or clinical video into quantitative neuromotor measurements to give clinicians and drug developers an objective way to track conditions like cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s and stroke recovery.
• Veera (San Diego, CA): the first device to pump breast milk and feed baby simultaneously, while providing real-time intake measurement and milk characteristic data — directly addressing the #1 reason women stop breastfeeding early.
• Vibrant Medical (Shoham, Merkaz, Israel): the smoke detector for the brain. A wearable ultrasound patch continuously monitors carotid hemodynamics in high-risk hospital inpatients, catching stroke before clinical symptoms appear.

Disruptive Tech

• 2DaLoop (Detroit, MI): disrupts e-waste by automating frontline triage. The platform scales throughput without adding headcount, transforming manual recycling into TQMS-grade data that de-risks OEM supply chains and finally closes the circular loop.
• KeeperSpace Inc. (Cape Canaveral, FL): Keeper Autonomy software equips any spacecraft for two-way environmental intelligence exchange with the Keeper Network – sending observations and state, receiving the fused environmental picture, and executing low-latency autonomous orbital defense.
• Licube, Inc. (Houston, TX): the lithium company for the fusion age by supplying lithium-6 — the critical fuel for fusion reactors — using our patented electrodialysis platform, which also produces ultra-high-purity lithium for advanced materials.
• Visalaw AI (Memphis, TN): an end-to-end AI platform for immigration lawyers. Leveraging one of the largest immigration law datasets, it powers authoritative research, intelligent drafting, and agentic workflows — helping firms save time and win better outcomes.
• Xena Intelligence (Louisville, KY): helps ecommerce brands grow on platforms like Amazon & Walmart using AI powered automation and real time data insights.

More information and additional programming for Summerfest TechAI can be found HERE.

As an added benefit, all 2026 Summerfest TechAI attendees will have options between a Free Badge and additional add-on badge experiences, which include varying levels of Summerfest general admission – for more details on badge benefits and prices, register HERE. All pitch competition sessions are included with all badge levels.

Summerfest TechAI is supported by : ABC Pathways, AdvancedTek, AE Business Solutions, Aleysian, Arista, AWS/Syntax, Bayforce, BMO, Briggs & Stratton, Concurrency, Cream City Cyber, CU Ventures, Customertimes, Dell, Digital Bridge, Forward TS, Funded House, Generac Power Systems, Guidepoint/Sublime Security/Torq, Heartland Business Systems, Hitachi Vantara, Husco, JBS Dev, Light The Hoan, Michels, MKE Tech Hub, Molson Coors, Moreland Connect, Ping Identity/SDG, Potawatomi Ventures, Proofpoint, Qumulo, Red Foundry/i.c.stars, Regal Rexnord, Rehlko, SailPoint Technologies, Slalom, STEP CG, T-Mobile for Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Continuing Ed, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Information Science, Vadar Alpha, Waukesha County Technical College, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Werner.

Visit Summerfest Tech for the latest information.

About Summerfest Tech

Summerfest Tech began in 2018 with the goal of leveraging the Summerfest brand to showcase technology and provide a forum for attendees from the tech and business community to network, educate, and celebrate the evolution of technology. Summerfest Tech continues to champion the regional business community, while shining the spotlight on Wisconsin’s growing reputation as a tech hub, highlighting the growth and opportunity in the region. Programming from local, regional, and national speakers, as well as a cash-prize pitch competition, connects the tech community around relevant topics. Summerfest Tech will be held June 23-26, 2025, For more details, visit Summerfest-Tech.com.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.