- A winning formula: ‘low overhead, low manufacturing costs, and huge target markets’
While producing a senior design project on his way to earning a biosystems engineering degree from Mississippi State University, Nate Venarske tooled around with a better way to kill pesticide-resistant mosquitoes until he had an “aha” moment.
Venarske came up with Automatic Mosquito Ovitrap, a device that lets mosquitoes breed but kills their offspring. The first design used pesticides, while the current design uses a floating mesh small enough for mosquito eggs to enter but too small for mosquito larvae to escape.
“It’s a simple mechanical trap, just tricking the mosquitoes,” said Venarske.
Venarske’s project caught the attention of investors such as Emily Wykle, regional vice president of gener8tor, who described it as “not very sexy, but quite promising.”
Last year, Innovate Mississippi recruited Venarske and seven promising entrepreneurs for a 12-week CoBuilders accelerator boot camp and pitch competition, with MSU E-Center in Vicksburg as his supporting partner. The environment provided opportunities to nail the basics, get critical seed funding, and build toward successful companies that impact their fields. All participants received $25,000 in the form of a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) agreement to help develop their businesses. Automatic Mosquito Ovitrap met the criteria of an emerging company that’s right at, or just before, the revenue point.
“The summer before my senior year, I spent in Oxford, England, studying medical entomology, especially mosquitoes, and part of that was writing reviews on global mosquito control and trying to understand what everyone in the world is doing to control mosquitoes – what’s working, what’s not – and I identified several gaps, and that led me to design this initial prototype. However, our team was not very good at soldering, and we failed to get it to actually work. But that’s what sparked the idea that’s developed to this day.”
When Venarske initially discovered the mosquito-killing solution, “I thought, this is great! I’ve solved it! In three months, I’ll be making this awesome trap and selling it! I learned there was so much more to it. For example, I’ve realized how difficult it is to get EPA approval and find customers.”
Venarske faced another early challenge: the target market – pest control companies – wants to see evidence that it works.
“In 1982, a similar project was introduced in a study neighborhood of Blossom Heights in Houston, Texas, which reduced mosquito populations by around 76 percent,” said Venarske. “It was never used again because it was so labor intensive. My version is easier to deploy. We’re working on publishing evidence to move forward.”
Boot camp helped Venarske manage challenges, navigate issues like provisional patents, and more.
“I was connected with many successful entrepreneurs who had awesome ideas and were more than willing to help me brainstorm,” he said. “I was also connected to manufacturers, investors, and a number of other mentors and good contacts.”
In preparation for the fevered pitch competition (his pitch time was precisely 1:38 pm), “I’d present ideas, and they’d either get struck down or a thumbs up,” he recalled. “There were a lot of iterations, sometimes getting contradictory advice, and then having to weigh that.”
In November, at Accelerate 2024, an Innovate Mississippi event focused on strengthening Mississippi’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, Venarske walked away with the Every Detail Matters award, and cash compensation sponsored by gener8tor, a nationally recognized venture capital firm and accelerator network that’s launching its first investment fund focused solely on Magnolia State startups.
One of gener8tor’s early successes: Pretty Litter, a science-based product that diagnoses health problems in cats.
“They didn’t have to raise a lot of additional capital beyond our investment,” said Wykle. “Our national network connected them with Mars, which ultimately bought the company for $1 billion. The exit of this company created a lot of wealth in Wisconsin.”
Wykle also mentioned a rising upstart that came out of Innovate Mississippi’s boot camp: Home Tours Pro, developed by Jeff Smith and Mark Davis of Brandon, a streamlined process for real estate professionals that significantly reduces the cost and time required to deliver media to customers. It automates the request, collection, editing, and delivery of real estate media using various proprietary technologies and systems.
“Companies like these have low overhead costs, with low manufacturing costs, and huge target markets,” said Wykle.
Wykle pointed to the trajectory of Glo, a company founded by MSU students Hagan Walker and Anna Barker at the Center of Entrepreneurship and Outreach. Initially, the company marketed Glo Cubes, a liquid-activated drink accessory, to bars and restaurants across the U.S. When a mother wrote to them about the calming effect the cubes had on her four-year-old autistic son, they created a line of Glo Pals, children’s sensory products, which led to a partnership with Sesame Street.
“It was originally meant to be a novelty cocktail accessory,” said Wykle. “Now these little cubes are at Nordstrom, Target, co-branded with Sesame Street. They’ve had such tremendous growth. My favorite part of the story is that they hired two of their professors from the entrepreneurship program at MSU to be c-suite team members. The wealth stays in Starkville rather than leaving town.”
Lynne Jeter
