Backhoes, bulldozers, and forklifts typically do not pop up in the world of startups. But that changed at Wednesday’s showcase of the latest graduates from the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator.
The demo day for this summer’s class of 10 startups featured ideas in fashion, education, and advertising technology, which are bread-and-butter markets in New York, but one team literally brought out the hardhats to talk about what they built.
“Who thinks tractors are sexy?” asked Dmitriy Rokhfeld, co-founder of Machinio, a search engine for buying and selling used industrial equipment. He said his startup adopted a strategy comparable to Indeed.com’s online job search aggregation but for machinery purchases. Given who is mentoring Machinio, it is not hard to see why the startup is throttling up to pursue this strategy. The CEO and co-founder of Indeed, Rony Kahan, is one of the startup’s lead investors and advisors, Rokhfeld said.
Reselling gear for metalworking, agriculture, and construction was far from the only novel idea presented at yesterday’s demo day. Guidance counseling for picking colleges got an online revamp from Admitted.ly. Meanwhile, the crew at Tapactive developed a matchmaking service for independent fitness instructors and people looking for private yoga, boxing, and physical training sessions.
The slideshow above features a bit about each startup, as well as a few other notable attendees at Wednesday’s demo day.
