Ten small businesses win Encouraging Development, Growth, and Expansion grants totaling $750,000.
There were five winners in the STEM class receiving $100,000 each and five winners in the Entrepreneur class receiving $50,000 each.
This round started with 139 businesses applying for funding in February with 111 in the Entrepreneur class and 28 in the STEM category. 16 finalists pitched their proposals before ten winners were selected.
Seven winners are located in New Castle County, one in Kent County and two in Sussex County.
Steen Ooi is the founder and CEO of Livestock Labs out of Wilmington, a bioscience company developing a new technology to produce sustainable meat with industrial farming, it’s called Cultivated meat.
"The money that we have been awarded through the EDGE grant will go towards completing experiments, paying for consumables, as well as hopefully hiring and paying salary for technicians to assist with the experiments and to complete our necessary experiments, we need to do in order to create that product, which then will be made available to other companies that can use it as a base ingredient. So you could think of us as molecular butchers," said Ooi.
His company is one of the STEM winners receiving $100,000.
The winners in the Entrepreneur class include a Kent County gymnastics facility that needed equipment for expansion, the state’s first menopause clinic and a lavender farm building cottages for an agri-tourism expansion project.
Dustin Parker is the owner of Archie, a pioneering “liquid real estate” endeavor that gives home sellers the freedom to move forward immediately without sacrificing the value of their home.
"The foundation of our company is built with technology and largely with AI technology,” said Parker. So we're using these funds to continue to develop our valuation models around the pricing of each home, to give consumers more information, more accurate information about their value, and so that we can continue our business that way."
Since the EDGE grant program started in 2019, a total of $8 million has been awarded to 120 Delaware small businesses.
All of the winners are below.
Entrepreneur Awardees:
American Fire Protection (Seaford) – $50,000
American Fire Protection, launched in 2024, is a fully licensed fire protection contractor, providing inspection, service, and maintenance of commercial, industrial, and residential water-based fire suppression systems and fire extinguishers. All of the company’s fire protection specialists are fully licensed, certified, and trained in fire suppression systems and safety. The company will use its EDGE funds to buy a second service vehicle, with interior upfitting and wrapped with their logo, that is exclusively dedicated to providing on-site servicing of fire extinguishers.
Bayside Gymnastics (Milford) – $50,000
Located in Milford, DE Bayside Gymnastics is in the process of building a new facility with a target opening date of January 2026. The EDGE grant award will offset a portion of the $150,000 multi-use equipment which is needed for the expansion of their special needs, gymnastics, ninja warrior, cheer, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) programs. It will enable them to increase their customer base and improve the overall quality and depth of the programs offered.
Harvey Haven Lavender Farm (Townsend) – $50,000
This farm is a 12.7-acre agritourism venture in Townsend, DE, blending lavender cultivation with immersive tourist experiences. The farm produces lavender-based products like essential oils, lotions, body washes, salts, sprays and soaps. Harvey Haven seeks to be the first lavender farm with integrated overnight accommodations. Part of a nearly half million-dollar agritourism expansion project, EDGE funding will be used for them to launch phase one, the construction of two 450-square foot cottages. Future plans include building an event barn, pavilion, farm cafe and increasing product sales.
Introspection Counseling (Wilmington) – $50,000
Introspection Counseling Center, LLC (ICC) is a telehealth practice founded in September 2021, to meet the increasing demand for accessible mental health support and qualified mental health providers during the global pandemic. Since its establishment, ICC has provided more than 5,600 online therapy sessions to adult residents across Delaware. To meet the rising demand for in-person mental health services, particularly in underserved areas such as Wilmington, the company has secured a medical office condo in the City. The space needs extensive renovations to bring it up to code and make it ADA compliant. ICC will use its EDGE awarded funds to invest in infrastructure, IT systems, marketing, website redesign and equipment. This move will help ICC enhance service delivery, and close accessibility gaps.
Oasis Family Wellness – The Menopause Clinic (Newark) – $50,000
Menopause is a significant yet often overlooked phase in a woman’s health journey, impacting nearly 1.3 million women annually in the United States. In Delaware, over 20% of the female population is aged 45 and older, and the demand for specialized menopause care is increasing. Despite this, access to dedicated menopause care remains limited, leaving many women to navigate complex hormonal health challenges related to menopause without adequate support or treatment. The proposed Menopause Clinic, the first stand-alone clinic in Delaware, seeks to close this critical gap by providing evidence-based, patient-centered services tailored to perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. EDGE funding will support startup costs including medical equipment and supplies, hardware, furniture, marketing and community outreach, and early operational expenses.
STEM Awardees:
AKOS Solutions (Newark) – $100,000
AKOS, founded in September 2023, created a platform called CollabChat AI to address a core gap in collaborative AI. Most AI tools cater to individual users, missing shared perspectives from project managers, specialists, teachers, or students—leading to oversights and unchecked “AI hallucinations.” CollabChat AI allows teams to interact with an AI model together, refining ideas and validating responses in real time. This approach is especially valuable in sectors like healthcare, where novices gather information for experts, and education, where teachers oversee students’ AI usage. AKOS will use their EDGE funding to enable key enhancements of CollabChat’s core capabilities, such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for better accuracy, real-time web search, and shared collaboration tools. It will also support user research, marketing, and infrastructure (including AWS hosting) to ensure a seamless experience for users.
Archie (Georgetown) – $100,000
Archie is pioneering “liquid real estate” – a unique model that gives home sellers the freedom to move forward immediately without sacrificing the value of their home. Traditional selling means months of strangers walking through your house, repair negotiations, and paralyzing uncertainty; Archie eliminates these unpleasant experiences entirely. When homeowners partner with Archie, they receive up to 80% of their home’s verified value within 24 hours of moving out, while maintaining ownership until final sale. Archie then increases the value by enhancing the property, deploying sophisticated marketing technology, and orchestrating the entire sales process. When the home sells, the original owner receives 60% of additional proceeds – creating optimal alignment where both parties succeed when the home achieves its highest potential sales price.
The EDGE Grant will accelerate Archie Home Intelligence – featuring a proprietary AI-powered Automated Valuation Model (AVM) that analyzes over 500 property-specific data points and hyperlocal market trends to achieve accuracy at levels not yet seen in the industry. This technology not only powers Archie’s seller experience but also creates a transparent, certainty-driven buying process where homes come fully inspected, move-in ready, and available to close in as little as 72 hours.
Essence Infusing (Newark) – $100,000
Essence Infusing (“Essence”) is a Delaware based company reimagining how herbal infusions are made at home and in small businesses. The company’s flagship product, ELOH®, uses gentle, precise heat and automated mixing to transform herbs, roots, and botanicals into oils honey and other carriers. It preserves nutrition and flavor while ensuring superior quality and consistency without guesswork or nutrient loss. It also offers easy-to-use presets along with full customization for advanced users and features a built-in potency calculator. Additionally, the company is developing AI tools that will allow users to generate custom infusion recipes and send them directly to the machine. The EDGE award will support the transition from working prototype into early production by funding molds, parts and essential manufacturing hardware.
Higher Medicine (Wilmington) – $100,000
Friedreich’s ataxia (FA) is an inherited pediatric disorder with life-long disability and mortality by middle-age. FA patients have no effective options to treat both neurological and cardiac symptoms, with many drug candidates in development not designed to address the underlying biochemical defect responsible for disease progression.
Higher Medicine (HM) aims to usher in functional cures for Friedreich’s ataxia (FA) through safe molecules and a novel epigenetic platform. Their EDGE funding will be used for Phase 2 research and development and hiring additional staff.
Livestock Labs (Wilmington) – $100,000
This bioscience company is developing new technology to produce sustainable meat without industrial animal farming called Cultivated meat. It is real meat grown directly from animal cells. At a time when avian flu outbreaks are devastating poultry farms, leading to mass culling, price spikes, and food security risks, cultivated meat provides a resilient and scalable alternative. Using cutting-edge biomanufacturing techniques, the company plans to create high-quality meat with the same taste and texture as conventional meat but with up to 90% less land, 66% less water, and 92% fewer emissions. To date, only four companies have successfully launched products, albeit in limited quantities. Livestock Labs will use the EDGE funding to accelerate its efforts in addressing this challenge by developing and delivering process-ready, precision-engineered cell lines designed to meet the specific needs of this industry. This project will position Delaware as a leader in the emerging bioeconomy.
