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V O L . X X X I I N O. X X S E P T E M B E R 7 , 2 0 2 6 18 F O C U S important. Events like the Maine Fishermen's Forum and aquaculture conferences helped me build relation- ships, learn from others in the industry, and better understand the resources available to businesses like ours. MB: Were there any challenges to obtaining funding? MS: Everything was done online through various forms, and as a novice, it was pretty difficult to navigate at first. ere was definitely some trial and error. My team and I have strong academic backgrounds, so in some ways it felt similar to work we'd done in school; a lot of reading, writing, research and making an argument. Even with that experience, some of the terminology and require- ments can be difficult to interpret. MB: What has the money gone toward? MS: Personal funds have covered much of the core cost of starting and operat- ing the business, including infrastruc- ture, equipment and payroll. Most of the grant funding we've received has been project-based, meaning it supports specific research, equipment or business- development activities rather than gen- eral operating expenses. MB: What are you looking at for further financing? MS: Standard bank loans. MB: What's your advice for entrepreneurs? MS: Know your resources, and don't be afraid to finance the right investments. You don't have to build everything at once or entirely out of pocket. Medtech pioneer makes most of grant opportunities WAVED Medical LLC is a University of Maine spinout developing interpretable, biophysics-based software to help identify women with dense breast tissue who may be at higher risk for breast cancer. Since 2024, it has grown from an early research concept into a com- pany with validated technology, U.S. and European patents licensed from UMaine and a growing advisory team. e company, which has not yet generated revenue or received FDA approval, has primarily relied on non- dilutive funding, such as grants that do not have to be paid back. Andre Khalil, founding director of the CompuMAINE Lab in Orono, founded WAVED with Kendra Batchelder, who has since moved on. Mainebiz: What types of financing have you deployed? Andre Khalil: Almost entirely non- dilutive so far. e foundational research that seeded our patents was supported at UMaine by roughly $1 million from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and the Maine Cancer Foundation. Since founding WAVED Medical in 2022, we've secured approximately $450,000, anchored by an NIH Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I award, along with support from the Maine Technology Institute, the Innovate for Maine Fellows program, the Maine Center for Entrepreneurs and VentureWell. Most recently, we were selected for the InsiteXccelerator program. MB: How did you identify funding opportunities? AK: A lot of it came through the entre- preneurial ecosystem at UMaine and beyond. e Strategic Partnerships, Innovation, Resources and Engagement team at UMaine has been especially valuable, and through their Maine Innovation Research and Technology Accelerator program they helped us find opportunities like the InsiteXccelerator program. National programs like the [National Science Foundation] I-Corps and VentureWell also opened doors and taught us how to think like a company rather than a research lab. MB: Any challenges to obtaining funding? AK: Non-dilutive funding is competitive and slow. And there's a real gap between the research funding that supports the science and the investment that sup- ports scaling, with the work of turning a validated algorithm into deployable, regulated software falling in between. A lot of our strategy has been about bridging that gap. MB: What has the money gone toward? AK: Validating our technology on real-world mammography data, devel- oping our software toward clinical and regulatory readiness, building our regulatory and quality strategy, and extensive customer discovery, over 200 interviews with radiologists, imaging center leaders and patients. MB: What are you looking at for further financing? AK: We're considering several avenues, both non-dilutive and dilutive, for the next phase. Reaching FDA clearance is one of our highest priorities. MB: What's your advice for entrepreneurs? AK: Start with customer discovery. Talking to over 200 potential custom- ers changed how we thought about our entire product. Surround yourself with advisors who've done it before, especially in regulated industries. Be patient; build- ing something that has to earn clinical and regulatory trust takes time. Ocean data startup wades into pre-seed funding Josh Humberston and Neil Schonwald founded Coastal Measures in 2019 to develop an AI platform that aggregates fragmented, incompatible coastal and ocean data streams and turns them into actionable intelligence. Humberston leads the Kittery-based business as CEO, with Schonwald as CTO. Mainebiz: What types of financing have you deployed? Josh Humberston: Initially we ben- efited from small but competitive fed- eral and state grants, up to $25,000 each, just enough to build a proof of concept. As it became clear the idea had merit and we were able to land early sales, the story helped motivate larger grants and a capital raise through a pre-seed fund- ing round working with angel investors and local venture funds. MB: Any challenges to obtaining funding? JH: Definitely. Being early-stage was a big one — a lot of traditional lenders and investors want to see a track record we simply didn't have yet. On top of that, a lot of companies compete for the same attention and same pool of money, so just getting noticed took real effort. We did close our first round of ven- ture financing, but it wasn't quick or easy. We focused hard on the market we are addressing and on building credibility with our investors through highly tan- gible demonstrations of our technology. Today, the majority of our atten- tion is on building our customer base and at the same time we recognize that another financing round is just around the corner as we scale. MB: What has the money gone toward? JH: Most has been directed toward three things: running pilot projects, expanding into new markets and strengthening our team. MB: What are you looking at for further financing? JH: I expect two to four more equity- based funding rounds for accelerating growth. MB: What's your advice for entrepreneurs ? JH: Be patient. Fundraising as a startup rarely happens overnight — it's a mar- athon of building credibility, and there is no shortcut. Get used to telling your story to anyone who will listen, and ask if there is anyone else they think you should talk to. Laurie Schreiber, Mainebiz senior writer, can be reached at lschreiber @ mainebiz.biz » C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PA G E P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y C O A S TA L M E A S U R E S Josh Humberston, left, says, Coastal Measures's early sales helped motivate larger grants and a capital raise. With him is data engineer Krutik Bajariya, CTO Neil Schonwald and software engineer Winner Kazaka.

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