iBed

Company description

iBed is a therapeutic home hospital bed system built by APYCO for elderly patients, bariatric patients, and anyone recovering at home who has difficulty moving easily. As Pilar Caudillo put it in a UTRGV student newspaper interview, the product isn't meant for a hospital setting — it's "a home hospital bed" designed around recovering at home rather than in a clinical facility. iBed took first place at the 7th Startup Texas Demo Day for the Emerging Industries track on November 21, 2023, a program sponsored by the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC) in partnership with UTRGV's Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center (ECC) and taught at the eBridge Center.

As the competition's first-place finisher, APYCO Beds, LLC was awarded a $40,000 Startup Texas grant — the largest prize tier in the program — to help scale the product in Brownsville. Per the company's signed 2024 Performance Agreement, the funding was allocated toward building four additional operational prototypes by the end of 2024 ($12,000), hiring a part-time sales and promotion specialist ($20,000), and securing permits for full compliance with Texas regulations ($8,000), along with real-world testing of the product with focus groups in Brownsville.

The company and its founders have also been featured in The Rider, UTRGV's student newspaper, covering their participation in RGV Startup Week. In that piece, CEO Agustin Martinez described the event as a strong strategy for building real business connections in Brownsville, and Caudillo said the exposure had drawn interest from other parts of the university and from people across the Rio Grande Valley interested in helping promote and sell the product.

Founders: Agustin Martinez (CEO) and Pilar Caudillo (Sales and Innovation Managing Director)

Program: 2023 StartUp Texas Accelerator - Emerging Industries cohort