Gregory Calderiso was trying to reduce the anxiety he was feeling during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when he discovered mindful breathing.
Focusing on his respiration relieved stress, but Calderiso found it challenging to keep count in his head to maintain a specific pattern of exhaling and inhaling. He couldn’t keep focused.
“I wanted something to take the cognitive load off myself,” said Calderiso, who works as an information technology executive.
Armed with a 3D printer and some spare parts, Calderiso built a gadget that would passively guide him in performing calming breathing patterns through the use of light airflow.
Soon he saw the potential in a portable device that could be placed in the mouth, guiding the user through pre-programmed calming breathing patterns.
A startup was born.
In 2023, Just Breathe LLC was selected to join the New England Medical Innovation Center’s accelerator program. And a few months later, Calderiso was named the winner of the 2024 Rhode Island Business Competition, netting $20,000 in prizes.
Still, Calderiso’s invention needed more development, which meant he needed more funding.
“I wanted to build a device we could put in usability studies,” he said.
R.I. Commerce Corp. had the solution: the Innovation Voucher Program.
In June, the agency awarded Calderiso $75,000 to help him bring the product to life.
Just Breathe is one of more than 125 companies to receive grants through the Innovation Voucher Program, an initiative started under then-Gov. Gina M. Raimondo in 2016 to support the needs of small businesses and startups to spur innovation, research and development.
Over nine years, R.I. Commerce has approved vouchers totaling $6.8 million for innovation projects ranging from prototyping a recipe for mass-produced vegan pasta and studying the fluid dynamics of a new blade design for wind turbines to testing polymer additives that could help turn recycled plastics into fabrics.
“The program is really meant to help both startup businesses and existing businesses to take that product or service to the next level,” said R.I. Commerce Secretary Elizabeth M. Tanner. “What we really want to happen is to take those inventions that happen here in Rhode Island and try to make a business out of it.”
At its start in 2016, the program provided up to $50,000 for companies with fewer than 500 employees to conduct research and development with a Rhode Island “knowledge provider,” either a university, research center or medical center.
Some applicants can also qualify for a voucher as an established small-business manufacturer conducting internal research and development.
In 2023, the voucher amounts were extended to up to $75,000.
“We’re not giving them a million dollars, so there’s only so much testing they get out of it,” Tanner said. “It’s an investment almost to say, ‘We believe you, we trust you that you’re going to be able to make this work.’ ”
Nevertheless, the program has a cost, and with the state projecting a $330 million deficit for the next fiscal year, expenses such as this may be getting a closer examination during the budget process.
R.I. Commerce says the innovation voucher program was allocated $1 million in fiscal 2023, $2 million in 2024 and $1 million in 2025. In 2024 alone, 14 businesses were awarded vouchers totaling $960,245.
Tanner is ready to defend the program if legislators are looking for places to cut.
“I have never seen such a large amount of high-growth startup activity in Rhode Island,” Tanner said. “So long as I’m secretary, I will be pushing very hard for this program and others like it to support that high-growth startup community.”
In fact, R.I. Commerce is looking to launch a companion program in 2025, one that would offer $5,000 to applicants to cover fees related to registering patents, according to Tanner.
How successful has the voucher program been since 2016? Tanner can’t say exactly. Unlike multimillion-dollar tax incentives that are based on job creation, the vouchers are in much smaller dollar amounts and come with few strings attached.
R.I. Commerce says it is now starting to circle back to some of the previous recipients to see if the financial boost from the state was helpful.
One of those is Bristol-based Jaia Robotics LLC.
In October 2023, Jaia was awarded $74,535 to test underwater equipment at the Roger Williams University Aquatic Diagnostic Laboratory.
The company is developing torpedo-like autonomous underwater vehicles that can perform tasks such as collecting water samples to detect environmental DNA – or eDNA – genetic material shed by organisms in the water column.
Owner Ian Estaphan Owen says the potential blue economy uses are wide-ranging, from monitoring fishing stocks and shellfish farms to conducting studies on offshore wind turbines. The company, which is about 5 years old, has more than a dozen employees and is getting close to going to market.
But testing is ongoing, and Owen says half of the innovation funding has paid the fees for the aquatic lab at RWU.
“[The innovation voucher] was super important to us,” he said.
At Just Breathe, Calderiso says he’s been able to put the innovation voucher to good use, designing and constructing 10 portable devices that will be used in a pilot study at Women & Infants Hospital.
This study, led by Dr. Adam Lewkowitz, will involve 50 new mothers to see if Just Breathe’s guided airflow cues can reduce stress and anxiety and improve maternal mental health.
Through the voucher program, Tanner says, businesses often become aware of the “ecosystem of resources” in the state, which can make it more advantageous for companies to remain in the state, even as they grow.
“They form relationships they didn’t have before,” she said. “They become engrained in the ecosystem. They recognize what’s available to them and they stay.”