Four Wilmington ventures will pitch their concepts at the N.C. Technology Association’s 2016 State of Technology Conference next month in Durham.

Raleigh-based NCTA selected a total of six young companies for the conference’s Tech Startup Showcase.

The local startups are Lapetus Solutions, Likeli Inc., Performance Culture and Petrics Inc., according to NCTA’s website. Each will make a six-minute pitch in front of several hundred conference attendees. Rounding out the showcase companies are InsightFinder Inc., based in Raleigh, and Taste Analytics, in Charlotte.

After the pitches, the audience will vote for Best Presentation and Most Likely to Invest My Own Money awards, according to the NCTA website.

"We are honored to be able to present in front of Raleigh/Durham’s tech leaders at the NCTA Startup Showcase," Likeli CEO George Taylor III said in an email Friday. "Likeli is extremely fortunate to have such a supportive community that, even at our company's young age, has built a tremendous amount of excitement around this brand. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to follow in my brother’s footsteps (Next Glass) and take home another win for Wilmington."

Likeli is a social affinity matching app. Lapetus Solutions uses science and technology to increase the accuracy of life events predictions. Performance Culture is a web-based performance management system designed to help managers and employees improve through coaching and evaluation. Petrics offers services and strategies to improve pet health, especially those in multiple-pet households.

NCTA looks at a couple of factors when deciding which startups rise to the top of the many showcase applications submitted, according to association spokesman Marc Montoro.

In an interview prior to last year's conference, Montoro said that one selection factor is the startup’s technology itself. The other is whether that technology is cutting edge or unique to the market it serves.

In its letter to Tech Startup Showcase companies this month, NCTA said it evaluated applications with the aim of “selecting a diverse range of companies with innovative solutions, specifically aligned with the theme of cognitive technologies, and those that had compelling ideas for on stage presentations.”

Last year’s Tech Startup Showcase included two Wilmington companies: WaterPlay USA and SpeedFaces.

In other entrepreneurship news, NC IDEA announced Friday that Wilmington-based Treadwell Corp. is among the semi-finalists for its spring 2016 grant cycle. Each spring and fall, NC IDEA awards from four to six grants of as much as $50,000 each.

Treadwell makes the TREDLR, a treadle device designed to improve an individual’s blood flow and related health conditions.