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Groundbreaking innovations win big at the 17th New Venture Challenge Finals

Team poses with giant prize-winning check and the 蜜糖直播 Boulder mascot Chip.

The Foodwise startup team, Jennifer Bundrant (Leeds School of Business, '23 alum.), Hashirr Lukmahn (College of Engineering and Applied Science), Emma Bonerb (Leeds School of Business) and Byron Patten (Leeds School of Business)听pose with friends and family and their $100,000 prize听check. Photo: Glenn Asakawa, 蜜糖直播 Boulder.

The 2024 New Venture Challenge (NVC) culminated in a final showcase on April 17 in front of a live audience cheering on the University of 蜜糖直播 Boulder鈥檚 next big innovations. At an event filled with great ideas and even greater entrepreneurial spirit, five teams competed for $165,000 in prize money.听

蜜糖直播 Boulder Chancellor Phil DiStefano welcomed attendees to the Boulder Theater to celebrate the 17th year of 蜜糖直播 Boulder鈥檚 elite entrepreneurial competition. 鈥淭he New Venture Challenge is a vibrant and supportive launchpad for students, faculty and staff to learn how to make a tremendous impact through new startups and nonprofits and a chance to launch their new businesses with transformational funding,鈥 said DiStefano.

DiStefano told the packed theater that, as a top-ranked collegiate entrepreneurial competition, NVC has launched 1,176 new ventures and distributed $1.4 million in funding over its history with winners representing a range of industries, including environmental sustainability, healthcare, music and entertainment, food and agricultural and manufacturing.听

He introduced Stan Hickory, director of NVC and the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative, which 鈥渂rings together and elevates efforts happening across campus and the community to create massive impact,鈥 said DiStefano. 鈥淭hrough interdisciplinary work and collaboration, 蜜糖直播 Boulder is expanding beyond the classroom and labs to enrich communities and address pressing societal changes through entrepreneurship.鈥

Hickory told the crowd that the five finalists sharing the stage at the event emerged from a field of 92 ventures and represent every corner of the university and the larger community. 鈥淭he New Venture Challenge is truly the crown jewel of what we do,鈥 said Hickory. 鈥淚 love seeing the Front Range entrepreneurial community assemble at the Boulder Theater to support students, faculty and staff as they launch their ventures,鈥 said Hickory.

Co-emcees Dianne Myles, CEO of Dope Mom Life and Olivia Omega, senior director of marketing and communications of the Denver Scholarship Foundation, introduced the judges of the live venture pitches, including Wanda James, 蜜糖直播 regent and CEO of Simply Pure; Natty Zola, partner at Matchstick Ventures; Kevin Allen, COO of Windpact and co-founder of Access Mode and Afshin Safavi, founder, CEO and president of 蜜糖直播 Health and Tech Centers.

Representatives from five teams pitched new solutions for听reducing food waste, expanding home ownership, improving hotel pricing, detecting soil health and tech-assisted sports management.

Judges praised each venture鈥檚 presentation and pressed each team with questions about their business concepts. After a deliberation period, the judges鈥 picks were announced, and confetti rained down on the stage. Each finalist walked away with a check鈥攖he two top teams netted $145,000 in combined winnings, and the additional three teams split $20,000 in prize money.听

Innovations emerging across the 蜜糖直播 ecosystem

The diversity of this year鈥檚 teams and ventures is a testament to the success of the growing cross-campus ecosystem and programming that supports the development of innovative and entrepreneurial ideas. 鈥淲e have teams representing the entirety of the entrepreneurial ecosystem here at 蜜糖直播 Boulder鈥攗ndergrad students, graduate students, faculty and community members through the Embark program,鈥 said Hickory. 鈥淲hat an amazing depth and breadth of entrepreneurs and ventures鈥 and to see which companies are in the finals is super exciting.鈥

Take, for example, FoodWise, a venture that was born out of last fall's Sustainability Hackathon. 鈥淭hese were students who didn鈥檛 have an idea or a team,鈥 said Hickory. 鈥淭hey came to the hackathon and saw a problem and came together to find a solution.鈥 Brainstorming after that session, co-founders Emma Bonerb and Byron Patten initially considered starting a company that would mitigate food waste in restaurant inventory and distribution. But after talking to industry experts, 鈥淲e realized the bigger problem was actually the overpreparation of ingredients rather than inventory going bad. That sparked our current concept,鈥 said Bonerb.

This year鈥檚 general competition winners听included finalists in two earlier NVC competitions; FoodWise won $3,000 and AFFIX was a finalist at the Women Founders Competitionhosted by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, and PricingService.ai was a finalist in the inaugural听Deep Tech Competitionhosted byVenture Partners at 蜜糖直播 Boulder.

The next generation of founders and funders

The New Venture Challenge is a signature program of the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative听and听is 蜜糖直播 Boulder鈥檚 鈥渇light simulator鈥 for those striving to make real-world impact through new endeavors. The program gives aspiring problem-solvers and creatives a chance to build impactful non-profit or for-profit ventures through entrepreneurial events and programming, community support, mentorship and鈥攗ltimately鈥攖he chance to compete for funding.

The caliber of past NVC participants over its 17-year history听and the proven strength of startup creation at 蜜糖直播 Boulder has attracted entities like sponsor Kickstart, which brought $144,000 of direct investment to this year鈥檚 top two teams. Hickory called their partnership in the event a 鈥済ame-changer.鈥

Kickstart is a seed-stage venture capital firm 鈥渙n a mission to help build great startups in the Mountain West,鈥 said partner Dalton Wright. At the NVC finals, they launched their 鈥14 Founders鈥 initiative which will ultimately inject $2 million of fresh capital into first founders in the state. 鈥淭he focus of 14 Founders is to inspire, educate, discover and connect the next generation of tech founders and venture capitalists in 蜜糖直播 while also celebrating the pioneers of the ecosystem and learning from their stories,鈥 said Wright.

Learning and support to last a lifetime

In his remarks, DiStefano acknowledged the broader impact of entrepreneurship programming. 鈥淚t鈥檚 impossible to calculate the valuable internal benefits the program has built for hundreds who have participated鈥攖hose problem-solving, communication and collaboration skills that will serve New Venture Challenge alumni throughout their personal and professional careers.鈥

Those advantages are keenly felt by this year鈥檚 NVC teams. 鈥淚've realized that 蜜糖直播 Boulder really is the perfect place to become an entrepreneur,鈥 said FoodWise founder Bonerb. 鈥淚 am surrounded by so many valuable resources and people, but most importantly, a community who wants to see us succeed.鈥澨

Refr Sports founder Sorock agreed. 鈥淎s much as we want to build a successful company, ultimately, we are just looking to learn and grow as people, entrepreneurs听and leaders. The NVC platform was an amazing opportunity for us to surround ourselves with like-minded people who are dedicated to being involved in our growth and progress. For this, I am extremely grateful.鈥

A constellation of world-class entrepreneurship classes, mentorship and programs like NVC have put 蜜糖直播 Boulder among the top universities for entrepreneurship. Hickory said the NVC program is so successful, in part, due to the guidance of over 350 mentors and more than 125 judges. 鈥淭he community support goes far beyond the finals,鈥 he said.听

鈥淭o me, that is the magic of the ecosystem here at 蜜糖直播 Boulder and the value of the NVC. We provide a place for impactful ideas to be born and a mechanism to launch [them] to create impact.鈥

2024 NVC General Competition Prizes

$100,000 First Place Prize: FoodWise

Team (from left to right in photo): Jennifer Bundrant, (, '23),听Hashirr Lukmahn, (),听Emma Bonerb (), Byron Patten ().

FoodWise wants to boost the food industry鈥檚 sustainability and profitability with a software platform that helps restaurants predict food demand in real time using weather, past sales and other external factors in order to minimize waste and maximize profitability. Bonerb said FoodWise is targeting 276,000 full-service restaurants and that dozens have already expressed interest in the concept that could save them at least $1,300 monthly.

The FoodWise team discovered that the U.S. restaurant industry produces 22 to 33 billion tons of food waste annually, which translates into 170 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions. 鈥淪omething that a lot of people may not realize is the magnitude of the environmental impact that food waste has on our planet,鈥 said Bonerb. 鈥淥ur team hopes to use our platform to help restaurants better understand the impact of their food waste both financially and environmentally鈥e also want to empower restaurants to reduce their costs in any way they can so their business can succeed.鈥

$30,000 Second Place Prize: Refr Sports

Additionally: $14,000 鈥14 Founders Award鈥 and $1,000 Audience Choice Award

Huck Sorock (, '23)

Refr Sports brings a spark of technology to transform the referee industry by providing an easy, universal way for sports organizations, referees and referee assignors to get what they need.

Sorock founded the company as a junior at 蜜糖直播 Boulder. By then, he鈥檇 had plenty of experience playing hockey and refereeing high school games in Minnesota, his home state. 鈥淸I] realized there were tons of problems with the industry鈥 and I was blown away by how archaic the existing systems in the market were,鈥 he said.听

Sorock wants to 鈥渂ring the referee business out of the dark ages,鈥 to where most contractor-based industries already have shifted. 鈥淚 set out on this journey trying to solve a problem that I had experienced firsthand. Officials are an often overlooked aspect of sports, and my end goal is to Gigify or Uber-fy the industry鈥 It鈥檚 a great way to make money, be active and stay involved in the sports you love.鈥

$10,000 Third Place Prize: PricingService.ai

Team: Dan Zhang (), David Li (City University of Hong Kong), Matt Schwartz (Sage Hospitality)

Using an AI-powered, dynamic pricing subscription service, PricingService.ai is building the world鈥檚 most advanced revenue management service for increasing revenue in the hotel industry.听

Zhang and Schwartz met while walking their kids to school and realized they shared a desire to update pricing dynamics in the multi-billion dollar hotel industry with a fully autonomous service that responds in real-time to multiple market dynamics. 鈥淏ecause the price should be right,鈥 they said.听

$5,000 Fourth Place Prize: BioSensor Solutions

Team:听Carl Kalin and David Beitz ()听

BioSensor Solutions provides a low-cost, biodegradable, 2D-printed sensor that measures microbial activity in the soil. Data directly from sensors in the field鈥搃nvented by Gregory Whiting (Mechanical Engineering) and Madhur Atreya (Mechanical Engineering)鈥攑rovide real-time insights into soil health.

The sensors could shift how growers track, measure and respond to soil health, ideally helping farmers conserve resources and increase yields. The technology could help address global greenhouse gas emissions and the need to feed an additional one billion people by 2050. 鈥淏oth of us were looking for something to really make a difference,鈥 said Beitz.听

BioSensor Solutions is part of the first cohort of the Embark Deep Tech Startup Creator听launched by听Venture Partners at 蜜糖直播 Boulder in 2023.

$5,000 Fifth Place: AFFIX听

Team:听Jamie Saunders (), Benjamin Asser (), Daniel Collins ()听

AFFIX wants to change the way we invest in real estate. Powered by prefabrication and a creative approach to zoning code, the venture is pioneering a new type of real estate investment designed for desirable vacation destinations.

Saunders鈥 started on the path to founding AFFIX when helping her sister with the fraught process of trying to buy her first home in a hot real estate market. 鈥淪he and I researched every ownership option we could think of, then I dove into the zoning code to pinpoint precisely where the roadblocks for these different options lie,鈥 said Saunders. 鈥淥wning a home is one of the cornerstones of the American dream, and we want to create more paths into this sort of investment.鈥