$100k New Ventures Competition Semi-Finalists Announced
Following an extensive review of applications to the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center’s $100k New Ventures Competition, 79 participants between 30 teams, representing several schools across Tufts University and beyond, will move forward to participate in the Semi-Finals on March 19 from 10 AM – 3 PM EDT.
The wide variety of ideas comprising the competition’s three tracks – General Technology, Healthcare and Life Science, and Social Impact – include mobile applications, software platforms, digital services, physical solutions and more.
As part of the competition, participants vie for prizes valued at over $150,000 in non-dilutive funding and in-kind services. This year’s competition also features new additions like the Friedman Nutrition Innovation Institute (FNII) Prize, a $10,000 cash prize coupled with in-kind legal and ideation services.
Consistent with past years, the Stephen and Geraldine Ricci Interdisciplinary Prize will be awarded at the competition as well which promotes the advancement of research at Tufts through projects that assist in translation of research discoveries from the laboratory to applications that benefit society.
Learn more about the finalists and view an excerpt of the teams’ self-submitted descriptions.
General Technology
Chember
“Chember helps you find the street basketball game you are looking for anytime and anywhere! Create your streetball profile, discover the streetball map, and find games with Chember. We are an international technology company that develops recreational sports communities while promoting health and exercising through its user-friendly SaaS solutions.”
Cloudsurf
“Cloudsurf is a web platform that extends the browsing experience beyond the individual through site-based reactions. By combining a browser extension with a content-recommending web app, it harnesses the power of mind-sharing to ethically benefit the masses.”
Davy Jones Parcel Locker
“Davy Jones Parcel Locker is a rental mailbox solution to protecting your treasure from Porch Pirates. Use our secure storefront location as your private mailing address. Never lose a package again, we protect the booty from lurking Porch Pirates.”
GhostLabel
“GhostLabel is the platform that empowers consumer product entrepreneurs. US private label food and beverage sales totaled $136 billion in 2019. We help private label firms and entrepreneurs develop and sell products with our shipping, invoicing, legal, and certification suite.”
LOKI Systems
“The LOKI System uses unmanned aerial vehicles to sense interior environments for military (special forces) and civilian (emergency management, law enforcement) operators. It interfaces with existing situational awareness technology to present key information to the operator, thus enabling faster decision making while also reducing the risks presented by ‘unknown unknowns.’”
Markit
“Markit offers a fresh new fusion of social media and location sharing where users follow people and build a profile of “marks” on a map. Markit will connect people of shared experiences and interests and forever change the way people create genuine human connection.”
Paraphai
“Paraphai is an AI-driven sports memorabilia authentication platform. Leveraging Computer Vision and Machine Learning technologies, our platform authenticates autographs, notably in sports and entertainment, to enable collectors to verify the authenticity of the signature.”
Prosal
“Requests for proposals (RFPs) are challenging, especially when finding and selecting the right candidate. Prosal is the solution: an open and centralized online marketplace that connects RFP issuers with respondents who can fulfill their needs. In time, Prosal will become an AI-supported, end-to-end solution to manage the entire proposal process.”
Spectral Key
“We are developing a novel system for waste heat recovery using Tufts renewable energy technology. We want to take excess heat from the glass-making process and turn it directly into electricity. Our system increases glass-making efficiency while decreasing its cost and its carbon footprint.”
Winno
“Winno is the fastest way to stay on top of the day’s events. Our award-winning app is built for a mobile attention span, condensing stories into atomized updates and bringing digital news beyond the 600-word made-for-print model.”
Healthcare and Life Sciences
Cerobex Drug Delivery Technologies
“Cerobex is developing a novel lipid nanoparticle-based drug delivery platform. Our platform is the only technology, demonstrated in animal models, to safely and effectively deliver a wide variety of compounds across the blood-brain barrier, improving existing treatments, and enabling the treatment of currently untreatable neurological diseases”
CorePerform
“CorePerform protein is the first and only plant-based protein to elicit twice the protein synthesis, making it just as effective as whey and is better tasting too. CorePerform protein is optimized for digestion, because as athletes, IT TAKES GUTS TO PERFORM!”
CoVita Mobility
“Wheelchairs suck, especially for kids who grow up bound to them. They prevent children with complex bodies from interacting with their world due to bulkiness, lack of durability and societal stigmas. CoVita Mobility aims to create a powered wheelchair that breaks the connotation of what being wheelchair-bound means for everyone.”
Gorilla Gulps, Inc.
“Gorilla Gulps combines optimized plant-based nutrition & online personal training to deliver CLEAN, LEAN, GAINS. Gorilla Gulps makes it easy for you to prioritize proper nutrition, training, and recovery, so you can gain lean muscle mass on a plant-based diet, no problem.”
Hello Healthy Company, Inc.
“Tele-medicine and home delivery are changing health care. Hello Healthy Company is leading the way in Nutrition Health with its first product, Hello Healthy Box(R), a diet-clinic-In-a-box that delivers an effective medical weight loss treatment direct to consumers.”
JEZA Genomics
“The BRCA1 gene is often responsible for five of the most deadly cancers: breast, lung, prostate, ovarian, and pancreatic. At JEZA Genomics, we are developing an injectable prophylactic for these cancers using recent advances in gene engineering. This utilization will allow JEZA to change how genetic diseases are treated, forever.”
Polify
“Polify is a mobile application that helps graduate students understand their health insurance benefits and connect with peer-recommended in-network providers.”
Resano Recovery
“Traditional physical therapy (PT) is ineffective. Resano makes PT effective using a two part support system consisting of a wearable device to measure range of motion and an app that shows patients exercises, videos, and connects them with their physical therapist as well as other patients.”
SmileToday
“SmileToday offers Direct-to-consumer, custom-made individual dental veneers delivered right to your door. Using impressions and state-of-the-art technology, we can instantly and permanently change your smile, without one visit to the dentist. Recreate your smile, confidence, and social life, you’re just one online order away.”
Tellescope
“Tellescope is a comprehensive, patient communications, workflow automation, and collaboration platform that makes it easy for healthcare businesses to provide seamless and engaging patient experiences while focusing on what they do best – delivering quality healthcare.”
Social Impact
AfriProt
“We create a sustainable source of protein for animal feeds by rearing Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) on low-value organic waste.”
API For Africa
“APIFA is transforming access to essential medicines for one billion people in sub-Saharan Africa. By localizing the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients that African manufacturers previously had to import from Asia, it reduces dependency, improves medicine quality and ensures ongoing access to life saving drugs for vulnerable populations.”
elemenGO
“Worried your student will forget ‘l,m,n,o’? Get elemenGO! Build stronger mental models for foreign languages by immersing your student in a virtual world enriched by folk tales, fables, and music.”
ENVOY
“ENVOY is a software system enabling real-time conversation between American Sign Language signers and English-speaking individuals, without a hired translator. Our design is backed by national organizations for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Our long-term goal? Remove communication barriers between 70 million+ individuals, their colleagues, and their loved ones.”
Kinfolq
“Kinfolq is a social network for Black and Latinx professionals.”
Soapbox
“Soapbox is a SaaS company that enables political campaigns, issue advocacy groups, and beyond to engage voters online by quickly sending out thousands of unique targeted messages. Our tool has a 63 percent engagement rate, far superior to traditional forms of voter contact.”
Ulys tech
“Ulys tech is a startup project to allow Central Asian girls and women to access modern courses and training in software engineering and provide opportunities for future employment in global companies as software engineers.”
UMA
“We remember only 5% of what we hear, 10% of what we read, but over 70% of what we experience, yet independent learning and most classwork is not experience based. UMA is creating engaging educational videogames that make students active protagonists in their own intellectual development.”
YANDA
“Yanda replaces the classic email newsletter with a tailored experience designed to keep you updated in a digestible, intimate, and engaging way. Named after the Xhosa virtue of enrichment through sharing, our weekly newsletter brings thought-provoking discourse straight to your inbox.”
Zinqe
“Outdated university-corporate relations systematically favor the financially privileged and covertly oppress POC and other underserved minority groups. Zinqe provides instant access to a national pipeline of diverse students, allowing improved candidate screening, increased recruitment, and equal opportunities, regardless of cultural, racial, and academic background.”