Northwestern University Venture Challenge Semi-Finals

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Northwestern University Venture Challenge (NUVC) recently held its semi-finals on April 25^th.  NUVC, a student-run competition, serves as a platform for entrepreneurial students who want to participate in the experience of building a business idea from scratch. Ideas that are allowed to be submitted to the competition must fit into one of five functional tracks: Health Care and Biomedical Science Technologies, Energy and Sustainability, Information Technology, and Media/Journalism Social Enterprise Products and Services.  

Participants in the competition have access to early-stage investors and veteran entrepreneurs as well as faculty. The Semi-final round was the second of three rounds, during which the twenty-three teams that had passed round one were judged in two stages by a panel of VCs and entrepreneurs, by presenting a three minute elevator pitch and answering questions from the judges. The competition is fierce, and only six teams were chosen to move onto the final round, which will be held at the Entrepreneur@NU Conference on May 24^th. Here are the profiles of the six teams who are finalists:

AccuFlow Diagnostics

AccuFlow Diagnostics is a developer of rapid, low-cost and highly sensitive lateral flow assays for screening of high prevalence diseases at the point of patient care. CerviaDx represents AccuFlow’s entry into the $18.7B point-of-care healthcare market segment, utilizing a patented high-sensitivity assay to screen and stage cervical cancer lesions. CerviaDx technology delivers analytical detection comparable to large instrument-based diagnostics within 30 minutes at less than a tenth of the cost per test and without needing any capital equipment. AccuFlow has developed prototype devices for its platform technology and is now seeking funding for feasibility studies and pilot unit delivery.

Higher Realm Photonics

Using recent advances in nanoscience, Higher Realm Photonics has created an energy-efficient and compact version of the conventional ‘mask aligner’—one of the most crucial pieces of equipment used in manufacturing of nanoscale devices, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), microprocessors, and many other technologies. Compared to conventional mask-aligners, the product is compact, low-cost, consumes far less electricity, and uses environmentally friendly materials. It has successfully been deployed at the Odom Laboratory at Northwestern University for 15 months and has been used for the production of >500 micro- and nanoscale devices, with feature sizes as low as 100 nm.

S2E Solar

S2E SolarTM makes “transparent conductor” solar cell components that enable solar energy to be lower cost than grid electricity.  The transparent conductor industry is approaching $10B, and the solar industry is currently $38B and rapidly increasing, providing substantial growth potential.  The foundational IP behind the company’s product, S2E Solar FilmTM, was developed at Northwestern University.  Founder Jon Servaites is finishing his PhD at Northwestern in Materials Science and Engineering, researching thin film solar cells in the Tobin Marks Group, where this foundational IP was invented.

 Functional Jewelry

In the United States, jewelry is a ~$50 billion per year, highly fragmented market. Recently, traditional jewelry business has been losing market share to unique, innovative jewelry products sold from smaller retail shops and online-only vendors. Separately, the scientific race to address climate change has led to the creation of a novel material type: crystals that can absorb greenhouse gases. Both beautiful and functional, these crystals are ideally suited as jewelry for the environmentally conscious.

TicketSnagger.com

TicketSnagger.com is a secondary market for event tickets that reverses the dynamic of other markets by allowing buyers to set prices at which they would be willing to buy tickets and allowing sellers to close deals by accepting offers and initiating the ticket transfer. The buyers would be committed to their offer prices so that when/if a seller accepts, that offered price will automatically be charged. This system will allow buyers to purchase tickets below face value and allows sellers to always be able to recoup the value of their tickets, creating a demand driven secondary market.

Present Bee

Present Bee alleviates gift-giving pains with a smart solution that helps users give better gifts with less stress and more social proof. Its platform provides users with access to the most personally relevant and popular gift ideas for anyone in their social network. Present Bee combines: (1) Algorithm-generated gift ideas to connect people to products they will love, (2) the ability to get gifting advice from friends and family, and (3) the option to purchase expensive gifts seamlessly as a group.