The 22nd McCloskey New Venture Competition awarded more than $600,000 in cash and in-kind/pitch for investment prizes on Friday during a live streamed in-person ceremony that culminated the event.
Chuqlab won the $50,000 McCloskey Grand Prize.
The competition returned in-person this year since the start of the pandemic. Patti Reinhardt, director of student engagement, competition and events at the IDEA Center, organizes the program, which started back in October with 150 teams. “We were thrilled to be back in person for the 22nd Annual McCloskey New Venture Competition! After two years of virtual competition, you could feel the excitement and energy in the room, from competitors, judges and spectators. I see the resilience in the entrepreneurial spirit that is so prevalent here at the IDEA Center and I am excited to continue the growth of this program that serves the hungry and humble entrepreneurs of the University of Notre Dame.”
Finalist teams presented a six-minute presentation and answered questions from the judges. The five finalists gave their presentations in-person. These final presentations were recorded and will be available to watch on the IDEA Center’s website.
Judges for the final round were Cory Rellas, CEO and co-founder of Drizly; Robert Piconi, CEO at Energy Vault SA; Lauren Gamboa, founder of Cultive and strategy consultant; and Jeff Nelson co-founder and CTO of Blavity Inc and founder and CEO of Cinchapi Inc.
Since the competition began in 2001 with 30 teams and $30,000 in awards, 2,344 teams with over 7,000 participants have been awarded more than $1.7 million in prizes and 3,200 judges and mentors have contributed.
To visit profiles or connect with winners, please visit Buzzit.ca and enter the event code ndideacenter!
Following is a listing of the awardees; descriptions appear below.
| Award | Description | Recipient 1 | Recipient 2 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McCloskey Grand Prize | $50,000 cash award | Chuqlab | $50,000 cash | |
| Greatest Social Impact | $15,000 cash award | Farm Trades | $15,000 cash | |
| Best Female-Led Venture Award | $10,000 cash award | Ethicart | $10,000 cash | |
| Lavrock Ventures Award for best graduate student venture | $10,000 cash award | SafeBangle | $10,000 cash | |
| EquiCorp Award for the best undergraduate venture | $10,000 cash award | Mound Power | $10,000 cash | |
| Schurz Innovation Award | $10,000 cash award | ChuqLab | $10,000 cash | |
| Startup SB/Elkhart for Best Community Venture along with Opportunities to Pitch for Startup South Bend - Elkhart Proof of Concept Funds and Elevate Ventures Community Ideation Fund | $5,000 cash award | Rides2U | $5,000 cash | |
| The Sutherland Family Award for Best Presentation | $5,000 cash award | Soteria Flooring | $5,000 cash | |
| Wray/O’Brien Award for Best Minority-Led Venture | $5,000 cash award | NXSTEP | $5,000 cash | |
| First State Bank Banking Services Award | $3,000 cash prize, with an additional $2,000 in banking services | Curiva | $3,000 cash, $2,000 services | |
| Palo Alto Software Best Undergraduate Pitch Deck | $1,500 cash prize | Mound Power | $1,500 cash | |
| Palo Alto Software Best Graduate Pitch Deck | $1,500 cash prize | Hearsight | $1,500 cash | |
| Vogel Family Startup Showcase Best Presentations | $1,000 cash award for first place and $500 for second place | Tag Health - $1,000 | Next Gen Kicks - $500 | $1,500 cash |
| IrishAngels Award | Opportunity to present to the IrishAngels; estimated value $25- $250K | NXSTEP | $50,000 in-kind services | |
| Plug and Play Tech Center Awards | $50,000 in in-kind services (offered to 3 teams) | NxtStep, Saferoutz and Mound Power | $50,000 in-kind services | |
| RSM US, LLP Prize for Accounting, tax and related services | $10,000 in in-kind accounting, tax, and/or consultative business services | Soteria Flooring | $10,000 in-kind services | |
| Patent Hacks | Greatest Social Impact Award and Best Community Venture awarded 6 month access. And the following teams will be awarded a 3 month Access to their platform. | HearSight, SafeBangle, 2 A Beauty, EthiCart, Farm Trades, TAG Health, Fox & Robin | ||
| TrademarkED | Offering our McCloskey teams an in-kind donation to use their platform– free of charge | All teams |
High School Awards
| Award | Description | Recipient 1 | Recipient 2 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garatoni Family Awards - First Place | $2,500 cash award | The Angel Box | $2,500 | |
| Garatoni Family Awards - Second Place | $1,500 cash award | AI Fencing Referee | $1,500 | |
| Garatoni Family Awards - Third Place | $500 cash award | 2 A Beauty | $500 | |
| Best Female-Led High School Team | $500 cash award | The Angel Box | $500 |
Summaries of Teams That Won Awards
2 A Beauty (Local high school team)
Team Leader: Amani Murray
Contact Email: 2beauty825@gmail.com
Team Members: Ariane Urayeneza-Akimana
2 A Beauty creates a platform for Multicultural Women & Men to take care of their hair by supplying them with resources and products.
AI Fencing Referee (Local high school team)
No information provided
The Angel Box (Local high school team)
Team Leader: Alayna Wilson
Contact Email: theangelbox10@gmail.com
Team Members: Saylor Shea
The Angel Box is a subscription box for female teens that promotes mental well-being. The box changes each season with new items that help teens learn how to cope with stress, anxiety, and depression.
Chuqlab
Team Leader: Cornelius George
Contact Email: cornelius@chuqlab.com
Team Members: Raymond Okyere-Forson (ESTEEM 2022)
Chuqlab transcribes jail phone calls and other audio files pertinent to investigations to make them searchable for keywords and phrases to help law enforcement solve past and current crimes as well as prevent future ones.
Curiva
Team Leader: Eydis Lima
Contact Email: elima@curiva.co
Team Members: Alex Potts (Class of 2023), Tracie McGinnity, PhD (Class of 2019), Adriano Bruno, Andre Nogales
Curiva is a startup developing and commercializing a wearable diagnostics patch for gynecologic malignancies detection - diapatchTM. Curiva’s flagship product allows doctors, healthcare professionals and their patients to accurately test for high-risk biomarkers that forecast the onset of gynecologic oncology diseases with cervical cancer as the primary indication.
EthiCart
Team Leader: Lara Pairceir
Contact Email: lpaircei@nd.edu
Team Members: Gabriel Ogundipe (ESTEEM 2022), Patience Gihozo (ESTEEM 2022)
EthiCart is a user-friendly app that empowers people to become more conscious consumers. By breaking down sustainability information into the production, packaging and company of a product, our users are enabled to buy products that align with their values.
Farm Trades
Team Leader: Ben Dougherty (Class of 2011)
Contact Email: benjamin.j.dougherty@gmail.com
Team Members: Amy Buckenmeyer, Dan Buckenmeyer, Haley Meister (Class of 2025)
Farm Trades is a non-profit, triple-bottom-line, sustainable venture which combines rural environmental cleanup with a regional farming trade school, utilizing donated equipment as the teaching platform for future farmers and tradespeople to learn essential skills such as basic mechanics, welding, etc. and earn nationally-recognized credentials and certifications.
Fox & Robin
Team Leader: Tommy Flaim (Class of 2016)
Contact Email: tommy@foxandrobin.com
Team Members: John Henry Neuberger (Class of 2018), Carolyn Woll (Class of 2022)
Fox & Robin is an activewear brand for washed up athletes. We have Lululemon-quality products at more reasonable price points.
heARsight
Team Leader: Danny Fritz (ESTEEM 2022)
Contact Email: dfritz2@nd.edu
Team Members: Riley Ellingsen (ESTEEM 2022)
heARsight glasses are a sleek pair of augmented reality eyeglasses that inconspicuously subtitle conversations in real-time, allowing hearing-impaired individuals to perceive the auditory world through a heads-up display that provides independence from a separate screen or third-party interpreter.
Mound Power, LLC
Team Leader: Richard McManus (Class of 2024)
Contact Email: rmcmanu2@nd.edu
Team Members: Caleb Mastromonaco
Mound Power is disrupting baseball with an affordable device and software platform that accurately and intuitively measures the forces generated by a pitcher’s lower body in real-time.
NEXT GEN KICKS
Team Leader: Gabrielle Terrell
Contact Email: s.Gabrielle.Terrell@careeracademysb.com
Team Members: Cameron Gerencser
NEXT GEN KICKS offers an eco - friendly, sustainable, and affordable shoe option for our customers that will benefit the environment and create long lasting products.
NXSTEP
Team Leader: Edozie Ezeanolue (Class of 2022)
Contact Email: eezeanol@nd.edu
Team Members: Kyran O’Donoghue (BS 2025)
NXSTEP is a freelance marketplace that connects college students to employers for short-term gig work/micro-internships.
Ride2U
Team Leader: Zach Baker (ESTEEM 2022)
Contact Email: zbaker@nd.edu
Team Members: Chad Mastagh, Ryan Kreager
Rides2U provides safe and reliable transportation for Notre Dame students and campus visitors.
SafeBangle
Team Leader: Ambrose Kamya (ESTEEM 2022)
Contact Email: akamya@nd.edu
Team Members: Messach Luminsa, Saul Kabali, Anna Nebbia (ESTEEM 2022), Alec Garino (ESTEEM 2022), Bryson Meiling (ESTEEM 2022)
SafeBangle is a social enterprise with a mission to create a world free of violence in which women can live without fear by helping such women contact their loved ones for help when in fear of an assault in a way that is easy, trusted and affordable.
SafeRoutz
Team Leader: Dale Dorsey
Contact Email: dale@3dezr.com
Team Members: Anna Sofia Sanson Zoufaly (Class of 2025), Rachelle Grein Benken, Ryan Kreager
SafeRoutz is a service provided to K-12 school districts that enables far safer bus route planning than in the past.
Soteria Flooring
Team Leader: Julie Moylan (ESTEEM 2022)
Contact Email: jmoylan@nd.edu
Team Members: Cecilia Hopkins (ESTEEM 2022), Hector Jaurez (BS 2023)
SorbaSHOCK™ is a Dual-Stiffness™ flooring/sub-flooring focused on mitigating fall-related injuries for the elderly. SorbaSHOCK™ remains rigid during normal walking conditions but collapses from the force of a fall.
TAG HEALTH
Team Leader: Kristin Mannion (Class of 2012)
Contact Email: kristin@alvinagroup.com
Team Members: John Mannion, Philip Toro, Kuhu Pandey, Nick Albrink (BA 2023), Irene Cornett (BS 2023), Pierce Hardacker (BA 2021)
TAG Health takes environmental data, aggregates it in one location, and runs it through a proprietary algorithm for healthcare providers and physicians to inform, diagnose, and treat conditions stemming from a patient's environment.
Winnow Medical
Team Leader: Terri Tran (ESTEEM 2022)
Contact Email: ttran7@nd.edu
Team Members: Collin Bordeaux (ESTEEM 2022), Morgan Belting (ESTEEM 2022)
Winnow is a medical software company and service provider that aims to help rare disease research through the summarization of patient medical records.