In the realm of startups, some ventures experience rapid growth, indicating their high potential for success. Referred to as “high-potential startups,” these ventures demonstrate the ability to scale faster than their peers and reach surging heights of success. At the Univerisity of Notre Dame’s IDEA Center, a hub for entrepreneurship, creating high-potential startups is a key objective. Each year, the IDEA Center sets goals for cultivating a specific number of high-potential startups. In the fiscal year 2022-23, the IDEA Center set its sights on fostering ten high-potential startups, and with resounding success, this goal was met. The IDEA Center celebrates the achievement of these startups. It acknowledges that this achievement would have been impossible without the efforts of innovation, founders, and Notre Dame’s students, faculty, and staff. In addition, with the goal being met, the IDEA Center rang its ‘win” bell for the first time to commemorate this milestone.
Below are the nine high-potential startups and their founders and CEO for the fiscal year 2022-23.
1. Adapta Education Inc. (Faculty Tech)
Founder: Alison Cheng, professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame.
CEO: Chris Merril, MBA, University of Notre Dame
Adapta Education is an advanced testing platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide personalized education in STEM teaching and learning. Apapta’s main product is an adaptive diagnostic assessment platform that covers high school and introductory college math curricula. The platform allows teachers to easily create customized assessments like quizzes, homework, and exams. This enables competency-based grading with a diagnostic report for each student. These reports help teachers and students quickly identify their strengths and weaknesses and determine where additional clarification or practice is needed.
2. Aeries Surgical (Alumni Tech)
Co-founder and CEO: Hunter MacMillan, MBA, University of Notre Dame
Aeries Surgical is an alumni tech company located right here in South Bend. The company has developed a medical device used for patients under anesthesia to maintain an open airway and to monitor the patient's breathing condition. It streamlines the process of airway monitoring and can help with analysis of exhaled gas through a connection to a gas analyzer. Aeris Surgical has created a simple add-on device called the Adjunctive Airway Monitoring Device (AAMD). Slightly larger than a postage stamp, the universal device pressure fits onto all OPAs (and nasopharyngeal airways used on the nose). It securely attaches both the Oxygen and Co2 lines—eliminating the tape.
3. Hearsight (Student Tech)
Co-founder and CEO: Rilley Ellingsten, MS, University of Notre Dame
Co-founder: Danny Fritz, MS, University of Notre Dame
Hearsight is a developing augmented reality smart glasses that employ existing core technologies to deliver subtitles for audio inputs in real-time to empower d/Deaf and hard of hearing individuals. This technology is intended to improve speech comprehension and overall quality of life during in-person conversations. The company plans to bundle existing core technologies to provide a visual aid that enables independent speech comprehension in various settings. For example, microphones will be embedded in the frames of glasses to display “speech-to-text” words in real time on the lenses for the wearer to read. heARsight does not intend to replace hearing aids but rather serve as a visual aid that can supplement existing hearing assistive technologies to improve speech comprehension. This technology is a potential game changer for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing community.
4. Sleep Easy (Student Tech)
Founder and CEO: Anthony Esplin, MS, University of Notre Dame
Sleep Easy is a medical technology company offering a pillow that can improve oxygen flow for patients with emphysema and COPD. The Oxyllow System creates an oxygen-rich environment near a patient’s head. The device is intended to help people who require supplemental oxygen when they sleep but struggle with wearing a nasal cannula. This medical device consists of tubing and two prongs placed in the nostrils.
5. Rides2U (Community Tech)
Founder and CEO: Chad Mastagh, Local Firefighter for South Bend
Setting itself apart from other rideshare services, Rides2U places a premium on trust and safety, ensuring its drivers are trustworthy and reliable. The company adopts various measures to achieve this, including conducting personal interviews, conducting yearly vehicle inspections, and maintaining a steadfast commitment to upholding a high standard of service. With an emphasis on trustworthiness, Rides2U aims to provide a safe and dependable transportation solution for its users.
6. Forever Analytics Services (Faculty Tech)
Forever Analytical Services (FAS) is an analytical testing company specializing in the high-throughput screening of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). FAS has licensed the use of a patented analytical technique called particle-induced gamma-ray emission (PIGE) developed by Professor Graham Peaslee out of Notre Dame’s Department of Physics. With this analytical technique, FAS can detect the presence of PFAS in a wide range of materials, including water, soils, and consumer products. PFAS have been widely used in various settings over the last 75 years, including industrial processes, firefighting foam, and consumer products.
7. The Ugly Company (Student Tech)
Founder and CEO: Ben Moore, MBA, University of Notre Dame
The Ugly Company profitably reduces food waste at the production level, such as farms, by "up-cycling" produce that cannot be profitably sold in the fresh market. The Ugly Company appeals to the environmentally conscious consumer by providing nutritious snacks, such as trail mix and fruit snacks, that embody the mission to reduce food waste across the United States.
8. Maet (Student Tech)
Founder: Kekoa Wong, BS, University of Notre Dame and Fouad El Zoghbi, BA, University of Notre Dame
Maet is a gamified marketplace for amateur team sports - like basketball, soccer, volleyball, and pickleball - that connects and engages athletes in meaningful real-world competitive experiences. On Maet, you can discover competitions, get rated, and keep playing.
9. Break n' Bad (Student Tech)
Founder: Matthew Harfmann, BA, University of Notre Dame
Break’n Bad helps to revolutionize how people collect sports cards by combining the environment of a sports card shop with the efficiency of e-commerce. Since the company was founded, they have achieved an impressive cumulative revenue of four million dollars.