Finalists named for CU’s New Venture Challenge

BOULDER — Five finalists have been announced for Thursday’s championship competition at the University of Colorado Boulder’s New Venture Challenge.

The finalists, all with connections to CU-Boulder, are HiveTech Solutions, Sing It Forward, the Space Research Co., Outloud! and Grownetics.

HiveTech Solutions offers a technology platform and products that allow beekeepers to apply scientific research to improve the health of their bees, encourage multiple scales of new beekeepers to enter the market, and enable growers to vertically integrate pollination into their operations. The HiveTech team already has won NVC’s $10,000 women’s entrepreneurship cash prize for its model of tracking measurable factors such as temperature and humidity that impact the health of bee hives.

Sing It Forward is a community music school with a “pay it forward” funding model to provide professional voice lessons and open access to music for both prosperous and underprivileged communities.

The Space Research Co. provides an efficient commercial service for space-based research in biology and genetics via the use of 3-D printed microfluidic devices.

Outloud! is a productivity app that offers users the ability to listen to articles read aloud by others. It also lets users record articles and share them with select friends or mass audiences.

Grownetics gives farmers tools to grow high-quality food and medicine, sustainably at any scale, anywhere in the world. Their integrated software and hardware tools optimize cultivation with intelligent farming systems and show cultivators how to increase efficiency while maintaining quality and increasing yield.

The startup-pitch event caps off the university’s campuswide entrepreneurship contest, which is now in its eighth year. The five finalists will vie for $20,000 in cash prizes, with the winner also receiving a year’s-worth of in-kind services from IBM-owned SoftLayer.

The finalists, chosen from a field of 60 competitors, were determined Friday at the NVC track finals. They represent the winners of each of four tracks — information technology, research and development, performing arts and general — along with the winner of the NVC’s social-impact prize.

This year’s finals judges include Foundry Group managing director Jason Mendelson, Zayo Group vice president for people, culture and brand Rachael Donaldson, Philanthropiece founder and president Libby Cook, and Perkins Coie partner Kester Spindler.

The finals begin at 5:30 p.m. at CU’s Wolf Law Building, with registration available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-venture-challenge-8-championships-tickets-22336368680 .

In addition to crowning a champion, NVC officials also will hand out several awards, including NVC Mentor of the Year, the Frank Moyes Award recognizing a CU faculty or staff member for contributions to entrepreneurship on campus, and the Fletcher Richman Award recognizing student contributions to entrepreneurship on campus.

Last year’s New Venture Challenge winner, Denver-based Revolar, went on to graduate from the Techstars Boulder startup accelerator last summer. That was followed by a $3 million seed-funding round led by Boulder-based Foundry Group to help the startup advance its Bluetooth- and smartphone-enabled personal-safety device.

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