Paire Health Wins First Place and $35,000 at the 2019 Global New Venture Challenge

The Global New Venture Challenge final, April 11, 2019 at Gleacher Center.(Photo by Jean Lachat)

On Thursday, April 11, seven University of Chicago Booth School of Business executive MBA teams presented their business plans at the finals of the 2019 Global New Venture Challenge (GNVC). Finalist teams, which were comprised of winners from the semifinals held earlier this year at Chicago Booth’s Chicago, London, and Hong Kong campuses, brought a variety of ideas and technologies, ranging from sparkling sake to a fine art investment fund, to this year’s program.

Team’s included ARTvest, Paire Health, and Otogeni from Chicago, Ukiyo Sparkling Sake and SPP from Hong Kong, and Instilate and Moove from London.

“The goal of the GNVC is to provide our global entrepreneurs with resources that not only build the Booth brand, but also impact economies all over the world,” said Waverly Deutsch, clinical professor at Chicago Booth and professor for the GNVC as well as the academic director of university-wide entrepreneurship content at the Polsky Center.  “It’s exciting to know that these companies will do just that and I am proud to see how far they’ve come since we started this cohort.”

With the stage set, distinguished judges in place, and a full house on hand, the seven finalists brought their A-game in hopes of being named this year’s champion. The event was also livestreamed to students, alumni, and viewers around the globe.

To no surprise, the judges had a difficult decision to make, ultimately choosing one first place team and two runners up.

Paire Health was crowned the 2019 GNVC champion, taking home $35,000 in prize money. Paire Healthis a web- and mobile-based HIPAA compliant platform that connects patients in middle income countries seeking a second opinion on a medical condition with high-quality, board-certified US specialists. Paire’s two initial target specialty areas are oncology and ophthalmology, which were selected due to the company’s existing connections and networks in these fields, as well as the frequency of cases, high risk nature of the diseases, and telemedicine capability.

SPP, from Hong Kong and Otogeni, from Chicago, tied for second place and were selected as the 2019 runners up. SPPprovides an e-commerce supply chain platform that bridges online retailers with suppliers and helps those retailers maximize revenue and manage inventory risks. The company offers big data analytics to predict consumer demand, product digitalization for ease of online store listings, warehousing and fulfillment facilities to store goods on consignment basis, and last mile delivery. Otogeni is an enterprise software solution company, based on technology developed at Argonne National Laboratory, that enables auto manufacturers, suppliers, mobility companies, and cities to quantify the impact of new transportation and mobility technologies on energy utilization and costs to help optimize product portfolio strategies and investments. Both teams were awarded $20,000 in prize money.

Now in its 12th year, the GNVC is an expansion of the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge (NVC) program. Run by the Polsky Center in partnership with the Execute MBA program, the GNVC is the dedicated track that is designed exclusively for Chicago Booth’s executive MBA students. It debuted in 2008 to accommodate the growing entrepreneurial aspirations of Booth’s executive MBA students on each of its three global campuses – North America, Europe, and Asia.