13th Annual College New Venture Challenge Announces Competing Undergraduate Teams

The College New Venture Challenge finals will take place on March 7, 2025.

The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, in partnership with the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is pleased to announce the 15 teams selected for the 13^th annual College New Venture Challenge (CNVC), an undergraduate student startup accelerator.

The growing businesses, which will compete for financial investment, boast a multitude of innovations including a parmesan rind snack, a diagnostic tool for infectious diseases, and an autonomous floor-cleaning robot.

“We received the largest number of applicants for this year’s CNVC than ever before, and the quality of the applicants was truly impressive.”, said Starr Marcello, AM ’04, MBA ’17, deputy dean for MBA programs at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and professor of the CNVC. “We look forward to watching this year’s teams grow and the students develop as entrepreneurs throughout the course of the program and beyond.”

The CNVC’s investment pool also has grown markedly – during the 2024 competition winning CNVC startups received a total of $415,000 in investment. Alumni companies include Natuur, Haylon Technologies, Cubii, Sokowatch, and Fronen.

Launched in 2012, the CNVC is one of five tracks of the University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge, a top-ranked startup accelerator that has nurtured more than 650 still-active companies, including Grubhub, Simple Mills, and Braintree.

The CNVC is open to returning undergraduate students from UChicago, as well as students in the entrepreneurship track of the Startup City Scholars program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Participants develop their business plans during a credit-bearing course at Chicago Booth in the winter quarter, and at the end, finalist teams present to a panel of judges for a shot at investment.

The finals will take place on March 7, 2025.

The following teams have been selected to participate in the 2025 CNVC:

• (P)rind // (P)rind repurposes parmesan rinds into a nutrient-dense, three-ingredient superfood snack. Packed with health benefits supporting muscle, bone, and heart health, (P)rind caters to busy, health-conscious consumers seeking affordable convenience without compromise. It upholds the artisanal quality of Italy’s finest parmesan, delivering flavor with a positive social impact.
• Avea Robotics* // Avea Robotics is building a suite of autonomous floor-cleaning robots for mid-sized commercial buildings, alleviating the severe short-staffing issues in the custodial services industry. The robots can operate in dynamic, multi-floor environments and coordinate to optimize cleaning efficiency.
• BioPack* // BioPack is transforming sustainable packaging with novel, fully biodegradable materials. They aim to make sustainability convenient and achievable, by offering easily disposable materials with a combination of quality and affordability. BioPack is committed to supporting the transition to a future free of plastic pollution.
• CareTailor // CareTailor makes the intake process smooth and easy for addiction treatment centers. By using machine learning models it can turn a 5-hour intake process into a 20-minute conversation.
• Club Hub // Club Hub is a student life hub that can increase student engagement in clubs, sports, affinity groups, and community service. It provides schools with detailed, automatic analytics to assist in decision-making and leadership.
• Exactics // Exactics develops rapid diagnostic tools for underrepresented infectious diseases to expedite at-home and clinical diagnoses, subsequently improving treatment plans/outcomes. Exactics has developed QuickLyme, a patented 15-minute at-home test for Lyme disease, and is currently adapting its patented test platform to create a multiplex assay for Malaria and similarly presenting diseases.
• Garage Care // Garage Care is a car care brand offering Ceramic Cream. Its flagship product, Ceramic Cream is an affordable and high-performance ceramic coating product designed for enthusiasts, providing a premium solution for protecting car paint against damage, fading, and loss of shine.
• Gotchu // Gotchu provides a web and mobile application that enables food delivery in restricted-access areas such as military bases and hospitals. Its unique delivery model allows friends and community members to deliver food to each other in exchange for a discount.
• GuineaLoft // GuineaLoft manufactures products for small pets, such as cages, enrichment toys, and cage accessories. The aim is to bring innovation to the overlooked pets of the world (i.e. guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, birds, etc.)
• Hpad // Hpad has developed a cheap and effective bed sore solution through hydrogen gas therapy. Its two devices, H-Pad and H-VAC, target bedsore prevention and treatment in hospitals, nursing homes, and home health agencies.
• kWh* // kWh is creating a two-sided marketplace that connects producers and consumers for market-driven green energy trades – with 20% increased revenue for producers and reduced costs for consumers.
• Orion Oncology* // Orion Oncology offers an innovative treatment approach that targets a previously “undruggable” driver of cancer metastasis. Its drug design process rigorously screens toxicities pre-clinically, while its predictive genetic tool identifies patients most likely to benefit.
• RCMX // RCMX is a marketplace for back-office outsourcing solutions targeting independent medical practices. Its marketplace lists services from third-party partners and products fully-owned and operated by RCMX under a private label.
• Rise Reforming, Inc. // Rise Reforming, Inc. seeks to turn the tide on the plastic disaster using a revolutionary path to carbon-negative chemicals. It will make cost-competitive, carbon-negative dimethyl ether (cnDME) and methanol (cnM) – all while erasing plastic waste.
• TerraVortex* // TerraVortex developed VortexLens, a smart headset focused on improving quality control in manufacturing. It combines computer vision and AI to offer real-time manufacturing guidance, providing step-by-step instructions and quality control tracking. Beyond manufacturing, they are collaborating with Oxford-educated doctors and surgeons exploring its use in resident training and error reduction.

To learn more about the CNVC, visit the program page or contact Kate Turvy, kate.turvy@chicagobooth.edu.

* This is an intercollegiate team with members from both UChicago and UIUC.