10 Startups to Compete for Over $1 Million at 30th Annual Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge Finals

Published on Thursday, May 21, 2026

The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation today announced the 10 teams advancing to the finals of the 30th annual Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge (NVC), the Chicago Booth School of Business’s signature startup accelerator for graduate students.

On June 4, these teams will present their business plans to a panel of judges, who will decide how to award an investment pool of more than $1 million. The winning team will receive at least $180,000 in investment courtesy of the Rattan L. Khosa First Place Prize.

The NVC, a pioneering business school venture accelerator founded at Chicago Booth in 1996, reached a milestone in 2021 when it awarded $1.73 million, the largest investment granted by a university accelerator program. Now celebrating its 30th anniversary, the program continues to grow, with a record-breaking $2.267 million awarded last year.

>> Register here to attend the 2026 NVC Finals on June 4

The NVC has graduated more than 370 startup companies still operating today, including nationally known brands such as Grubhub, Braintree/Venmo, Simple Mills, and Tovala. There are four tracks of the NVC serving distinct University of Chicago audiences, including undergraduates and executive MBA students.

The 10 teams competing in the 2026 NVC Finals were selected from 27 teams that participated in the classroom portion of the program, which consists of a credit-bearing spring quarter course.

The finalists are:

BRAIV // BRAIV is a precision psychiatry decision intelligence platform solving trial-and-error prescribing for the 80 million Americans on psychiatric medication and addressing the more than $82 billion U.S. behavioral health crisis.
CareLumi // CareLumi is the first unified infrastructure platform that takes over the administrative burden of healthcare compliance. Its AI Compliance Officer, Carl, orchestrates a multi-agent system that manages the relationship between medical providers, facilities, and insurance providers.
eep // eep is a performance intelligence system that forecasts and protects human performance capacity. By predicting when cognitive overload and burnout risk are rising, eep intervenes early to prevent crashes — helping high-performing individuals sustain consistent, reliable performance without pushing past their limits.
Hydrastack // Hydrastack compresses the time it takes to convert slot machine games into online formats using AI-driven code translation, reducing timelines from months to weeks. It begins in regulated casino gaming, building the infrastructure for faster software translation in complex, compliance-driven industries.
Inzollo // Inzollo builds modular, distributor-first tools that manage the full lifecycle of inventory, orders, and warehouse operations. Distributors start with the modules they need today and expand over time for an all-in-one tech solution.
Nestera // Nestera is a vertically integrated operating system for Hospital-at-Home programs. It automates patient eligibility screening and orchestrates end-to-end home transfer and care logistics, enabling health systems to safely scale home-based acute care. With Nestera, hospitals expand inpatient capacity and improve margins, throughput, and patient experience without adding headcount.
Rare Earth Rescue // Rare Earth Rescue is a domestic magnet-to-magnet recycling company supplying rare earth oxide to U.S. permanent magnet manufacturers. By securing feedstock and using proven recycling technologies, it delivers reliable material under long-term contracts, capturing premium pricing while reducing supply-chain risk for EV, wind, and defense customers.
Slideflow Labs // Slideflow Labs is revolutionizing the way that pathologists determine cancer prognosis and predict recurrence. It has developed cancer pathology AI infrastructure that enables hospitals to discover, develop, and run biomarkers in-house, delivering superior insights, accelerating turnaround time, and generating revenue for the hospital rather than for external reference labs.
Unloket // Unloket is an AI Concierge for mid-sized independent hotels with less than 150 rooms and short-term rental operators that centralizes guest communication, handles requests, and provides local recommendations, helping hotel staff respond faster, reduce workload, and deliver a more personalized and consistent guest experience.
Vidnova Therapeutics // Vidnova Therapeutics is advancing a microbiome therapeutic developed at the University of Chicago striving to treat liver disease patients. Its lead asset is under investigation in a Phase 1b clinical trial and uses defined bacterial strains with known safety and metabolomic profiles to enable precise and scalable microbiome augmentation.

The NVC Finals pitches and awards announcement will be livestreamed. To watch, visit the Polsky Center website on the morning of June 4.