By Carolyn Gray Anderson
It was an evening of surprises as the 2018 Knapp Venture Competition distributed more than $100,000 in prize money, the most at any single competition in its 36-year history.
Not surprising at all was the high caliber of new business ideas. From a field of more than 40 submissions, five teams advanced to the final round of the competition to present the extensive primary research, financial projections and growth models behind their ventures.
Claiming first place was U-Defi, a scientifically formulated skin care product tailor-made for an individual’s skin “biomarker.” Anderson students Aditya Marathe (’18) and Van Nguyen (FEMBA ’19), along with Cynthia McKee (Ph.D. ’20) of UCLA College of Life Sciences and Thanh Thuy Dan Pham (Ph.D. ’20) of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, were relieved and gratified to know their sleepless nights had paid off to the tune of $15,000.
Tutorfly’s peer-to-peer tutoring platform, founded by Parsa Rezvani (B.A. ’18), who presented with teammates Jairo Mateo (FEMBA ’19) and Erica Nagase (B.S. ’21), won second prize of $10,000. Rezvani is minoring in entrepreneurship, and his team has participated in Anderson Venture Accelerator and StartUp UCLA activities. The growing team, which includes several other Bruins and advisors Yolanda Gorman (B.A. ’78, ’83, Ph.D. ’93) and Bill Levin (B.S. ’63, M.S. ’66, M.S. ’73), plans to “gamify” the UX through a messaging app for its community of students.
Third prize of $7,500 was claimed by Jane Zhang (FEMBA ’20), Hadley Washburne (FEMBA ’20) and Larry Chang (’18) for MiVUE, an at-home smart otoscope that enables telemedicine and tracking of ear infections. Guillermo Cornejo’s (’19) peer-to-peer motorcycle rental platform, Riders Share, took the fourth prize of $5,000 and Pluscare, a subscription-based pre-seed health care staffing venture founded by Nick Talone (FEMBA ’18), Milan Karunaratne (FEMBA ’18), Alex Ng and Casey Tracy, earned the fifth-place prize of $2,500.
The U-Defi team and Riders Share’s Cornejo walked away even more satisfied with their wins when judge Peter Liu, vice president of Pritzker Group Venture Capital, announced that the teams had been selected as participants in the first Los Angeles offering of the Pritzker Group Fellows Program, a three-month summer program for student entrepreneurs. Pritzker Group Fellows are mentored by Pritzker’s investment and operating professionals, provided with co-working space in the Anderson Venture Accelerator and offered $20,000 SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) investments in their companies by Pritzker Group Venture Capital.
The Knapp competition, organized annually by students in the Entrepreneur Association, with support from the Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, welcomed Liu and fellow judges Prema Sampath (’07), product manager at Google; Jim McDermott (’97), who once competed for a Knapp prize with what became Stamps.com, and who is now managing partner at U.S. Renewables Group; and Price Center Board members Sanjay Reddy (’97), co-founder of Unlock Venture Partners, and Spiros Bouas, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Sampath, who flew home to Los Angeles that afternoon from Mountain View, came straight from LAX for the occasion, looking forward, she said, to immersing herself “in something besides ads and regulations!” McDermott contributes his time to the Knapp competition, he says, “because it’s good to see what today’s MBAs are doing.”
But the judges pulled no punches when financials didn’t seem to add up or bases might not have been covered. Teams were pressed to explain their strategies, just as they would do in any VC pitch or business situation.
Five students delivered fast pitches. Larry Wolfen Entrepreneurial Spirit Award winner Connor Doyle (’19), pitching on behalf of his 2019 classmates Mark Larik, Erica Wood and Charles Fields, claimed first prize of $1,000 for Altitude Beverages ultra-premium cold brew coffee drinks. Samples were plentiful, with Altitude’s Mexican Spice horchata blend elevating the brand. Brett Bennett’s (FEMBA ’18) HEAT DANCE, which features 50-minute theatrical, immersive dance class experiences, was the runner up, earning her $500 — and winning Anderson the possibility of an end-of-year dance party organized by Bennett.
“Entrepreneurship is alive at UCLA!” tweeted Liu.
Judges walked away with SWAG bags that included recently debuted seaweed snacks from 2017 People’s Choice winner K-POP Foods and coffee drinks from Altitude Beverages.
The final surprise of the evening came when Price Center executive director Elaine Hagan announced the inaugural Muse Innovation Award, endowed by Inspirational 100 alumnus John Muse (’74), chairman of Muse Family Enterprises and a member of the UCLA Anderson Board of Advisors. This award provides summer financial support to Anderson students with promising proof-of-concept stage technology ventures. Knapp third-place winner MiVUE collected the $25,000 prize.
Hagan noted that benefactor Betsy Knapp would have been pleased with the composition of this year’s teams, which featured several instances of cross-campus collaboration. Hagan also shared benefactor Bud Knapp’s regards, noting that he wished the participants all the best with their new ventures. It was the first year of the competition since co-founder Betsy Knapp passed away in June 2017.
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Posted by: Riddhima Nair | 06/27/2018 at 04:33 AM