The 24th McCloskey New Venture Competition awarded close to $600,000 in cash and in-kind/pitch for investment prizes on Friday, April 26th, during a live-streamed in-person ceremony that culminated the event.
VisiLocate won the $50,000 McCloskey Grand Prize.
Patti Reinhardt, the director of student engagement, competition, and events at the IDEA Center, oversees the program, which commenced in October with 190 teams, setting a McCloskey record for team participation. “The McCloskey New Venture Competition highlights the efforts of the IDEA Center and the McCloskey program, as its participants utilize high caliber mentors, feedback-driven judges, and a process that takes participants from presentation and passion to sustainable business models. We saw at the finals, the breadth of ventures, a social media deflection app, life saving medical ventures, sports meetups locator/rater and a small ag farmer financial tool. In its over 20 years of existence, McCloskey provides the education and funding to help these ventures make a difference in the world, and that is and will always be a mission of the University of Notre Dame.”
Finalist teams presented a six-minute presentation and answered questions from the judges. The five finalists gave their presentations in-person. These final presentations were recorded and will be available to watch on the IDEA Center’s website.
Judges for the final round were Maya French,founder of Koia Protien Plant-Based Beverage; Mike Joslin, partner with the 1842 Fund; and Gregory Meredith, retired private equity and venture capital investor.
Since the competition began in 2001 with 30 teams and $30,000 in awards, 2,360 teams with over 7,000 participants have been awarded more than $2 million in prizes and 3,500 judges and mentors have contributed.
To visit profiles or connect with winners, please visit Buzzit.ca and enter the event code ndideacenter!
Following is a listing of the awardees; descriptions appear below.
| Award | Description | Recipient 1 | Recipient 2 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| McCloskey Grand Prize | $50,000 cash award | VisiLocate | $50,000 cash | |
| High Alpha Greatest Social Impact | $20,000 cash award | Moby | $20,000 cash | |
| Schurz Best Female-Led Venture Award | $10,000 cash award | VisiLocate | $10,000 cash | |
| Lavrock Ventures Award for Best Graduate Student Venture | $10,000 cash award | VisiLocate | $10,000 cash | |
| EquiCorp Award for the Best Undergraduate Venture | $10,000 cash award | RealBlock Exchange | $10,000 cash | |
| Schurz Communications Innovation Award | $10,000 cash award | Solmu AI | $10,000 cash | |
| Startup SB/Elkhart for Best Community Venture Award | $10,000 cash award | Door Jack | $10,000 cash | |
| The Sutherland Family Award for Best Presentation | $5,000 cash award | VisiLocate | $5,000 cash | |
| Wray/O’Brien Award for Best Minority-Led Venture | $5,000 cash award | Finly | $5,000 cash | |
| First State Bank Banking Services Award | $3,000 cash prize, with an additional $2,000 in banking services | Door Jack Security Systems | $3,000 cash, $2,000 services | |
| Palo Alto Software Best Undergraduate Pitch Deck | $1,500 cash prize | Desi | $1,500 cash | |
| Palo Alto Software Best Graduate Pitch Deck | $1,500 cash prize | VisiLocate | $1,500 cash | |
| Vogel Family Startup Showcase Best Presentations | $1,000 cash award for first place and $500 for second place | Hygeia - $1,000 | VisiLocate - $500 | $1,500 cash |
| IrishAngels Award | Opportunity to present to the IrishAngels; estimated value $25- $250K | Desi | ||
| Elevate Ventures’ Pre-Seed Fund | $20,000 opportunity to pitch to Elevate Ventures’ Pre-Seed Fund Board - $20,000 community ideation fund | Door Jack | $20,000 | |
| Plug and Play Tech Center Awards | $50,000 in in-kind services (offered to 3 teams) | VisiLocate, RealBlock Exchange, The Lequity Group | $50,000 in-kind services | |
| Maria Bailey Family – Best Alumni Venture | $5,000 cash prize | Guardalin | $5,000 cash | |
| Patent Hacks | Greatest Social Impact Award and Best Community Venture awarded 6 month access. And the following teams will be awarded a 3 month Access to their platform. | All teams | ||
| Pre-Accelerator Award | $5,000 cash prize | Varden | $5,000 cash | |
| Marmon Holdings Most Innovative Award | $5,000 cash prize | Tauro | $5,000 cash | |
| C-Prize, Best Idea in Climate, Conservation and Clean Energy | $5,000 cash prize | Routora | $5,000 cash prize | |
| Alternate Tax Solution award | $5,000 cash prize | Door Jack | $5,000 cash prize | |
| TrademarkED | Offering our McCloskey teams an in-kind donation to use their platform– free of charge | All teams |
High School Awards
| Award | Description | Recipient 1 | Recipient 2 | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garatoni Family Awards - First Place | $2,500 cash award | Heritage Glow | $2,500 | |
| Garatoni Family Awards - Second Place | $1,500 cash award | Debt Settler | $1,500 | |
| Garatoni Family Awards - Third Place | $500 cash award | Healthy Homes | $500 | |
| Teach Me 3D: Best Female Led High School Team | $500 cash award | Heritage Glow | $500 |
Summaries of Teams That Won Awards
Debt Settler
Team Leader: Emma Butcher
Contact Email: emma.butcher@culver.org
Debt Settler is an easy to use app that people in credit card debt can use to settle their debt. They connect their credit card debt to the app and individuals can auction off their money for the credit card debt companies to bid on. Someone may offer up $500 and the companies will bid on your money and take a portion of your debt off. One company may offer to take off $1000 from your debt and another may offer to take off $1500. You then choose which offer you want to take and you can easily settle your debts from your phone.
Desi
Team Leader: Liam Redmond, BA ‘25
Contact Email: liam@ridedesi.com
Team Members: Zach Brown, BSC ‘25, Rob Corrato, BA ‘25
Desi is a college exclusive marketplace that connects students for affordable rides. Revolutionizing how students move around your community, Desi is a new way to explore your campus and earn money. Only verified fellow classmates have access to your community. You never have to ride with strangers again. Designed with the college student in mind, ease and affordability are a priority. See hotspots around your campus with trending destinations on display to see what’s buzzing. Only those with university emails (.edu) can sign up, post, message, and view profiles. Whether connecting for a ride from a peer or simply making new friends, ignite new connections on your campus with Desi. Don't miss out on the college revolution - No strangers. No surge.
Door Jack Security Systems llc
Team Leader: Nik Ackerman
Contact Email: nikackerman@doorjacksecuritysystems.com
Team Members: Adam Toland, BS ‘24
DoorJack is a unique secondary locking device that works in active shooter situations. The product lifts doors into the door frame, quickly and easily securing the door when needed, ensuring absolutely no entry from outside. DoorJack is the only solution on the market that is fire code compliant, works on any internal door, and fails safely under pressure. The product requires no installation and is extremely secure and strong, so much so that the door will fail before the DoorJack. DoorJack is on a mission to save lives, ensuring that if people need to hide in an active shooter situation, DoorJack will keep them secure inside the room.
Finly Club
Team Leader: Tanish Goel, BBA ‘25
Contact Email: tanish@finly.club
Team Members: Dev Alimchandani, BBA ‘25
FINLY provides consumers the only card they need to carry, streamlining credit card management while optimizing cashback benefits. The average person owns 3.8 credit cards, but 85% of people say they do not switch between their credit cards based on the one with the best rewards. The FINLY Card aggregates all of the consumer’s credit cards and automatically re-routes the transactions to the card that saves them the most money. This will result in additional savings for the consumer of around $107 per month based on an average monthly spend of $5,000.
Guardalin
Team Leader: Genevieve Dowd ESTEEM ‘23
Contact Email: gdowd2@nd.edu
Team Members: Mihaela Bet, ESTEEM ‘24
Guardalin is a once-weekly, injectable insulin for diabetic cats. Unlike twice-daily, mealtime associated injectable insulins, Guardalin offers owners an ultra-long duration of action; they only need to inject their diabetic cat with insulin once every seven days, which reduces the burden that they experience as caregivers to a chronically ill pet. It is our vision to not just improve lives for cats and owners, but to reduce rates of euthanasia amongst diabetic cats and alleviate the compassion fatigue experienced by veterinarians.
Heritage Glow
Team Leader: Navneet Kaur (high school)
Contact Email: gdowd2@nd.edu
Team Members: navneet@raisingtheregion.org
Heritage Glow is an all natural skin care brand that consists of organic ingredients. These products help give back to the community through charity, and also fulfill the needs of teenagers in the Michiana region. It fulfills the teenagers preferences, because this product is made to help their top concerns chemicalized products and acne. The charity system will give donation options to the customers to help those that can’t afford good skincare. Our product is fragrance free, and made from organic chemical free ingredients. This product will be made from recycled items, which will help the environment. Our customers will get points for reusing their bottles and getting refills done. Those points will go towards their subscription box to get discounts.This will be available for both boys and girls.
Hygeia
Team Leader: Jameson Lajoie ESTEEM ‘24
Contact Email: jlajoie@nd.edu
Team Members: Clare Ruddy ESTEEM ‘24, Kalli Jungles ESTEEM ‘24, Isaac Brej, BSEE ‘25
Hygeia is the better fit for your fashion. Revolutionizing the way people track and monitor their health statistics. We ensure you never have to compromise your fashion sense for your fitness goals. Hygeia allows you to simultaneously track all of your favorite fitness and health statistics while wearing your favorite watch.
Moby
Team Leader: Kyle Beerbower, BBA ‘25
Contact Email: kbeerbow@nd.edu
Team Members: Mel Anic, Carson Scott, BBA ‘24
Moby is a platform to convert the 5.5 vacant homes into affordable $600/month studios in Tier 1 Metro Cities. We turn around vacant buildings in 30 days while boosting cash flows by over 20%, with our first case study completed & 250 customers on our waitlist.
RealBlock Exchange
Team Leader: Jakub Drwal, BBA ‘25
Contact Email: jdrwal@nd.edu
Team Members: Jack Wayman, BBA ‘25
RealBlock Exchange will allow for retail investors and institutional investors to directly invest in institutional grade commercial real estate. RealBlock Exchange makes buying shares of a property as simple and easy as buying shares of Apple. On one side of the market, a public marketplace for real estate is now needed more than ever. Due to a sudden rise in interest rates, institutional asset managers are struggling to raise new capital needed to retain ownership in their signature assets. And on the other side, changes in SEC regulations have made investing in real estate assets feasible for the broader market. There is pent up demand for this access due real estate’s stable income, tax benefits, and attractive risk adjusted returns that are generally uncorrelated with the rest of the market.
Routora
Team Leader: Brian George, BBA ‘25
Contact Email: bgeorge3@nd.edu
Team Members: Luke Blazek, BA ‘25, Tom Vazhekatt
Routora is a tool that optimizes multi-stop routes. With over 30,000 users from 90 countries, the Routora software creates faster and more efficient routes on Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze by re-ordering the stops along your path. User industries include delivery, real estate, small business, home care, travel and more. The free Routora chrome extension optimizes routes within Google Maps up to 10 stops. For users that need more than 10 stops, the Routora subscription-based premium route optimization feature on both routora.com and the iOS and Google Play mobile app that optimizes up to 100 stops. Routora additionally has a public API that will allow businesses to incorporate the Routora technology within their own systems. With the goal of saving users time on the road, money on gas, and carbon being emitted into the atmosphere, Routora seeks to revolutionize transportation.
Solmu AI
Team Leader: Nick Clark, BS ‘23
Contact Email: nclark3@nd.edu
Team Members: Jonathan Su, BA ‘27
In an era overflowing with data, making informed decisions should be simpler, yet it remains daunting. Enter Solmu AI, your decision-making powerhouse. Harnessing the strength of advanced AI, Solmu melds external data aggregation with contextual reasoning to provide actionable insights. It's not just about gathering information; it's about understanding and interpreting it in real time. Our platform’s intuitive chat interface effortlessly bridges the gap between vast data landscapes and precise decisions. Whether you're a startup or a global enterprise, Solmu AI adapts, offering tiered solutions to fit every need. Solmu AI: Where data meets clarity for impactful decisions.
The Lequity Group
Team Leader: David Kennedy, MBA ‘18
Contact Email: dkenned6@alumni.nd.edu
Team Members: Jay Brockhoff MBA ‘24, Adrienne Stanish
Companies traditionally have been able to hide the overwhelming majority of litigation from broad public view, and there aren’t any reliable data sources for lawsuits and regulatory cases involving companies. Nobody other than the companies themselves know how many, what kinds, or the risks posed by the millions of cases involving publicly traded companies. Only a fraction of the truth is available to any stakeholders other than each individual company itself. Investment Professionals, institutional and retail investors, and other stakeholders are left in the dark because they don’t have the data and information required to make informed decisions regarding a company’s legal and regulatory risks, either from a financial materiality perspective or from an ESG perspective. The Lequity Group is filling this gap and providing an unprecedented view of the performance of a company's risk management from systematically evaluating corporate litigation and regulatory portfolios.
VisiLocate
Team Leader: Ciara Dillon ESTEEM ‘24
Contact Email: cdillon5@nd.edu
Team Members: Nicholas Ross, PHD) ‘27, Sunghoon Rho, PHD ‘24
VisiLocate is a team working on a device to improve tumor surgery for women in the United States. They are focused on enhancing patient outcomes and making surgery easier for both surgeons and patients.
Originally published by at ideacenter.nd.edu on April 30, 2024.