Student teams selected to compete in the 2015 UW Business Plan Competition

The University of Washington Business Plan Competition (BPC), now in its 18^th year, is a platform for student-led ventures. It provides an opportunity for entrepreneurial students across Washington State to take their ideas beyond the classroom and test them out in a real-world setting. A business built around stylish sports socks, nose-to-brain drug delivery, or Emergency Medical Response might look great on paper, but not until you present it to a room full of entrepreneurs, investors, and mentors will you really know if it has potential.

A record 103 student teams applied to the 2015 BPC. After an initial screening round, 37 teams were selected to move on to the BPC Investment Round on April 28. There, they’ll pitch their ideas to 300+ judges—entrepreneurs, lawyers, investors, and other top professionals—in the hopes of earning a spot in the Sweet 16 and, ultimately, a chance to win the $25,000 Grand Prize.

Best of luck to the teams in the 2015 UW Business Plan Competition!

Alpha Endeavors
University of Washington Tacoma

Alpha Endeavors seeks to disrupt the antiquated residential real estate investment marketplace by alleviating a massive amount of transactional friction in the acquisition process. The company helps residential real estate brokers who serve investor clients to sell more real estate through a software facilitated process that implements predictive analytics, administrative automation, and integrates modern data gathering techniques.

Auctora
University of Washington

Auctora’s automated recruiting tool seamlessly screens, sorts, and schedules candidates so that corporate recruiters can utilize their time more effectively while sourcing job applicants. No dealing with paper resumes; no back-and-forth emails between recruiters and candidates – welcome to recruiting in the 21st century!

Authality
University of Washington

Authality’s first product, Klide, is the most secure and convenient smart lock, and the only smart lock that meets the demands of Airbnb hosts. Klide pairs a physical lock with a mobile app that allows hosts to distribute revocable “keys” to guests and control access remotely.

Avayla Weddings
University of Washington

Avayla Weddings is a software platform designed to provide wedding vendors with better marketing and increased profits while simultaneously acting as the market-leading information tool for couples in the same way that TripAdvisor works for the travel industry. Avayla is the most efficient, enjoyable, and user friendly way for couples to find, contact and book the venue of their dreams.

Baunsu
University of Washington

Have you ever been at lunch and realized the 30 minutes you wanted to spend had turned into an hour? Have you ever been late for a meeting because you just couldn’t find a server to pay your bill? At Baunsu.com you can order and pay for your food ahead of time, getting rid of the hassle in the dining experience. Once you arrive, your food will be served, leaving you time to concentrate on the flavors and experience instead of the wait. It’s Baunsu.com!

Benchmark Environmental
University of Washington
Washington State University

Benchmark Environmental is changing the way we treat storm water. By combining innovative design with new technologies, our treatment solutions are affordable, easy to install, and low maintenance. Benchmark Environmental’s products enable more companies and municipalities to treat storm water runoff effectively–a win-win for customers and the environment.

Bettery
University of Washington Tacoma

Bettery provides consumers with the most cost effective, convenient, and sustainable portable power solution on the market. Bettery taps a growing demand for sustainable solutions by offering batteries as a low cost subscription service.

CaseBooker
Seattle University

CaseBooker is a simple, convenient, and local online mobile application and service that helps law students buy and sell their casebooks (legal textbooks) and other supplementary materials with other law students on their campus.

Co Optical
Washington State University

Co Optical specializes in lifestyle management technologies, with a flagship product that revolutionizes diabetes management by continuously and non-invasively monitoring blood glucose. This wearable device, structured as a pair of glasses, improves convenience and enhances the overall user experience allowing seamless integration of lifestyle management strategies into the everyday lives of people with diabetes.

Community Supported Bio
University of Washington and BGI at Pinchot University

Community Supported Bio turns trash into treasure. It offers turnkey lease-to-own B2B solutions to upcycle food & beverage waste into renewable fertilizer & fuel.

Eldergrow
Seattle University

Old growth happens when nurtured. Eldergrow is a start-up company that connects nature to elders so that they can continue to flourish in their later years of life. Gardening every day reduces the risk factors for dementia by 36%! Through a portfolio of meaningful gardening and nature-related products, Eldergrow will improve the quality of 10,000 elders lives by the end of the decade.

Empreva
University of Washington

Empreva aims to empower and engage women across the world to take their health into their own hands by providing a safe, convenient, and comfortable method for birth control and STI prevention.Empreva is developing birth control and combination birth control/anti-HIV products to benefit the health of women in high-HIV burden areas of the developing world who lack options for protection. For every purchase of an Empreva birth control product in the U.S., Empreva will donate one combination product to a woman in need in the developing world to help achieve sexual health and empowerment for women everywhere.

JikoPower
University of Washington

JikoPower makes thermo-electric generators to turn ordinary cook stoves into personal charging stations for off-grid households that have small electronic devices in the developing world. JikoPower POWERS devices, but it EMPOWERS people.

FullCircle Technologies
University of Washington

FullCircle Technologies is an education technology company empowering K-12 teachers, administrators, counselors, and staff with fast, easy to use, intuitive software to allow educators to focus on maximizing student learning. SITAR – Student Intervention Tracking and Reporting, is the company’s first product that helps schools track both academic and non-academic interventions and proactively reduces future interventions by focusing on the communication and action plans between teachers, staff and parents.

Genie
University of Washington

Genie is a file browser that understands and looks at files exactly the way a human does. Gone are the days of having to go through long lists of generic file names for images. Remember what an image contains? Tell Genie and it does the rest for you.

Go KEFI
Washington State University

Go KEFI is an experience-based travel website that helps you plan vacations based off desired experiences and budget. The team won first place at Spokane Startup Weekend 2014, and has since sparked a movement for a new way to travel.

Hook
University of Washington

Hook is a home automation hub that offers smart home capability to the price sensitive consumer. Customers are able to convert existing electronics in the home to smart compatible devices, keeping these products up-to-date for years to come. Consumers will enjoy convenience with control via their mobile devices, savings on energy costs, and improved home safety. With an affordable price and remarkable ease of use, Hook aims to make smart home technology accessible to the masses.

Ion Informatics
University of Washington

Ion Informatics is developing a proprietary technology that provides critical health information enabling battery operators to maximize the value that can be extracted from each battery through more informed decision making. Applications for improved battery state diagnostics in the marketplace are extensive, applying to any system where large scale batteries are used. The information rich diagnostics developed by Ion Informatics will transform the storage sector by allowing more robust, intelligent, and informed battery management.

Limefy
University of Washington

Limefy makes business networking you can wear. You’re in a big crowd where you don’t know anyone. It’s intimidating. You want to meet someone with similar interests but you don’t know how. LiGo can help you.

Meridian Lee
BGI at Pinchot University

Meridian Lee is a conscious fashion company making chic, distinctive fashion accessories. By collaborating with marginalized artisans around the world, Meridian Lee is able to create handcrafted designs and artisans are able to earn an income and live healthier, safer lives.

miPS
University of Washington

miPS is the first consumer stem cell generation and cell banking service. miPS allows consumers to store their adult cells to prevent cellular aging, generate stem cell lines for research, and use banked cells for future stem cell therapies.

NOVA Technologies
Western Washington University and University of Washington

NOVA Technologies’ Smart Solar Window uses transparent nanotechnology to create clean, local electricity that can turn skyscrapers into giant solar arrays and reduce HVAC systems costs, an innovative link to a carbon neutral future.

Ordr.it
University of Washington

For small businesses, creating and managing purchase orders is a time-consuming manual task. Ordr.it offers a modern supply chain solution for small businesses that allows users to better manage purchase orders and collaborate on pending orders with their vendors.

Otogear
University of Washington

Otogear is a stylish, customizable, environmentally friendly, reusable silicone earplug designed to help sustain a healthy hearing environment during loud events. In addition, Otogear promotes the reduction of waste by being reusable and biodegradable.

Park A Lot
University of Washington

Park A Lot is a platform connecting private businesses who have unused parking spaces with customers looking for parking. Lot owners sign up on a hop-on, hop-off platform and their lots become available to the public, generating them revenue. Customers use Park A Lot’s website or app to purchase parking on a lot of their choice from their home or mobile device.

Parky
University of Washington

Parky makes paying parking tickets suck less! Parky is a cloud-based app for receiving automated notifications once a parking ticket is issued to a vehicle owner. The app sends payment reminders and allows users to make one-click payments, reducing the anxiety related to missed parking payments and late fees.

PowerNode
University of Washington

PowerNode is a web-based power monitoring system for industrial machinery that utilizes machine learning to perform predictive maintenance, reducing costs associated with operation, maintenance and machine down time.

RainCity Heart Lab
Seattle University

Seventy percent of patients who have suffered a heart attack for the first time were previously classified as low risk for cardiovascular disease based on the current testing methods. RainCity Heart Lab (RCHL) is a specialty diagnostic lab that offers a better diagnostic test called CALLIS. CALLIS (Calibrated Lipoprotein Ion Separation) is a blood test for accurately quantifying intact lipoproteins for improved Cardio Vascular Disease risk assessment.

Saffron and Rose
Cornish School of the Arts and University of Washington

Saffron and Rose provides stylish and comfortable yoga-inspired apparel that supports the true health of the body and the planet. Using natural and organic fibers in beautiful colors, Saffron and Rose apparel enables a positive mood, a balanced body, and a general sense of well-being.

SmartyPants
University of Washington

SmartyPants reinvents toilet training and mitigates adult incontinence issues to prevent millions of diapers from ending up as a biohazard in landfills. It predicts impending bowel events and alerts users to get to a toilet. The company’s innovative, first-of-its-kind, technology creates value for the consumers by saving on diaper purchases and the environment by reducing waste and biohazard from disposable diapers.

SportSocial
Seattle University and University of Puget Sound

Sport-Social provides the easiest way to spontaneously organize, locate, and join pickup sports activities through a social platform.

Storyline.Life
University of Washington

Sheer volume of life moments – scattered across electronic devices and online accounts – and lack of organization make it difficult to find precious moments and to assemble them into stories. Ironically, even as more life instances are captured, stories are increasingly buried in digital chaos. In an attempt to record many experiences, users risk losing the very memories they want to preserve. Storyline.Life is a storytelling platform to conveniently capture, organize and connect moments so that they can be shared as meaningful stories.

ThreeBar
University of Washington

ThreeBar is a revolutionary website tracking and content delivery platform that allows any business to easily and cost efficiently hyper-target customers. Using a customer’s past web viewing habits, locational data, and demographic profiling, ThreeBar enables businesses to deliver custom website content and test special offers in real-time– all with the simplicity of a point and click user interface.

TriboTEX
Washington State University

TriboTEX aims to extend the operational life-span of industrial machinery by improving efficiency where lubricated friction takes place. TriboTEX’s self-assembling nanostructured lubricious coating provides regenerative effects to frictional surface during normal operation.

vHAB
University of Washington

vHAB is a virtual rehabilitation platform that helps patients regain fine motor skills to lead autonomous lives again. vHAB enables occupational therapists to customize patient treatment and accurately monitor progress through engaging and dynamic video games. System portability and precision metrics pose a competitive advantage for rehabilitation facilities, allowing delivery of quality treatment to patients – anywhere, anytime. vHAB saves rehabilitation facilities time and money. Most importantly, vHAB empowers patients to reclaim their independence.

Vie Diagnostics
University of Washington

A significant portion of patients attending STD clinics fail to follow up for treatment, even when tests are positive and the risk for transmission and complication is highest. Vie Diagnostics’ disruptive molecular diagnostic technology will reduce the spread and pain of STD infections by allowing patients to be tested and treated in a single clinical visit. Its tests will provide better patient management, lower costs for clinics, and improve overall public health.

Yowgii
University of Washington

Yowgii has the potential to disrupt the bottled water industry and the water filtration industry. The global bottled water industry is worth over $157 billion a year, but is heavily comprised of plastic bottles with significant environmental footprint and potential for contaminants. Yowgii combines environmentally-friendly water delivery with innovative water purification to deliver the best drinking water to consumer and promises pure water for a better you!

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