Meet the student-led startups in the 2015 Jones + Foster Accelerator

Taking a startup from idea to reality is a daunting process. The Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship’s Jones + Foster Accelerator, now in its fifth year, helps student-led startups navigate that process with six-months of mentoring from Seattle entrepreneurs and investors, a framework for defining measurable milestones, guidance in achieving those milestones, and the opportunity to earn up to $25,000 in follow-on funding.

Twenty-nine companies have completed the Jones + Foster Accelerator program since it began in 2010. Twenty-five of them are still in business today, raising millions in funding, becoming household names, forming partnerships with celebrity foundations, and winning prestigious awards.

The 10 companies accepted into the 2015 Jones + Foster Accelerator cohort run the gamut, from clean technology to healthcare innovation to peer-to-peer commerce. The one thing they all have in common is a great idea, and the drive to turn that idea into a successful venture. Over the next six months, these startups will polish their pitches, raise early-stage funding, manufacture their products, build marketing strategies. Each milestone they hit will bring them a few steps closer to their startup goals. We can’t wait to see what these student entrepreneurs can achieve!

2015 Jones + Foster Accelerator Teams

Benchmark Environmental
Benchmark Environmental is developing an affordable, easy to install, and low maintenance stormwater treatment system. The Benchmark ECR will enable more companies and municipalities to effectively treat every pollutant present in stormwater runoff.

Budding Diagnostic
Budding Diagnostic is the road-side “breathalyzer” for THC and other illicit substances. The company has developed a revolutionary and non-invasive way to quantify drug levels, including THC, from a drop of saliva within a few minutes.

Eldergrow
Eldergrow provides a therapeutic connection to nature through gardening products and services that improve the quality of life for a growing community of elders living in residential and nursing care.

Hook
Hook is a smart home hub that makes inexpensive remote controlled outlets and bulb sockets “smart” to enable home automation on a budget.

JikoPower
The JikoPower personal power station converts waste heat generated during cooking into usable electricity

miPS
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.

Ownly
Ownly is an online marketplace that facilitates peer-to-peer beauty services on college campuses. Ownly offers college women a more affordable and convenient alternative to professional beauty services by connecting them with classmates and student makeup artists right on their college campus, so they can get their nails, eyebrows, hair, and makeup done at a fraction of the salon price and at the location of their choice.

Scholarship Junkies
“Students helping students achieve scholarship success.” Scholarship Junkies provides students with an insider’s guide to the scholarship process from the perspective of students who’ve been there.

TriboTEX
TriboTEX is a clean-tech startup originated from Washington State University. The company’s product is a proprietary, eco-friendly nanoparticle with two functionally different sides that effectively reconditions moving parts during normal operation.

vHAB
vHAB is a virtual rehabilitation platform that aims to help patients regain fine motor skills of the hand and arm by making therapy fun and precisely tracking recovery.