As in past Velocity pitch competitions, Waterloo Engineering students captured the majority of awards at July's Velocity Fund Finals, including the top four $25,000 prizes. The winners included:
- Black Box Technology, developing an ink for anti-counterfeit application. Founded by Perry Everett, Ben Rasera and Graham Thomas, all third-year nanotechnology engineering students.
- Lani, a payment and management system for 3D Print Centres, founded by Rohit Verma, a master of mechanical engineering candidate, Lucas Zeer-Wanklyn, a third-year nanotechnology student and Pablo Eder, a fourth-year science and business student.
- Site2Site, automation technology for construction companies, founded by Ryan Goessl, a second-year mechanical engineering student and Alex Snyder, an accounting and finance alumnus.
- Varden Labs, a startup building autonomous electronic shuttles for campus and community environments. Varden Labs was awarded an additional $10,000 as the best hardware pitch. Founded by Alex Rodrigues and Michael Skupien, both second-year mechatronics engineering students.
The winners of the Velocity Fund $5K for early stage student startups are:
- Best Pitch: Arc Home – Developing breeze, a smart air register that integrates with smart thermostats and allows the customer to control the temperature of individual rooms in their home. Team members are Scott Duncan, a master of mechanical engineering candidate, Ajeetesh Govrineni, a master of electrical engineering candidate.
-
People’s
Choice:
HiredWell
– a
mobile-optimized
solution
that
enables
brick-and-mortar
businesses
to
seamlessly
gather
all
required
information
from
walk-in
job
seekers
and
quickly
screen
this
information
with
an
easy-to-use
dashboard.
Team
members
are: Khallil
Mangalji,
a
fourth-year business
and
computer
science
student;
and Samir
Remtulla,
Arif
Bhanji,
and Nicole
Duncan,
all
Western
University
alumni.
- Most Innovative: Thalo – the company is building a new display technology to increase the battery life and daylight visibility of mobile devices. Team members are: Ryan Marchewka, a third-year nanotechnology student and Matt Lavrisa, a fourth-year nanotechnology engineering student.
Winners
of
the
$5K competition
The judges for the Velocity Fund $25K competition were JS Cournoyer of Real Ventures, Ted Livingston of Kik Interactive, Karamdeep Nijar of iNovia Capital and Mike Stork of Stork Holdings.
The judges for the Velocity Fund $5K competition were Wayne Chang of the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre at Waterloo, Andrew Jackson of the Accelerator Centre and Steve McCartney of Communitech Startup Services.