Florida State University-affiliated startup companies took to the stage “Shark Tank”-style at the third annual Discovery Challenge event, pitching their cutting-edge businesses and walking away with a combined $85,000 in new funding.
Discovery Challenge was a high-energy event with five startups pitching their ideas to judges and a packed audience about how they planned to take FSU-supported technologies to the next level of development and commercialization. The event, held Tuesday at the Augustus B. Turnbull III Conference Center, was part of FSU’s annual Discovery Days, a weeklong celebration of research, creativity and innovation.
“These companies are going to impact the world and the people in it,” Vice President for Research Stacey Patterson said. “With our third annual Discovery Days, everyone at FSU is starting to see the promise of discovery, innovation and creativity that’s coming out of this type of work, how it impacts people, how it impacts Floridians —which is what being an R1 institution is really all about.”
Presenters each had six minutes to pitch their project followed by eight minutes for questions from the judges. This year’s judges were Kathy Chiu (DeepWork Capital), Micheal Kramer (K3 Investments and Super-Holdings Investments) and FSU alumna Christina Larkin (Mobius Care).
The five presentations featured a range of topics: preventing premature births and resulting complications; developing smart sensors with wide applications for infrastructure and lifestyle; a solution to help chronic wounds heal more effectively; screening for radioactive materials in food and in other applications; and smart controls, analytics and other tools for the energy industry.
Joshua Degraff with Feel With Me Tech took home the first prize of $50,000 as well as the audience choice award of $10,000. Rich Meeker with Nhu Energy was awarded the second prize of $25,000.
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