NUMiX Materials, a startup that’s made a technology to remove toxic metals from water, won first place and $30,000 at Northwestern University’s VentureCat competition on Wednesday.
The startup, founded by CEO Katie Kollhoff, an engineering graduate student, provides industrial water treatment solutions from a platform of patented ion exchange materials that it says can remove toxic heavy metals more efficiently than current technology. Their suite of sorbent powder products could be used to clean metals out of industrial wastewater or to recover silver in manufacturing processes.
Kollhoff said the company will use the funds to scale up production of its platform. VentureCat isn’t the first competition the startup has won recently. Back in April, NUMiX won the clean energy prize and $50,000 at the Rice Business Plan Competition.
Kollhoff said she was excited to win the VentureCat and that the resources at Northwestern have had a significant impact on the startup’s development.
“The resources available at Northwestern are amazing—the atmosphere, the people and the support,” Kollhoff said.
BrewBike, a startup founded by CEO Lucas Philips that operates cold brew services on college campuses, came in second place, winning $15,000. Rheos, a wearable biosensor startup founded by Amit Ayer, landed in third place and won $10,000. Rheos also received an additional $1,000 for winning the audience pick, a category added to the competition this year.
More than 74 student startups applied to compete in this year’s VentureCat, with 29 making it to the semi-finals. Just minutes before the finals on Wednesday evening, the six finalists were announced and pitched their companies to six investors, ranging from Samara Mejia Hernandez, a principal at MATH Venture Partners, to Scott Stern, a senior associate at Origin Ventures.
The startups that pitched in the finals were companies that won first place and $5,000 in their industry tracks. The other three finalists that pitched include Facilikey, an app for property managers to organize maintenance requests, Cariset, which makes an all-day backpack for women, and Brave Initiatives, which operates a program to get high school girls interested in tech and computer science.
Though the competition is for small businesses, not all the founders were from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. They hailed from several of the college’s schools, from journalism to law, and were in undergraduate, graduate and PhD programs.
