Gearflow, a startup building an online construction equipment marketplace, won first place and $150,000 at Northwestern University’s annual VentureCat competition on Wednesday.
The event, which was completely virtual this year due to the Covid-19 crisis, attracted more than 650 viewers.
Gearflow, founded by Ben Preston, a Kellogg MBA candidate, and Luke Powers, helps equipment rental businesses sell their parts and equipment. Users can search for parts and machinery, giving them a one-stop-shop for their equipment needs. Gearflow currently works with 108 suppliers and has six employees, Preston said. Last year, it raised $1.1 million in seed funding.
At the VentureCat competition, Gearflow also won first place in its industry track and was voted the audience favorite during the event, awarding the startup an extra $8,000 and $2,000, respectively.
“Yesterday was a whirlwind,” Preston said in an interview on Thursday morning. “The process was awesome but exhausting at the same time.”
The new prize funding will be used to help grow Gearflow as it looks to hire an engineer, he added.
Qade, a startup founded by Spencer Levitt and Austin Pager that keeps track of video game wagers, came in second place, winning $58,000. And Tilt, a startup helping families pay for college and founded by Sinthuja Nagalingam, came in third place, winning $34,000.
More than 50 teams applied to compete in this year’s VentureCat, with 26 making it to the semi-finals and just six finalists pitching at the event. The startups that pitched in the finals were companies that won first place in their industry tracks.
Throughout the entire program, Northwestern gave out more than $300,000 in non-dilutive prize money, up from $100,000 last year. The funds this year were primarily supplied from The Levy Institute and Lanny and Sharon Martin. Lanny is a longtime trustee of Northwestern and earned his bachelors in 1968 and his JD from Northwestern's School of Law in 1973.
In 2019, PreSight, a startup developing the first screening tool for a rare condition found in premature babies, won the first place prize at the VentureCat.
In March, Melissa Kaufman, the executive director of The Garage at Northwestern, made the decision that the VentureCat would be hosted virtually, though she had debated having the event at all.
“Ultimately, we felt because of the pandemic, it was more important than ever to support our students, particularly those that want to walk an entrepreneurial path,” Kaufman said.
Sam Shank, the head of hotels at Airbnb, CEO of HotelTonight and Northwestern Kellogg alum, opened the competition from his home office in San Mateo, Calif. with a keynote speech, giving advice on how to navigate the early challenges in launching a business and reminiscing on his time as a student at the university.
“I’m so glad to see that the entrepreneurship program is flourishing and that we’re creating more entrepreneurs,” Shank said. “Build something better and something different.”
