Pippin Title, an online real estate land title platform, won first place and $450,000 at the University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenge on Thursday.
The student startup was one of 11 that received portions of a $1 million cash prize pool, made up of funds from the college and various investors. The pool was originally smaller, but during deliberations, several judges decided to add to it, making it the highest cash prize pool ever given at the challenge.
Last year, judges similarly added to the cash pool after seeing the startups’ pitches, increasing it from $420,000 to $850,000. My Art Cache, an online matching platform for fine art industry professionals, dealers and buyers, won first place and $365,000 at the competition last year.
The NVC, which began in 1997 with just $25,000 in prizes, was hosted virtually this year due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Pippin Title, which is technically based in New York but whose founders are UChicago students, is a one-stop-shop for land title reports, which are an essential part of all real estate transactions. The startup says it helps homebuyers navigate the complexities of real estate closings, eliminating operational hassles for title insurance agents and allowing them to focus on serving homebuyers.
“We’re humbled by this honor, and thanks to our amazing team and our founders,” said Pippin Title co-founder and CEO Bharat Das during the event.
Lighten, a digital one-stop-shop for making arrangements after the death of a loved one, came in second place, winning $280,000. In third place came ETALYC, a cloud-based intelligent traffic management software platform that aims to improve travel in large cities, which won $130,000. And Ollipsis Fertility, which works to democratize fertility services, won fourth place and $50,000.
Startups Ruby and Tharzen tied for fifth place, both winning $20,000, and the other five startups each took home $10,000.
“I want to thank the students. The reason why the NVC is so successful is because of you,” said Mark Tebbe, an entrepreneurship professor at UChicago's Booth School of Business, during the event. “This group of teams have conclusively proven that whether it’s done in class or virtually, the amount of quality, conviction and work that you guys have put together shows that it’s really the talent and skills of our students who’ve allowed this to become an amazing program.”
The NVC is now ranked as one of the top accelerator programs in the U.S. Its winners have included top Chicago companies like SimpleMills, Grubhub and Braintree. Other notable Chicago startups that have participated in the NVC include InContext Solutions and Tovala.
“Recognize that in previous years, we have not gotten everything right,” said Steve Kaplan, a UChicago professor of entrepreneurship and finance, and the faculty director of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, during the event. “There have been years when the 10th place team ended up doing the best. There were years when the first place team did. So if you are not at the top, don’t despair. And if you are at the top, don’t get too cocky.”
