Babygami, a local startup that wants to make traveling with your baby easier with a collapsible baby bottle, won the top prize at TechRise Chicago's pitch competition this week.
The company won $100,000 in non-dilutive prize money after presenting to a panel of judges. Babygami touts its bottle as one that can "save space and reduce waste," with bottles made of silicon that have interchangable tops.
PiggyBack Network, a startup that's matching busy parents with overlapping driving routes, also presented during the pitch competition along with four other finalists and won the $25,000 People's Choice Award, which was voted by the audience.
About 120 companies competed in this third season of TechRise, the diversity initiative created by local tech organization P33 that aims to support Chicago's underrepresented founders. The six finalists were announced last month from a field of 36 semifinalists. Those six presented their pitches to a room full of investors and other entrepreneurs.
With the prize money, Babygami aims to purchase tooling and launch a crowdfunding campaign. Company co-founder and CEO Sana Jafri also hopes to see Babygami in Chicagoland REI stores as soon as next year. The startup was one of 22 ventures out of 240 applicants to participate in REI's national accelerator.
Desiree Vargas Wrigley, chief innovation officer and CEO of TechRise, said TechRise welcomed its 300th TechRise founder to the virtual stage this year. The group, founded in 2021, has deployed about $2.3 million since its inception, with about one-third of that sum being deployed this year.
One trend Wrigley said she's starting to see is more companies coming out of what she calls the "famtech" space — with tech designed to support families.
"When we founded TechRise in April 2021, our goal was to help founders raise $50 million in follow-on funding by 2025. This year we hit $93 million in follow-on funding," Wrigley said during the pitch-competition finale.
