There has been a lot of recent startup activity with Rice University pitch competitions, including the annual Rice Business Plan Competition.
Early-stage companies pitching in the 2022 Rice Business Plan Competition, which took place from April 7-9, were awarded more than $2 million in investment and cash prizes.
Later this month, startups will pitch for even more funding opportunities in the H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge and the 2022 Veterans Business Battle.
2022 Rice Business Plan Competition
The 2022 RBPC featured several levels of cash and investment prizes for participating startups. Here are some of the largest prizes doled out last weekend:
- 1st place overall ($350,000 investment from GOOSE Capital) — Lidrotec, RWTH Aachen University
- 2nd place overall ($100,000 investment from Rice University) — Hoth Intelligence, University of Pittsburgh
- 3rd place overall ($50,000 investment from Rice University) — Invitris, Technical University of Munich
- 4th place overall ($5,000 prize) — LymphaSense, Johns Hopkins
- 5th place overall ($5,000 prize) — INIA Biosciences, Boston University
- 6th place overall ($5,000 prize) — Bold Move Beverages, The University of Texas at Austin
- 7th place overall ($5,000 prize) — Anise Health, Harvard University
- TMC Innovation Healthcare Investment Prize ($250,000) — LymphaSense
- OWL Investment Prize ($155,000) — Hoth Intelligence
- Houston Angel Network (HAN) Investment Prize ($100,000) — Hoth Intelligence
- TiE Houston Angels Investment Prize ($100,000) — Lidrotec
- Softeq Venture Studio Prize ($50,000 cash, $75,000 in-kind) — Lidrotec
- Softeq Venture Studio Prize ($50,000 cash, $75,000 in-kind) — Mallard Bay Outdoors, Louisiana State University
The 2022 H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge (NRLC)
NRLC is Rice University's venture competition for undergraduate and graduate students, MBA students and alumni to pitch their business ventures. The competition features a chance to win up to $75,000 in equity-free financing.
Six student ventures are moving on to pitch at the NRLC Championships on April 20:
- AutoEdge
- Berman Foods
- EpiFresh
- GradGenius
- Guildata
- Helix Earth Technologies
2022 Veterans Business Battle
Sixteen businesses owned by veterans will also pitch for investment money and prizes in the 2022 Veterans Business Battle on April 22. Judges will select four finalists, who will have a chance to win prizes totaling $30,000 as well as other financing opportunities at the final competition on April 23. Rice's Veterans Business Battle has awarded startup funding to veteran-owned businesses since launching in 2015.
- 4Sight Environmental Inc. (Abilene, Texas)
- AccelEQ Inc. (Tampa, Florida)
- Bon AppéSweet (Chantilly, Virginia)
- Canopy Aerospace (Chicago)
- DenScore Inc. (Des Moines, Iowa)
- Enrichly (Houston)
- Libre Technologies (Minneapolis)
- Martini Mates (Conroe)
- Multitude Insights (Watertown)
- Opera Bioscience (Chicago)
- SecureFoundry (Fort Worth)
- Skywire Design (Richardson, Texas)
- Uro-Research (Houston)
- Sybor Tech (McKinney, Texas)
- VRB (Austin)
- Wrexx (Austin)
