J.P. Robotics secured a $25,000 investment by winning the first place prize at Carnegie Mellon University’s McGinnis Venture Competition.
The company uses robotics and artificial intelligence to map problems within small pipes.
“We hope to detect problems in critical infrastructure before it is too late,” said Tina Tian, J.P. Robotics technical lead.
Tian said this funding will help the startup eventually scale to market.
“We are planning to bootstrap in the first three years and after three years, we will have a plan to scale up our service and product,” Tian said. “At that time, we are planning to get some investor money to help us.”
The $15,000 second place prize for the graduate track was awarded to Galen Health, a company utilizing AI for early detection of pancreatic cancer. The $10,000 third place prize was awarded to Sitewiz, which utilizes AI to optimize e-commerce websites. The graduate track prizes all come in the form of a simple agreement for future equity.
For the undergraduate track, the $4,000 first place prize was awarded to assurif.ai, which utilizes AI to boost efficiency for mortgage underwriters. The $2,500 second place prize was awarded to KnitFit, which creates custom-fit compression garments. These prizes come in the form of a grant. In addition, the undergraduate track winners are awarded a place in the CMU Venture Challenge, which will be held on March 23.
The McGinnis Venture Competition is funded by an endowment from Gerald McGinnis, founder of Respironics and inventor of the CPAP machine. McGinnis passed away earlier this year, and the event was dedicated in his memory.
