Seven teams of student entrepreneurs were named finalists last week in the eighth annual Stumberg Venture Competition Seed Round hosted by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Trinity University.
At the competition, ten teams of students pitched business ideas which were narrowed down to seven finalists, who will go on to compete in the fall for the 2022 Stumberg Prize, said Luis Martinez, director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Each team advancing to finals won $5,000 in seed funding for their venture, as well as admission into the Trinity Accelerator program this summer and other prizes totaling $20,000. The summer program will include housing and stipends for three student founders on each team to work on their business model full-time, Martinez said.
The team that wins the Stumberg Prize later this year will be awarded an additional $25,000 to support the launch of its business model.
The seven ideas that advanced were Skelton Beat Band, a wearable metronome band for musicians that uses vibration signals; Pacific Debate Institute, which provides remote debate camps for middle and high schoolers; Range Regenerator, a physical therapy device to help patients recover at home from shoulder injuries; Baby to Go, a stroller that converts to a backpack; FARO, a project-based curriculum for elementary schoolers on global subjects; Safelet, a customizable location-tracking bracelet for children; and Recap, a personal finance app.
During last week's event a new partnership was announced between Trinity and startup accelerator and coworking space Geekdom. Each of the seven finalists — as well as the four teams that did not advance — will receive year-long memberships to Geekdom.
The partnership was made in part to support Geekdom's new pledge to launch 500 new San Antonio-area startups in the next 10 years, Martinez said — and Trinity University hopes to provide at least 50 of those startups through its student programming for entrepreneurs.
Trinity University has invested $375,000 in student ventures through the Stumberg Venture Competition since its inception, and they have returned over $6 million in outside investments. This year, the judges found all ten teams in the seed round so compelling that they opted to award $1,000 each even to the teams that did not advance to the final competition, Martinez said.
Martinez said the Stumberg Venture Competition is unique in that proposals for ventures in any industry are accepted, from students in any major, in any phase of their college career. This year, three of the finalist teams — Pacific Debate Institute, Baby to Go and Safelet — were composed entirely of freshmen.
