ROCHESTER, MINN. — A cryopreservation company and an early cancer-detection startup were among the top winners at this season’s Walleye Tank, a Minnesota life and medical science pitch competition presented by the Mayo Clinic Office of Entrepreneurship.
The 14th-ever Walleye Tank was held last week during a conference at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester. Held twice per year, the pitch competition saw 11 companies with four ending up winning cash prizes across three divisions.
Founded in 2016 by Jamie Sundsbak, who's now partner relationship manager for Mayo Clinic Platform’s accelerator program, and Stephen Ekker, director for the Mayo Clinic Office of Entrepreneurship, the Walleye Tank competition is intended to provide early-stage and established companies with exposure to investors, mentors, job seekers and more.
This season's pitch competition took place at the end of the first-ever Health FWD conference, hosted by the Mayo Clinic Office of Entrepreneurship and Mayo Clinic Platform, the health system's initiative to innovate health care. The event included presentations from the Mayo Clinic, panel discussions with entrepreneurs and networking opportunities.
Recounting how Walleye Tank got started, Sundsbak said at the event that the founders had "seen a lot of these pitch competitions and we said, 'Why don't we have one here in Minnesota?' We are the cradle of new medical (devices) and so many other things happening in the community around our ecosystem here in Minnesota."
Winners in each of the pitch competition's divisions received a Walleye Tank trophy and a cash prize from the Office of Entrepreneurship and the University of Minnesota Medical School.
The company that took home the top prize, with $10,000 in the professional division, was Evia Bio, a Minneapolis-based cryopreservation company that looks to improve cell recovery and functionality while avoiding the use of a toxic liquid called dimethyl sulfoxide during certain therapies. The company is a spin-out of the University of Minnesota, founded by Professor Allison Hubel, CEO Christiaan Engstrom said at the event.
“I’m so proud of what we’re doing … because it is bringing our founders’ vision to fruition and building better therapeutics,” Engstrom said in an interview.
The winner in the “Mid-Level Reelers” division, honoring incorporated companies at an early stage with a cash prize of $6,000, was Oncodea, a St. Paul-based company that has developed a working early cancer-detection model, led by CEO and Co-founder Dan Que Pham.
Both of the contenders in the “Junior Anglers” division – supporting not yet incorporated business concepts – won a prize, splitting $4,000: The Home Dialysis Squad, which works to provide a preventative wellness treatment for those with a central catheter, and Laxo Device, which aims to use an optimized device for drain maintenance.
Runners up included Insitu Biologics in the professional division and Brainpacer in the mid-level division.
