Georgetown Entrepreneurship dishes out $100K at second annual pitch competition

Georgetown Entrepreneurship hosted its second annual Leonsis Family Entrepreneurship Prize “Bark Tank” pitch competition on Nov. 28, where eight university students and alumni pitched their business ventures for a chance to win a share of the $100, 000 in cash prize.

The competition was judged by Kristen Gunther, vice president of  Revolution Growth, Arun Gupta, venture partner with  Columbia Capital, Richard Kay, chairman of Sentrillion Corporation, Michelle Freeman, an alumni and owner and CEO, Carl M. Freeman Companies, Ted Leonsis, founder, chairman, and CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, Zach Leonsis, vice president and general manager of Monumental Sports & Entertainment and Steve Murray, managing partner of Revolution Growth.

Current undergraduate and graduate students and alumni within six months of graduation were eligible to compete in the competition. The eight finalists who presented are:

• Ramya Possett for BlueFoot.
• Juliette Silvain and Yechan Choi for CAVALL.
• Zach Oschin for Elenas.
• Dennis F. Craig II, Royal Farley and Justin Mott for Farley Craig Capital LLC.
• Sahaj Sharda for Happy Price.
• Margarita Womack for M’Panadas.
• Shavini Fernando for O2Wear.
• Hannah Williams for Truckr.

You can find out more about the startups here. The final pitch event took place at Lohrfink Auditorium on the Georgetown campus and the livestream was sponsored by Leonsis’ company, Monumental Sports & Entertainment via its website.

Fernando took home the grand prize and people’s choice for O2Wear, an ear-wearable vital monitoring and emergency alert device that warns people when their vitals are out of normal range and contacts 911 to receive help. Fernando won a total of $35,000.

Leonsis Family Entrepreneurship Prize Winner of $30,000 and People's Choice Winner of $5,000 is Shavini Fernando (G'18) with O2Wear! #BarkTank @Georgetown @GeorgetownEship pic.twitter.com/CplW4JiyeR

— Georgetown McDonough (@msbgu) November 28, 2018

Georgetown reported other prize winners, via Twitter:

• BlueFoot took first runner-up and won $20,000.
• Elanas earned second runner-up and won $15, 000
• M’Panadas was third runner-up and won $10,000.
• Farley Craig Capital LLC, CAVALL, Happy Price and Truckr each took home $5,000.