Aperiomics takes home $20,000 grand prize at 2018 Vinetta Project final

Four female founders presented at the final Vinetta Project pitch challenge in D.C. on Wednesday evening at Booz Allen Hamilton, where the #dctech community gathered to see who took home the $20,000 grand prize.

Before the pitch competition kicked off, Vinetta Project CEO Vanessa Dawson shared some kind words, followed by a panel moderated by Lyft Marketing Manager Kate Glanz and joined by the night’s judges — George Farha of GSP Financial, Julie McPherson of Booz Allen Hamilton, Maggie Dorn of Motley Fool and Alex McManus of Eyrus.

Then the main event kicked off with pitches from:

• Danya Sherman of Knonap
• Crystal Icenhour of Aperiomics
• Ronit Avni of Localized
• Dipanwita Das of Socero

Each founder had three minutes to pitch followed by a Q&A with the judges and one minute of advice from the judges.

Aperiomics CEO Crystal Icenhour came out on top and took home the $20,000 grand prize.

Congratulations to Crystal Icenhour, founder of Aperiomics, the 2018 winner of Vinetta's $20k Venture Challenge! pic.twitter.com/diOhCsfMQc

— Aperiomics (@Aperiomics) September 27, 2018

Aperiomics is a pathogen-testing company that uses genomic analysis to detect every known pathogen from a sample of any nature in one test. Aperiomics has done testing for patients in 18 countries to date.

“I feel great,” Icenhour told Technical.ly DC. “This is a great way to get visibility for our company to help people understand that this is possible.”

Aperiomics wasn’t the only victor of the night, Booz Allen Hamilton presented a $5,000 bonus to Knonap CEO Danya Sherman for what it calls “the young social innovators award.”