Biotech, high chairs and dirty laundry dominate DC Startup and Tech Week’s pitch competition

Another DC Startup and Tech Week wrapped with regional startups taking home money and the attention of innovation ecosystem members across the region. 

Twelve DMV startups came together during Friday’s annual pitch competition, the traditional closing program for the weeklong conference. Companies were split up into early- and growth-stage categories, with two startups out of universities competing in their own group. Three firms walked away with cash prizes. 

In the university track, the fertility preservation platform Oncovana won $500. Veza Innovations, which develops consumer products related to parent and child wellness, nabbed $1,000 in the early-stage category. The Laundry Basket, a laundry subscription service, took home the growth-stage category’s $2,500 prize. 

The founders pitched to a panel of judges including Greg Vetter, the CEO of Alta Fresh Foods and Homegrown Brands; Brandon Andrews, the cofounder and chief product officer of the startup Gauge; and Keisha Mims, chief of staff at DC’s Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection (which also sponsored the competition). Sports broadcaster Haiya Kofler hosted the competition, keeping founders and judges to tight windows for their presentations and Q&As.

These winners follow previous victors like GoPursue, whose CEO Kathryn Adabonyan spoke before the founders’ pitches. Since winning last year, Adabonyan said, the startup has doubled its revenue and customer base. GoPursue is also in the middle of signing a term sheet for a pre-seed investment — a benchmark shared by a few of the growth-stage competitors. 

Veza Innovations’ founder Karen Goodman Maschi said she’s putting the $1,000 toward patenting its convertible high chair and contining product development. She’s aiming to launch the product by the third quarter of 2025, as well as working with angel funding and trying to bring on more investors.

She joked that she “overprepares” for things, so she felt very confident when pitching her business on stage.

“It feels rewarding,” she told Technical.ly following the competition, “because I really do work hard.”

Oncovana, which was developed out of George Washington University, created a digital platform for people with cancer to manage and coordinate fertility care. While it raises a pre-seed of between $250,000 and $500,000, cofounder and pitch presenter Ornsiree Junchaya said the company may use the $500 for a campaign to raise awareness about oncofertility, the medical subfield addressing reproductive health for cancer survivors.

“October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and oncofertility is a problem that’s not talked about enough,” said Junchaya. “So we’d love to educate both patients and healthcare providers on how we can really bridge this gap and create better care for cancer patients.”

The Laundry Basket founder Hyacinth Tucker, who expanded the company’s services beyond the DMV to Toronto and Cleveland, said the company charges $30 to clean as much laundry as can fit in one of its signature laundry bags. She’ll use the $2,500 prize to help the startup get a digital system for better bag inventory. 

“Right now, we’re manually tagging our bags, and you can imagine how much time that takes and all that stuff,” she said. “So what we’re really looking for is an electronic scanning system that will definitely just decrease our cost and the time it takes [to tag].”

Tucker, who’s now raising a $100,000 round, got the loudest and most enthusiastic response from the audience that packed the Eaton DC’s ballroom to see who won the pitch competition. 

These other regional startups and founders pitched as finalists in the different tracks: 

University-stage: 

• Sea My Culture, Xinyi Zhang, cofounder: Drawing from Zhang’s doctoral psychology research at the University of Maryland, College Park, it’s a board game to help kids better understand different cultures in an aim to prevent bullying.

Early-stage

• DSR (Detach. Sustain. Reverse), Destiny Wesley, founder: The e-commerce platform offers modular, tailored athleisure apparel using sustainable textiles and processes. 
• HR Geckos, Jay Polaki, founder and CEO: The Maryland company produces an AI-powered human resources help desk and dashboard with 24/7 support
• Uplift Geosystems, Daniel Nothaft, CEO: Based on work done at bwtech@UMBC, Uplift develops chemical recycling that makes it more affordable and carbon-friendly to produce the metals used in EV batteries.
• Kleenup, Asrorjon Shukurov, cofounder and CEO: The Baltimore-area gig-work platform offers on-demand cleaning services, like a Taskrabbit for housekeeping.

Growth-stage:

• Biodesign Innovation Labs, Gautham Pasupuleti, CEO: The company specializes in medical devices, including a low-cost, portable ventilator called RespirAID. 
• Vannadium, Rick Gilchirst, founder and CEO: This cybersecurity company offers secure data processing and transmission using blockchain and DLT (distributed ledger technology). 
• EqualityMD, Justin Ayars, founder and CEO: To address systemic care disparities and discrimination, the mobile telehealth company connets LGBTQ+ people with inclusive doctors and practices. 
• Bistro Flow, Glen Baginski, cofounder: The company developed a machine that automates drink-making for restaurants and coffee shops.