Meet Horn Entrepreneurship’s 2022 Summer Founders

Editor’s note: This story first appeared as a newsletter alongside a roundup of Technical.ly’s best reporting from the week, job openings and more. Subscribe here to get updates on Delaware tech, business and innovation news in your inbox on Thursdays.

What have you achieved over the past decade? Maybe now’s a good time to reflect on your own accomplishments and you consider one of Delaware’s.

If you haven’t read it yet, check out Technical.ly’s recent story on Horn Entrepreneurship, which is celebrating 10 years of its innovative biz-development programming across seven colleges of the University of Delaware.

One of our favorite programs from Horn is Summer Founders, a summer-long startup pre-accelerator that showcases new and developing ideas while connecting student entrepreneurs with alumni, experts and business leaders. Though it continued through the COVID-19 pandemic virtually, this year it returned as an in-person program — including its highlight, Demo Day. During the 2.5-hour event, participants gave presentations about their ideas. This year, Summer Founders alumni also gave presentations on their progress.

Meet the 2022 Summer Founders cohort, with language provided by UD:

• BonaFyde by Nicholai Williamson — An online platform that enables two way communication between an international high schooler and current college student, allowing the international high schooler to better prepare for college and its cultural differences.
• Elena G Beauty by Gabrielle Holliday — All-natural hair care products specialized for the needs and type of hair for different ethnic groups, with educational information on the ingredients and their benefits
• Little Bob Technologies by Garrison Davis — A micro-investing app for local community-based solar projects, with a mission is to make sure that nobody is left behind in the transition to clean energy and that people of all income levels can benefit financially
• Lovv Events by Vlad Krylov — Lovv Events organizes high quality charity parties to make helping ones in need easy and fun; MVP launching in September
• SkipRope by Alexander Pugliese, Chris Liotta, Ethan Linder — “The exclusive FastPass to the nightlife industry”
• Ukraine-Russia Crisis Nonprofit by Greg Tarnavsky — A resource aimed at helping refugees from Ukraine find useful and easy-to-find information in the countries where they seek refuge from the Russian invasion; so far it’s helped three refugees in person and seven virtually
• Wind Therapy by Victoria Tucciarone — Motorcycle gear for women, by women

And the presenting Summer Founders alumni:

•  A.I. Whoo by Matthew Saporano (Delaware RealLIST Startups 2022 honoree) — A movement assessment tech company that provides virtual depictions of athletic movements and analyzes an individual athlete’s movement
• Alchemize by Maya Nazareth — Alchemize is making athletic fight wear that is attractive and fits for women by women for the variety of disciplines in MMA
• Bison Venture Partners by Garry Johnson III — Partners with small businesses and technology startups to improve investment readiness and leverage technology to scale
• Compass 360 by Darian Elmendorf — Helps recovery support providers grow their teams and enhance their revenues through staffing and technology
• Wilminvest by Bryce Fender, Joel Amin, Jr. and Demetrius Thorn — Purchase and renovates houses in Wilmington that are vacant or distressed to then lease the properties

Watch the full 2022 Demo Day event online here.