28 Student Teams Selected as Annual Pitch Competition Semi-Finalists
From over 130 nominations, 28 student teams from 24 schools have been selected as semi-finalists in the 2022 Blackstone LaunchPad Pitch Competition. They will compete to be one of five finalists pitching for a chance to win a total of over $50,000 in prize money and in-kind prizes.
Nominated by Campus Directors from across the network, these students represent the top candidates based on four criteria: Innovation, Business Model and Viability, Team, and Pitch Quality.
Over the next several weeks, the semi-finalists teams will pitch live to Blackstone LaunchPad judges, who will select the finalists. After receiving ongoing mentoring support from Blackstone Ambassadors, the finalists will pitch live on April 12, on the main stage of the Startup Grind Global Conference in Silicon Valley. The competition will also include a virtual People’s Choice Award, with online voting starting soon, so stay tuned!
With nearly half of the students led by a woman founder and nearly three-quarters led by a student who identifies as BIPOC, the cohort of semifinalists is one of the most diverse groups to participate in a LaunchPad signature program. They demonstrate diversity of industry focus as well, with companies running the gamut from Zuk Fitness, which provides specialized workouts tailored to wheelchair users, to Culturally Kreative, a publishing company aiming to diversify the children’s book industry. More than five of the student founders previously participated in the Blackstone LaunchPad Fellowship, a program geared towards helping earlier stage founders.
Last year’s first place winner was Marla Beyer, founder of pediatric mental-healthcare platform Hopscotch. Read about the other 2021 winners here.
Meet the 2022 LaunchPad Pitch Competition Semifinalists:
| T4 Movement | UT San Antonio |
| Algeon Materials | UC San Diego |
| AllergFree | UT Southwestern |
| Bonsai | UT Dallas |
| Clocr | UT Austin |
| CoStudy | New York University |
| Culturally Kreative | Spelman College |
| EthosSphere | Cornell University |
| EV Motorworks | University at Albany |
| FutrDoc | UT Rio Grande Valley |
| Highlights DR | UT Permian Basin |
| Illumenar | Syracuse University |
| KovaDx | UC Berkeley |
| Middlemen | UC San Diego |
| Mindset & Milestones | UC Los Angeles |
| Nailerz | CUNY City College |
| Nex Generation Quantum | CUNY Baruch |
| Nile Hair | University of Southern California |
| NuLife Kicks | College of Southern Nevada |
| OYA | UC Los Angeles |
| REVCORP PC | UT El Paso |
| Sentrify | University at Bufffalo |
| Spikepen | UC Irvine |
| SPORA | UC Santa Cruz |
| StaffOnTap | Cornell University |
| The Giddy Thrifter | University of Montana |
| The Next Step | CUNY Brooklyn College |
| Zuk Fitness | University of Southern California |