Ohio Wesleyan distributes $450,000 to six start-ups
They competed in two tracks - professional and student - as part of the inaugural U.S. Entrepreneurship Competition.
The U.S. Entrepreneurship Competition at Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) was billed as the State of Ohio’s largest and most lucrative business plan contest ever.
When the dust settled, two teams – one in the professional track and the other in the student track – walked away with $100,000 each. Second and third place winners in the two tracks took home $75,000 and $50,000 each.
- WaterWise Technologies, represented at the event by Kendall Byrd, earned first place in the professional track. The Columbus, OH, start-up is developing an aquatic drone, or unmanned surface vehicle (USV), to target pathogens, algae, and toxins in freshwater ecosystems without using potentially harmful chemicals. It seeks to integrate real-time water monitoring, contamination prevention, and treatment into a single device.
- SearchOwl, represented by Jadon Wyant, Dale Berkove, Cullen Combi, and Ryan Kaiser, earned first place in the college student category. Founded by five Case Western Reserve University students, SearchOwl seeks to improve the online shopping experience with an ad-free algorithm that learns user preferences over time and suggests appropriate products to explore. Currently, the students are using skincare products to help them build “a better shopping paradigm.”
Before announcing the results, Matt vandenBerg, OWU President, told the crowd that all six teams will receive access to the Delaware Entrepreneurial Center at Ohio Wesleyan University, “the very first liberal arts business accelerator in the United States” and “the nation’s very first collaboration of its kind – between a city, a county, and its university.”
He added, “Most universities who are involved in entrepreneurship, they focus their efforts on later-stage development when companies are scaling or seeking big-time investment. And while we do that, too, at Ohio Wesleyan and through the DEC OWU, we’re reimagining that entire process by focusing on the very beginning. We are working to become Founder U – the preeminent university for supporting founders and for launching start-ups.
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