Engineering Students Celebrate Major Wins in 2022 New Venture Competition

The forMED Technologies team, comprised of biomedical engineering students, won first place in the Life Sciences category at the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition.

June 29, 2022 – UCI’s Merage School of Business Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship hosted its “Shark Tank”-style grand finale of the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition on June 3. A total of $100,000 was distributed to winning teams across five different categories; engineering students were members of five different winning teams. The panel of four esteemed Orange County investors and entrepreneur ecosystem influencers contributed insights and thoughtful questions to the teams.

Here are the winning teams that included Anteater Engineers among their members:

Noveil earned the grand prize of $20,000, along with first place in the Consumer Services category. Noveil is the first dating platform for Gen Z college students with no profiles and no swipes, and it increases the number of matches and in-person dates a user receives.

forMED Technologies took home first place ($10,000) in the Life Sciences category. forMED offers patients and doctors an at-home, noncontact intraocular pressure monitoring system that measures eye pressure daily to ensure medication effectiveness and prevent blindness.

Sayenza Biosciences won second place in the Life Sciences category ($5,000). Sayenza Biosciences is a medical device company developing the industry’s first fully automated platform for processing liposuction fat, the largest source of adult stem cells in the body, for point-of-care aesthetic and regenerative medicine applications.

GaleGauge was awarded second place in the Consumer Products category ($5,000). GaleGauge is a golf training tool that uses live wind, temperature and distance data to calculate how players need to adjust their swings to the elements for sinking the perfect shot.

SnapHealth placed second in the Consumer Services category ($5,000). SnapHealth’s mission is to improve the healthcare experience for patients by empowering them to take control over their health record data with a simple mobile application.

The Stella Zhang New Venture Competition is open to all UCI students, staff members and researchers as well as community members interested in the opportunity to form a team, launch a startup and potentially fund a business idea.

­– Rachel Karas