News Headlines

TissueForm seeks to improve quality-of-life outcomes at lower costs for patients suffering from tissue disease, damage, or aging through stem cell and matrix-based therapies. The company—founded by Jeanne Barthold, PhD, and CU Boulder Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Corey Neu—is no stranger to the pitch competition circuit. TissueForm won $125,000 in Venture Partners' 2018 Lab Venture Challenge and took home multiple awards and more than $20,000 in CU Boulder's New Venture Challenge 11.

Want to turn your passion turn into a business? Learn how from Michaela Shepherd (MBA'21), the CEO and founder of W.P. Equestrian, a premier equine-facilitated, evidence-based leadership development program that focuses on inclusivity and authenticity.

Kailey Shara, ATLAS PhD student and a member of the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab, won two top prizes within several days in support of her company, Chembotix, taking home a total of $11,000 in prizes. On March 18, Shara’s team won $5,000 during the New Venture Challenge 14 Female Founder Prize. Then on March 22, Shara’s team won another $6,000, the top prize in CU Boulder’s New Venture Launch class.

As Marlo Vernon’s grandmother got older, her family began wondering how best they could keep an eye on her. As Vernon was completing her senior year at CU Boulder, she began to dive deeper into this idea. By monitoring water usage, she had come across a non-intrusive way for people to keep tabs on older adults. After graduating last spring, Vernon took the project full-time and launched CarePenguin.

Max Young is a junior studying computer science and a solopreneur who has a passion for startups and building awesome products. His passion led him to compete in CU Boulder's New Venture Challenge (NVC) in 2019 with his business idea for PartyFavor (now known as Hooot), a smartphone app that is aimed at empowering individuals with the gift of safety.

After competing in New Venture Challenge her freshman year at CU Boulder, computer science major Andrea Chamorro is back competing as a senior with a new business concept: trAIn. The company hopes to change the way employee training is done in industry.

Meet Juan Esteban Duque, a CU Boulder Alumnus and founder of Tupró, a platform that provides a business portal to services and professionals in Colombia. Juan grew up in Colombia and lived in China before coming to the University of Colorado at Boulder to pursue a degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Strategy and Entrepreneurship.

Matei Fawzy (Bus'23) is a co-founder of ASANTe, an innovative social media platform that empowers and recognizes users who engage in service and socially conscious enterprise by sending TCards (thank you cards) to one another. Launched during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Matei and his team have made immense progress in just under a year by taking advantage of CU Boulder's innovative and entrepreneurial resources.

Founded in August 2020, CareBridge is a digital mental health platform geared toward alleviating the stress that comes with mental illnesses and connecting individuals with care that is catered to their needs.

Meet Marlo Vernon, CU Leeds School of Business alumna and CEO of CarePenguin, a company bringing non-invasive activity-monitoring technology to market. Marlo studied Marketing and got her Entrepreneurship Certificate through the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship.