Emerging Entrepreneurs Gain Experience and Funding – ‘Shark Tank’-Style

Several new businesses received financial support and training during this year’s Stella Zhang New Venture Competition.

Each year, dozens of up-and-coming startups and aspiring entrepreneurs in the UCI community develop and pitch their business ideas in the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition (NVC), which is hosted by the Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Merage School. The NVC offers UCI students, staff members, researchers and community members the opportunity to form a team, get paired with seasoned coaches, launch a startup and potentially fund a business idea, all within seven months. The event provides competitors with the tools they need to bring their business concepts to life. This year’s contest was particularly notable because it received a generous gift from Stella Zhang, who earned her MBA from the Merage School in 2005. After getting her degree, Zhang started the American Lending Center, which helps grow small businesses. “The New Venture Competition is at a crucial stage, and I know that support at this stage will go a long way,” Zhang said. Over the course of seven months, 86 contestants were whittled down to 10 during this year’s competition. The finalists competed in an event similar to an episode of “Shark Tank,” where they pitched products and services to a panel of judges made up of Orange County entrepreneurs and investors. This year’s panel included UCI Beall Applied Innovation’s SBDC Director & Founder of Impact Innovator, Isabelle Bart, Merage School’s Assistant Dean of External Relations and Engagement, Rodrigo Mahs, Sounding Board, Inc.’s

Co-Founder, President and Chief Coaching Officer, Lori Mazan, and Caris Life Sciences’ Vice President of Strategic Partnerships Precision Oncology, Debbie Lin. Through the generosity of donors who believe in NVC’s mission, UCI is able to award more than $100,000 in cash prizes over a five-year period to businesses in several categories, including business products and services, consumer products, consumer services, life sciences, and social enterprise. This year, first place winners were given $10,000 and second place received $5,000. An audience favorite was also chosen and awarded $5,000. These groups were all early stage startups with minority led founders. Noveil claimed the $20,000 grand prize with a proposal to bring a more human element back to online dating with an application featuring a video dating option. Enjovu Paper, a group that embodied the Merage School’s mission of strengthening the intersections of business and technology, was chosen as the runner-up for their proposal to use regenerated fibers from elephant feces to create sustainable paper

products. The company argued that this will lessen the environmental impact of paper production and raise awareness for endangered elephants. Additionally, Sayenza Biosciences, forMED Technologies, Nutripair, EmpowerMi, HAI, GaleGauge, Blue Aqua Food Tech, and SnapHealth all received prizes. The competition is valuable for “The Stella Zhang New Venture many small businesses because Competition connects today’s it provides them with workshops rising business leaders with and funding to further develop their products.the guidance and the tools to transform their ideas into a The founders of forMED Technologies concept that blossoms into a said the competition new business.” helped them refine their business plan and earn more money to put towards the development of their product. UC Irvine alums Aryan Agarwal, Ruben Shakya, and Francis Aguas started the business to provide glaucoma patients with an at-home eye pressure monitoring system to prevent blindness and make sure that patients are receiving the correct amount of medication. The company finished as a semifinalist

Professor Imran Currim encourages contestants to look at business problems in a new way.

to the grand prize and also won first place in the Life Science category. “It allowed us to question everything that we were doing as we’re going through the competition,” said Agarwal, the company’s CEO. “We were able to find any holes that existed in our business and patch them up as we prepared a pitch that we’re going to give to potential investors.”

Aguas, the company’s CTO, said the competition also helped them learn essential skills, like public speaking. “I think one of the most useful things we learned was from a workshop on financial projection,” Aguas said. “We hadn’t crunched those numbers before, so the workshop was very helpful.” The company is currently working on improving its prototype of a device called the TonoLase. This athome, non-invasive tool will be used for measuring intraocular pressure (IOP), which is crucial to determine whether glaucoma medication is working. Currently, IOP is measured with an invasive procedure

This year’s winning NVC teams proudly display their checks which will help support them in each of their entrepreneurial journeys ahead.

in a medical office. Patients are only able to have their IOP measured a few times a year because of the requirements of the procedure. This lack of regularity can result in less effective treatment plans. Agarwal said the portable device will empower patients to take more frequent measurements, which can improve healthcare decisions and outcomes. The TonoLase will also be beneficial to patients because it will utilize optical laser technology, removing the need for making contact with the eye. Standard techniques for checking IOP require some kind of force being applied to the eye. These methods may also require anesthetization. “So with more frequent measurements with our device, patients have the opportunity and advantage for doctors to see how their IOP is changing more frequently,” Agarwal said. “This allows for earlier intervention and medications can be changed accordingly.” The group first came up with the idea about two years ago, after Aguas had mentioned that he encountered the issue while caring for his grandmother as she suffered with glaucoma. The three biomedical engineering graduates then spoke with ophthalmologists and glaucoma patients to see whether their idea had merit. They also reached out to UCI professors and sought guidance from the school’s

Video dating app team, Noveil, stands alongside Dean Ian O. Williamson (center) and displays their grand prize earnings from NVC. Entrepreneur Center. The university has been a constant resource for the co-founders as they’ve developed their business plan. “These rising entrepreneurs come to the New Venture Competition with their initial concept and desire to solve a problem through business. By tapping into the Merage School’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, these students are given a front row seat of looking at a problem rather than the engineering side of the problem,” said Faculty Director of the Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Distinguished Professor of Marketing, Imran Currim. “That encourages them to take on a new way of analyzing how to grow something from an idea.”

forMED Technologies group decided to incorporate in 2021 with the funds it received from winning a first-place prize in the 2021 Annual UCI Beall Product Design Competition. Then they took on the New Venture Competition. Currim has had the pleasure of watching these groups of entrepreneurs evolve through the NVC since its initial inception. “The Stella Zhang New Venture Competition connects today’s rising business leaders with the guidance and the tools to transform their ideas into a concept that blossoms into a new business. Resources such as matching teams with industry mentors help these aspiring entrepreneurs to develop a concept into a viable business.”

“I think the highlight was that we had this general idea of what our business model should really be looking like, but the competition really forced us to grow and refine our business model,” said Shakya, the company’s COO. “Now moving forward after the New Venture Competition, we have a blueprint that we’ve been referencing whenever we talk to investors.”

More information about the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition: