New Venture Competition
23rd Annual
New Venture Finals
May 19, 2022
3:00 - 6:00 PM
AGENDA
3:00 pm | Introductions
3:10 - 4:10 pm | Team Presentations
4:10 - 4:20 pm | Break
4:20 - 5:00 pm | Team Presentations
5:00 - 5:45 pm | Judges Deliberate &
People’s Choice Award Voting
5:45 pm | Awards & Closing Remarks
Welcome from Dave Adornetto
Director, New Venture Program
Technology Management, UCSB
Congratulations to this year’s Finalist Teams! The 23nd Annual New Venture Finals - the second of two culminating events held as part of our New Venture Competition at UC Santa Barbara — will be conducted in person for the first time since 2019! The event will also be streamed live right here. Go directly to the Event Stage to watch live or on-demand. We’re deeply grateful to this year’s financial and in-kind supporters and team mentors who have continued to support the program and our teams throughout the years.
Finalist Teams
Metabowlite
Accurate, easy-to-understand metrics on metabolic capacity, and effectively communicates how well your body is breaking down and in-turn utilizing nutrients. Initial target market is patients suffering from UTI's in a senior care environment.
refillr
Fully-serviced modular fluid dispensing system with UV sanitization capabilities that makes it fun and easy for consumers, retailers, and brands to participate in the sustainable practice of beauty product refilling and reducing plastic waste.
RapSyn
Rapid bio-manufacturing platform enables protein production facilities to significantly improve their manufacturing yields, reduce production costs, and delay costly infrastructure expansion. RapSyn leverages bacteriophages to innovate new bio-manufacturing pipelines and enable higher productivity.
VizNet
The most accurate online dive report and forecasting service that allows customers to check ocean visibility conditions in their area before they dive, snorkel or swim.
Raveival
Raveival is a two-sided platform that provides a tailored shopping experience for second-hand and music festival apparel.
Event Stage
The New Venture Competition Finals will be held in person as well as streamed live and on-demand through the Event Stage below. Please click the video link below to begin the video stream. NO additional software is required. In order to reset the Event Stage, you must REFRESH your browser. Learn more about our distinguished panel of Judges here.
Event Judges
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Sherman Chu
Sherman is Founder and Managing Partner at Grayhawk Capital, a Scottsdale-based VC firm focused on B2B SaaS solutions. Prior to co-founding Grayhawk in 1999, Sherman was a Partner at Cornerstone Equity Partners. He began his venture capital career with Banc One Capital Partners as Associate and later Assistant Vice President. He earned an MBA from Texas A&M University and a BS in Marketing from the University of Arizona. -
Karen Roter Davis
Karen’s career path has taken her from startup attorney to moonshot deep-tech investing as Director of Early Stage Projects at Google X. She has led multiple initiatives at Google over the past two decades, including overseeing operations for its IPO. In her spare time, Karen works with the Lawrence Livermore National Labs on initiatives to reduce carbon impact, and is an accomplished singer songwriter. Karen earned her JD and MBA from Northwestern University, and AB from Princeton. -
Bei-Jing Guo
Bei-Jing is a Gaucho! She graduated from UCSB with a BS and MS in Electrical Computer Engineering, after which she spent 17 years at Microsoft and 3 years with Amazon Web Services. Her achievements there include running world-class products/services, such as Windows and AWS S3. In her spare time, Bei-Jing founded her own AI start-up and is now an angel investor supporting early startups through a variety of Seattle-based funds. -
Jason Spievak
Jason is the co-founder and General Partner of Entrada Ventures, an early-stage VC firm on the Central Coast. Before founding Entrada, Jason served as the Chief Commercial Officer at Apeel Sciences (NVC Winner 2012), where he’s served on the board since 2012. Before Apeel, Jason was the co-founder and CEO of Santa Barbara-based Invoca, a mobile analytics software company. Jason earned a BA from UCSB, and an MBA from Northwestern. He is a long-time supporter of and instructor in UCSB’s New Venture Program.
Thank You for Your Support!
Premier Sponsors
The California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) is an integrated research facility with locations at UCSB and UCLA. Its mission is to encourage university collaboration with industry and to enable the rapid commercialization of discoveries in nanoscience and nanotechnology. CNSI members represent a multi-disciplinary team of some of the world's preeminent scientists from the life and physical sciences, engineering, and medicine. The work conducted at the CNSI represents world-class expertise in four targeted areas of nanosystems-related research including Energy, Environment, Health-Medicine, and Information Technology. Learn more about CNSI here.
MRL
Widely recognized as one of the top five materials research facilities in the world, the Materials Research Lab serves as the innovation engine for discoveries in new materials. The facility is home to a scientific and engineering community that creates new collective knowledge and fosters the next generation of scientific leaders.
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a leading financial services company that has approximately $1.9 trillion in assets and proudly serves one in three U.S. households and more than 10% of all middle-market companies and small businesses in the U.S. We provide a diversified set of banking, investment, and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through our four reportable operating segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth and Investment Management.
Fenwick
For more than four decades, Fenwick has helped some of the world’s most recognized companies become, and remain, market leaders. From emerging enterprises to large public corporations, our clients are leaders in the technology and life sciences sectors and are fundamentally changing the world through rapid innovation.
