Six teams recently graduated from the Rady School of Management’s StartR cohort and presented their company pitches to students, staff, faculty and potential investors at the biannual StartR Demo Day event.
Housed in the Rady School of Management, StartR is a non-profit accelerator program for Rady School of Management students and alumni designed to provide entrepreneurs the tools needed to start and grow their businesses. Recently, the Rady School partnered with the Jacobs School of Engineering to form the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur – a program designed to help students gain business acumen, build new ventures, and improve career preparedness. This StartR class was the first graduating cohort to feature students from the Jacobs School of Engineering.
“Since Fall 2013, 51 teams have graduated from StartR,” said Dean Sullivan. “Of those 51 teams, 30 are still operational, meaning 60 percent of these startups have been sustained – that’s a remarkable number.”
The success of StartR teams was reinforced when current student and recent StartR graduate Josh Shaffer (MBA ’18) stopped by to discuss the success of his company, Glöbier. He spoke about how the business is growing and expanding to clubs and venues across San Diego, as well as Las Vegas.
In addition to the sustainability of StartR companies, Dean Sullivan mentioned how the companies are not only alive, but continue to thrive.
“StartR teams have raised about $41 million in capital,” he said. “Currently, 11 teams are housed in the prestigious EvoNexus accelerator.”
StartR Graduating Teams
BarStar maximizes weight training by preventing injuries and plateaus for athletes by applying a precision medicine approach to weightlifting that increases both gym profitability and member health. Rady entrepreneurship minor Austin Fennacy developed a system that allows barbells to capture user data.
FASTech aims to make video streaming and storage faster, easier and more cost effective using intelligent, content-adaptive video compression.
Greyble is reducing water footprints on residential properties with an appliance that recycles indoor wastewater for outdoor irrigation. According to the company, their system has enabled the average user to decrease water consumption by 55 percent each month.
USYNO is building an online platform to facilitate cost-free exchange between US Dollar and Chinese Yuan. Current methods are costly and take time to send and receive money, but USYNO enables currency to be exchanged quickly, cheaply and safely.
Veocor Diagnostics uses non-invasive ultrasound imaging diagnostic tool that identifies and quantifies blood flow in the heart to direct anticoagulant prescription.
Weighty Corn LLC provides technologies for removing fiber from corn using sieving and air classification. This process increases the production of ethanol and produces higher quality feed for chickens and hogs.
StartR Awards
After the pitch presentations, Lada Rasochova presented the Spark Award to StartR longtime sponsor Sheppard Mullin for the company’s dedication and contributions to the StartR program, including the incorporation of many of the teams.
Longtime mentor Darrel Drinan was presented with the Guru Award in recognition of his dedication to mentoring teams in each StartR cohort.
“The contributions of Michael Umansky of Sheppard Mullin and Darrel Drinan, as well as all of our program sponsors and mentors, are vital to the success of our teams,” Rasochova said. “We could not do this without them.”