2024 Startup Challenge Semifinalists

We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2024 Startup Challenge.

The Venture Lab Startup Challenge attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community to compete for a chance to win more than $150K in cash and prizes. The 2024 Startup Challenge Semifinalists consist of students from The Wharton School (W, WG), The College of Arts and Sciences (SAS), The School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), Penn Carey Law (L), and the School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2).

*The semifinal took take place virtually on March 15th in a closed-door setting.

2024 Startup Challenge Semifinalists

Airalux

Airalux is a digital breathing tool that prevents lung complications after major surgeries by encouraging patients to complete breathing exercises and providing data/streamlining workflows for providers.

Josh Freedman, SEAS'24; Parth Mody, SEAS'23; Yi-An Hsieh, SEAS'24, SEAS'23; Bella Mirro, SEAS'23; Jack Dooley, SEAS'23

(VIP-X, VentureWell E-Team)

Amoureux Beauty

Amoureux Beauty is redefining sensitive skincare with solutions that both address and prevent disruption from internal and external skin stressors.

Jeanine Mojum, WG'24

(VIP-X)

BrainFood

Brainfood is a mental wellness brand debuting a tasty sparkling water with psychiatry-backed nutrients to support focus, stress resilience, and brain health.

Megan Burton, WG'24, SAS; Juhi Gupta

(VIP-X)

Cabrium AI

Modernizing decision documentation for designers.

Sonia Tam, SAS'25; Lakshman Swaminathan, SEAS'26; Arnav Chopra, SEAS'25, W'25

Certitude

Certitude works with people and data to make the college experience adequate for everyone.

Maxence de Lanversin, W'26

(Initiator VC)

Coached

Coached provides a platform for athletes to upload videos of themselves training or competing, and receive personalized feedback and coaching tips from their sports heroes.

Kori Carter, WG'24; Ron Joseph, WG'24

Expert Easy

Democratizing expert networks with a platform that enables SMEs to interview experts faster and cheaper through the use of a conversational AI

Naman Jain, WG’25'

Flipkit

Omnichannel sales automation for secondhand apparel businesses

Haley Kang, SEAS'24; Agustin Garcinuno, W'23; Tavi Kim, SEAS'23

Ice&Cream (Soft Freezing)

Ice&Cream is innovating the residential food storage industry by developing a modular fridge that optimizes food preservation, improves energy efficiency, offers customizable capacity, and, by capitalizing on the shipping advantages of modular fridges, uses an e-commerce business model to streamline the supply chain, reduce cost inefficiencies, and enhance the consumer experience.

Jose Saiz, SEAS'25, WG'25

Ise AI, Inc.

Ise AI builds a Gen AI intern that helps brands and retailers grow profit margin -- creating value across merchandising, marketing, trend discovery, forecasting and reporting.

Michelle Yan, WG'25; Vanessa Yan

Jalan Journey Global

Jalan Journey develops digital game-based learning worlds themed around social causes that cultivate empathy.

Harrison Chong, SEAS'27; Harsha Ravindran, SAS'26

Jochi

Jochi is an integrated management platform that enables secondary schools to effectively identify and support neurodiverse learners, ensuring no student is left behind.

Yash Dhir, SEAS'24; Rahul Nambiar, SEAS'24

(VIP-X, Pennovation Summer Accelerator)

LilyLoop

LilyLoop uses biodegradable moisture sensors in a line of “smart” period products that alerts users when to change tampons and captures menstrual flow data for diagnostic purposes.

Kylie Chang, SEAS'27, W'27; Neha Chelamkuri, SAS'27, W'27; Rima Chavali, SAS'27, W'27

(Y Prize Winner)

Loop

We are a women-led bra sizing company using computer vision and machine learning to provide perfect bra recommendations across brands.

Chai Vankireddy, SAS'24; Jack Zhang, SAS'24; Connie Xu; Jasmine Liao

Lylac

Lylac is a membership-based boutique therapy and functional medicine office that addresses the mind and body together so that you can heal your root cause issues and live your most authentic, vibrant, life.

Nico Goldberg, L'25, WG'25; Lyla Connolly

(VIP-INC)

MediMint

MediMint is a digital healthcare platform for patients and providers that modernizes the traditional process of medical image sharing, currently dependent on physical CDs, by leveraging blockchain technology to offer transparency, security, and efficiency, ushering in a new era of patient-centric healthcare.

Avanthika Ramesh, WG'25; Abhisri Ramesh

(VIP-X)

MineMe

MineMe is reimagining a data brokerage marketplace where consumers finally get the control and compensation they deserve for their data, while offering companies access to the best data to enable the best outcomes.

Archana Somasegar, WG'24; Heling Zhao, WG'24

(VIP-X, Galvanizer)

Munch Industries

Intelligent and modular specialty food automation.

Nastassja Kuznetsova, SEAS'24; Adam Bhaloo, SEAS'27, W'27

(VIP-X)

Nirby

Nirby is a real-time soil analytics and farmland management tool for large agricultural enterprises, leveraging satellite data and proprietary drone system to deliver actionable insights within minutes.

Piotr Lazarek, SEAS'25 W'25;

(VIP-X)

Odyssey Notebooks LLC

Odyssey Notebooks creates premium and sustainably-crafted notebooks with proprietary paper for fountain pen users, artists, and bullet journal enthusiasts.

Rainbow Yeung, WG'24

(VIP-C, VIP-X, Galvanizer)

Oncore

AI-Enabled Care Delivery Platform for Oncology

Abhinav Kurada, WG'25; Sruthi Kurada, SEAS'26, W'26

(VIP-INC)

Pairfect

Pairfect is a modern-day matchmaking service that introduces single people to other singles in a more authentic way through a combination of technology and matchmakers who screen each user and suggest matches.

Annie Xu, SP2'24, WG'24

(VIP-X)

Philanthropia (MIP)

Philanthropia is a fintech philanthropy platform that revolutionizes charitable giving by allowing individuals and brands to create impact portfolios, track their lifetime impact, and earn rewards for doing good.

Rohan Shah, WG'25

Probook

Probook automates operations for home service businesses (HVAC, Plumbing, etc.) using AI to drive profit starting with scheduling and dispatch.

George Eliadis, SEAS'24; Toby Hirsch, SEAS'24, W'24

(VIP-X)

Revise Robotics

Pioneering a more circular electronics industry through intelligent robotics.

Rupesh Jeyaram, WG' 24; Kara Corley, Antonio Monreal

Robin

Robin is an end-to-end healthcare fraud detection tool that streamlines the process of labeling and analyzing claims as well as boosts fraud classification accuracy by over 25%, all of which aims to help solve the $100B healthcare fraud crisis within the US.

Kevin Lu, SEAS'26; Kyle Zhang, SEAS'26, W'26; Sunny Wang, SEAS'26, W'26; Bach Tran, SEAS'26

SphereUs Inc

SphereUs is a B2B platform helping brands launch and manage successful brand ambassador campaigns end-to-end.

Ace Kim, W'26; Alima Aset, W'26; Ricky Raup, SEAS'25

(Sigma Eta Pi Founder's Education Accelerator)

Veggie Vice

Veggie Vice is the clean vegetable chip designed for health-conscious snackers. Simply made with a sliced, freeze-dried, veggie and powerful flavors, it delivers an irresistible crunch and robust flavors for nutritious guilt-free indulgence on the go.

Riddhima Kapoor, WG'24

(VIP-X)

Walnut Research

Walnut Research is an AI evaluation company for LLM developers that standardizes and streamlines the evaluation process from foundational to multi-step models.

Alex Kim, W'26; Bruce Lee, SEAS'26; Aiden Lee, SAS'26

Whelm

Whelm, designed for women navigating menopause, is an affordable and accessible at-home urine analysis device that decodes hormone patterns, offering personalized insights and curated nutrition-focused actionables for increased autonomy and empowerment.

Quanyi Wang, SEAS'24; Jessica Lin, SEAS'24, Sanchi Jain, SEAS'24; Jacqueline Aquino, SEAS'24

XFood

Xfood allows you to generate qualitative data about food quality autonomously.

Anas Alfarra, WG'25; Zifu Wang, WG'25

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