Press Releases Chicago Booth’s New Venture Challenge winners share $1 million in total prizes

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and its Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation recently concluded the annual Edward L. Kaplan, '71, New Venture Challenge (NVC), the school's premier start-up program, where ten teams competed in the final round of competition.

Top teams at the 2016 NVC shared $1 million in total prize packages, doubling last year’s awards.

The top five winning teams are:

• TransparentC, a web platform that captures detailed salary, compensation and satisfaction data to help workers find better jobs via data analysis, took first place and was awarded $90,000;
• Coronado Conservation, which is designing a high-efficiency toilet that uses air suction rather than water to flush, won second place and $70,000;
• Riviter, fashion technology that allows people use photos to search for specific items on retail sites, won third place and $45,000;
• CostByte, software that streamlines restaurant operations, and Flag Analytics, a predictive analytics platform designed to prevent negative police interactions, tied for fourth place, winning $20,000 each.

The NVC alumni talked about their successes, their failures, and the most valuable lessons they learned at Booth with Inc. magazine. Read the highlights.

Launched in 1996, Chicago Booth's NVC was designed to help students create and launch new businesses. In 2015, the NVC was named the No. 1 university accelerator program in the nation; it is designed to help student teams turn ideas into sustainable businesses, and is the culmination of formal academic preparation and mentorship at Booth.

Celebrating its 20th year, the NVC has helped launch some 140 startups that have raised more than $400 million in total funding and generated $3.7 billion in mergers and exits.

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Marielle Sainvilus
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Phone: 773.531.2894

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