Another Successful Showcase for the UCLA Anderson Venture Accelerator
Another Successful Showcase for the UCLA Anderson Venture Accelerator
It was an inspiring night at the UCLA Anderson Venture Accelerator 2019 Spring Showcase. Ten companies incubated in the accelerator or through Anderson’s Business Creation Option capstone program presented their startup ideas to an audience of more than 200, including about 100 venture capitalists and angel investors.
The showcase included two recent UCLA Anderson Knapp Venture Competition winners, skin care firm U-Defi and Elenita, which makes a ready-to-drink mescal cocktail. VoiceLife, which includes a father and son among its team members and makes a product that uses Wi-Fi to charge mobile devices, has already received funding. Several other companies are in discussions with potential investors.
“This year’s companies were further along in their product development, which resulted in some better funding,” says accelerator director Trish Halamandaris (’92). “Much of that success can be attributed to the increased number of Anderson alumni who served as advisors and were instrumental in helping these companies accelerate their growth.”
The showcase was the third for the Anderson Venture Accelerator, which launched in 2016. These are the Spring Showcase teams:
Indarra is a casual restaurant offering premium fast food delivery of delicious Indian cuisine. The mission: to promote better living and happiness through better eating.
Team: Farzad Massoudi (’19), Savitur Badhwar (’19), Vineet Sharma (’19), Robin Schroder (’19), Sal Kiran (’19)
U-Defi is an innovative personalized skin care product designed to prevent aging. Using test results from customers’ skin samples, U-Defi formulates a unique product for each customer that is available on a direct-to-consumer subscription basis.
Team: Thea Pham (Ph.D ’20), Van Nguyen (’19)
Bluprint is PowerPoint made easier. It features a powerful yet lightweight presentation creator with an asset management library, team task assignment tool, version control and intuitive whiteboard for creative exploration.
Team: Ahmed A. Mirza (’19), Kevin Chu (’19), George Ressler
Creative Propulsion Laboratory (CPL) is a full-service production company positioned to meet the growing demand for children’s content on a global scale. CPL shifts content ownership to creators, which incentivizes them to produce top-quality content with CPL. It also creates a more cost-effective way for streamers and broadcasters to get more content to their platforms faster.
Team: Naqi Jaffery (’19), Adam Parker (’19), Matt Fleckenstein, Justin Nix (’19)
Voice Life’s products wirelessly charge mobile devices using Wi-Fi. The first product, Gen-I, charges a smart phone in as little as two minutes and extends battery life by more than 20 percent.
Team: Michael Smith, Robert Smith
America’s first mescal ready-to-drink cocktail in a can, Elenita gives consumers an accessible retail entry point into the world of mescal. The drink is made from 100% percent agave, natural flavors and juices, and carbonated water.
Team: Jordan Dil (’19), Mikel Noriega (’19)
Utilizing blockchain technology, Nutopia creates more industry transparency and openness for independent filmmakers, producers and content consumers.
Team: June Chu (’19), Wen-Chia Chang, Jina Yu
Eliqs enables customers to create personalized craft beer and packaging for any occasion. Eliqs will deliver each order directly to any event venue, cold and ready to drink, all for the same price as off-the-shelf craft beer.
Team: Max Berg (’19), Dave Goldman (’19), Joe Schwappach (’19)
Veloscite is a science-first sports technology company focused on exercise training and sports nutrition. The company’s first product is a university-backed sports drink that improves endurance performance by 11 percent.
Team: Nima Alamdari (’19), James Ouyang (’19), Tanya Kaprealian (’19), Bryan Miller (’19), Jayson Wickenkamp (’19)
Umergency provides the tools for college students and their parents to quickly navigate through any emergency situation. With location-based alerts, an integrated medical consent form and a robust database of emergency resources specific to each college campus, the Umergency app helps keep students safe and provides peace of mind to their loved ones.
Team: Gail Schenbaum (B.A. ’73), Debbie Smith
