At the 29th Annual Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge (NVC), 10 finalist teams were awarded a record-breaking $2.267 million.
Launched in 1996 at Chicago Booth and led by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurships and Innovation, the NVC held its first finals in 1997 with just $20,000 in prizes. Today, the NVC ranks as one of the best accelerator programs in the U.S. More than 600 startup companies have graduated through the NVC and the Polsky Center, which in turn has led to the creation of thousands of jobs across the nation.
“This year’s startups were some of the strongest yet,” said Mark Tebbe, adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth and entrepreneur-in-residence at the Polsky Center. “[A]t more than $2.2 million, it’s the most we’ve ever awarded, but it’s also the most ever awarded in any university-based business plan competition in the world.”
2025 Winners
This year, Rayni won first place, securing $835,000 and the prestigious Rattan L. Khosa First-Place Prize. Founded by MBA graduates Sakshi Nag and Divyanshu Sharma, Rayni is a B2B SaaS startup that helps scientists and researchers in the life sciences navigate complex lab instruments through an AI-powered platform. The tool reduces trial time and sample usage, as well as the “emotional frustration” that comes alongside these factors. Rayni, as their site proclaims, “is for anyone working with scientific instruments,” ranging from Lab Directors to Postdocs.
Sakshi Nag, who previously worked solving Big Data problems at Fermilab and Crowdstrike and has a background in physics research, described the journey as “two years of insane hard work…I couldn’t have chosen a better place to be.” Divyanshu Sharma added, “It feels like a perfect, amazing end to something that’s been in the works for more than two years now.”
Second place and $668,000 went to K1 Semiconductor, which is tackling the future of chip manufacturing with a wafer-splitting platform. The platform, which works across a range of high-performance semiconductor materials, enables up to 20x water reuse. With this technology, K1 Semiconductor is addressing critical issues in clean energy, AI infrastructure, and more. The team also received the Moonshot Prize for catalyzing innovation in global challenges.
Taking third place and $440,000 was Solitude Labs, whose platform brings zero-trust, decentralized communications to edge devices on the power grid. Solitude envisions an energy future that is intelligent, decentralized, and cybersecure. Their framework ensures every node on the grid remains protected, “ensuring that innovation at the edge strengthens the grid as a whole”.
The Finalists
Fourth to tenth place were as follows:
4. NutraCareU ($85,000): aiding those with chronic conditions by delivering personalized, precision nutrition solutions.
5. MOOJ ($68,000): a South Asian health foods company, reimagining traditional dishes.
6. relos ($65,000: facilitating residential real estate transactions.
7. GovChime ($43,000): an AI-enabled ERP solution that simplifies the federal procurement process for small businesses.
8. Mudita Earth ($33,000): delivering an affordable botanical-based and dermatologist-backed skincare line that focuses on the unique needs of melanated skin.
9. Ampable ($20,000): providing a zero-cost, fully managed EV charging solution for multifamily properties.
10. Selene ($10,000): a quant trading firm using identifying market inefficiencies and achieving outsized returns in the sports betting markets.
NVC Finalists presented their ventures to a panel of nearly 30 investors, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders at the in-person event held at Booth’s Harper Center. Many of the panel were Booth alumni themselves.
