Five finalists named in Olin Cup entrepreneurship competition

Winners of $70,000 in seed money to be named Dec. 2

The winners of the 2004 Olin Cup Entrepreneur Competition will be announced Dec. 2 from a pool of five finalists chosen Oct. 29.

The finalists are competing in a yearlong competition for $70,000 in investment capital provided by Washington University’s Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

“Being a part of this competition is hugely valuable to the team members, even if they do not win,” said Ken Harrington, managing director of the Skandalaris Center. “Participants tell us that the workshops and feedback that they receive really help them move their venture forward. They also tell us the process gives them invaluable exposure.”

The five finalists were among 10 semi-finalists that each gave a two-minute elevator pitch to a diverse group of judges representing several regional venture capital and investment groups, corporate strategists and university experts.

Throughout the year, the business formation competition holds more than 50 workshops and other events to promote learning, collaboration and team formation. The events contribute to the competition’s goal to support the creation of new ventures and to help grow the entrepreneurial economy in St. Louis.

The Olin Cup competition was founded at Washington University in 1985 and has resulted in more than 60 start-up companies. Every team in the Olin Cup competition must include at least one current or former Washington University student.

The finalists will each submit a business plan and give a 30-minute presentation to the judges as the final phase of the competition. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at 4 p.m. Dec. 2 at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center on the Washington University Hilltop campus.

The Finalists

The Blessing Basket Project

Founder: Theresa Wilson

Project Description: The Blessing Basket (501©3 pending) is a fast-growing social entrepreneurship venture that was started nine months ago. The company is already causing dynamic local economic growth in pilot locations in six developing countries. The Blessing Basket pays weavers in undeveloped countries the prosperity wage (which is multiples higher than the local average), imports high-quality baskets and sells them via its website, direct sales and retail relationships. Revenues above expenses are reinvested into additional product and economic/community development projects.

Core Devices

Founder: John Izuchukwu

Project Description: A portable anesthesia machine that will facilitate the delivery of care outside traditional hospital settings, for civilian and military applications and with the versatility to be deployed in private physician’s clinics, rural hospital settings and austere environments anywhere in the world.

Luminomics

Founder: Jeff Mumm

Project Description: Luminomics is a seed stage biotechnology company that answers a critical unmet need: regenerative drug therapies for degenerative diseases. The company creates disease models and perform high-throughput screens to discover small molecules that stimulate cellular regeneration. Lead compounds capable of stimulating regeneration in the model system will be used to identify regenerative therapies for humans. Luminomics is focused on four major neurodegenerative disorders that cost the U.S. a total of $250 billion dollars annually. However, the platform can be applied to any degenerative disease state or condition. Accordingly, the company is partnering with other companies to provide tailor-made disease models and screening outsource services for their specific degenerative targets. The company is aggressively marketing the technology for out-licensing while pursuing drug discovery-based in-house research designed to capture sizeable portions of the degenerative disease market and bring a minimum of 25 times return on investment in the next five years.

Kiosite

Founder: Michael Novack

Kiosite is a St. Louis-based, technology-focused company that works to improve client performance through innovative automation, human capital assessment, development and strategic business consulting.

The company’s flagship HireTrue™ offering provides a sophisticated system to automate and improve the employee hiring process – allowing clients to hire and develop top performers, better, faster and smarter.

TEQ Innovations

Founder: Douglas Elliott

Project Description: TEQ Innovations is a financial technologies company that converts patents into cash assets. Converted patents provide cash to inventors and their enterprises, income to investors and technology profits to business. Patents, copyrights and trademarks are the dominant assets of the Knowledge Economy. These intangible properties account for over 80 percent of the market value of publicly traded American businesses. TEQI’s platform of patent-pending products and services have been presented to more than 125 “Global 2000” companies with an 80 percent acceptance rate. The TEQI platform has been successfully licensed to one investment bank and several more are in negotiation.