iVenture Accelerator welcomes eighth and largest cohort

The University of Illinois’ iVenture Accelerator – powered by Gies College of Business – has admitted 16 startups into its eighth and largest cohort ever. This year’s group consists of 55 full-time students from 30 fields of study and eight colleges on the University of Illinois campus including Gies College of Business; The Grainger College of Engineering; College of Liberal Arts & Sciences; College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences; Carle Illinois College of Medicine; College of Media; College of Fine & Applied Arts; and College of Education. For the first time ever, iVenture is running a hybrid program this summer, with physical office space based at the Siebel Center for Design complemented with virtual programming and entrepreneurial workshops.

“We’re so excited to welcome over 50 student changemakers into the thriving iVenture community, where they are already being supported by an extraordinary, world-class group of Illini alums and friends,” said Professor Noah Isserman, iVenture founder and faculty director. “Twenty of these alums have volunteered to be part of our new iVenture Coach program, helping teams all year long. The whole program team is delighted to be a part of educational and venturing journeys for this remarkable new cohort.”

Launched in 2015, the iVenture Accelerator is a system-wide and cross-campus program housed in Gies College of Business that provides opportunities for student-led startups to create economic and social value. iVenture supports student entrepreneurs with knowledge, funding, and access to the world-class University of Illinois resources and alumni.  Since its inception, iVenture has incubated 100 ventures led by 250 student entrepreneurs who have gone on to raise more than $100 million for their work, created over 300 full-time jobs, and won various accolades across the globe.

“The iVenture Accelerator is running its biggest experiment this year with several pilots. This includes supporting a University of Illinois System team, supporting fully online students based in Canada, supporting a team from the broader Illinois Innovation Network, having the largest class of Program Fellows to support the Accelerator, and finally, supporting our largest group of student entrepreneurs and ventures ever,” said Manu Edakara, director of the iVenture Accelerator. “It’s a testament to how our team has learned to scale our impact and support to an ever-growing global community of innovators.”

This year’s 16 ventures include:

ASL Aspire is a game-based online platform that teaches STEM literacy to deaf students in middle school

By All Means designs and releases limited clothing, hosts live events, and works alongside public figures to build a community for streetwear fans

Care to Compare allows people to make more informed, economical healthcare decisions by providing data-driven, easy-to-use tools for finding the right healthcare providers near them

Digiphy is bridging the digital and physical art worlds by showcasing extraordinary art on any digital screen and allowing easy acquisition of any artwork in its physical and digital form

Faaslahpal creates scrunchie hijabs for non-hijabi Muslim women

Ferritiva is developing a method to check for iron deficiency non-invasively using an individual’s saliva, which will save time and costs associated with obtaining blood work

Gridscale aims to accelerate the adoption of renewables by using cryptocurrency mining to reduce the cost of solar for homeowners

Haylon Technologies is a battery technology venture aiming to combine modern advances in low-power computing and battery chemistries to create revolutionary batteries

Lumnis Capital provides alternative data and crypto analytics such as news sentiment to enable users to make better investment decisions

PaletteML improves the productivity of AI developers by providing modular, composable apps that augment their AI workflows to make them feature-rich, bug-free, and scalable

Poetic AI is a lyric-writing assistant designed to help stimulate creativity and enable more efficient music-composition for musicians through AI-powered lyric suggestions and linguistic analysis

REUSO is a sustainable to-go container platform, providing foodservice operators with reusable containers instead of single-use disposables.

Salam Kisan is a 360 degree ecosystem platform that centralizes the agriculture value chain to facilitate ease in agriculture for small and marginal farmers in India

Shape Dimensions is a platform that aims to democratize 3D printing and change the nature of the supply chain

Symmetry creates wood from bacterial cellulose to combat deforestation and empower woodworkers with more sustainable materials

WeHearYou creates technology solutions for those with various exceptionalities beginning with a device that turns accessible doors into automatic doors via a personal button.

After two years of being fully remote, iVenture will return in-person for a full Demo Week in Chicago July 22 - July 27^th. To learn more about Demo Week or to register to attend, visit iVenture.illinois.edu.

About iVenture
Launched in 2015, the iVenture Accelerator is a system-wide and cross-campus program housed in Gies College of Business that provides opportunities for student-led startups to create economic and social value. iVenture supports student entrepreneurs with knowledge, funding, and access to the world-class University of Illinois resources and alumni.  Since its inception, iVenture has incubated 100 ventures led by 270 student entrepreneurs who have gone on to raise more than $100 million for their work, and won various accolades.

About Gies College of Business
For more than 100 years, Gies College of Business has intentionally designed its innovative programs, leading-edge curriculum, and experiential learning opportunities to empower and prepare students to turn big ideas into meaningful actions. Today, Gies faculty prepare more than 8,000 future business leaders, including 3,100 undergraduates, from around the world to put their purpose into practice and provide transformative leadership in a global economy. GiesBusiness.illinois.edu