Where are they now?

Patterns across the cohort

Read across all seventeen editions and a few shapes recur.

1. Two clean acquisitions. Laser Associated Sciences to Medtronic in April 2020 (equity acquisition by a public company) and No Decaf Allowed to Moongoat Coffee Roasters in December 2022 (asset and subscriber transfer; terms undisclosed). Both happened years after the NVC win.
2. One commercial brand rebrand under-the-radar. Mechanodontics became BRIUS Technologies in 2018. The connection is not on the public company site but is documented in Crunchbase and CB Insights.
3. Pandemic-era wave. 2020 produced an MIE-affiliated Grand Prize streak that continues to generate the strongest non-medical operating company (123 Baby Box).
4. Life Sciences endurance. Long FDA timelines and NIH grant pipelines keep pre-revenue companies alive for years. Sayenza, Hyperion Therapeutics, ImmunoTarget and Purist all remain operating.
5. Consumer apps go quiet. Many Consumer Services and Social Enterprise winners produce no traceable post-competition footprint. Absence of public outcome is not the same as failure, but it is the modal pattern.

Acquired Exits

Operating Active companies

The teams below remained operating as of last verification.

• Prescient Imaging 2012 · Grand Prize Operating Received 510(k) FDA clearance in March 2021 for the BBX-PET portable PET scanner. Founders and private investors have put in over $8M total; focused on Alzheimer's neurology applications.
• Maslow Construction Robots 2016 · Best Pivot Program Plan Operating Researched 2026-05-12. Automated 3D-printing tools for real-estate developers, aimed at bringing emergency housing down to low-cost / fast-construction minimums. Headquartered in Irvine, CA; founded by Andy Truong (the sole NVC team memb...
• Purist 2017 · Grand Prize (School of Medicine) Operating Founder Leila Safavi runs puristinc.com. Oak Ridge National Lab Innovation Crossroads Cohort 3 fellow; received $223K NIH SBIR in 2019. Still small/seed stage with no announced funding round beyond grants.
• Mechanodontics 2018 · Track Award (Life Sciences) 1st Operating Rebranded as BRIUS Technologies (Carrollton, TX); rebrand confirmed via Crunchbase / CB Insights. Launched the Brava hidden-braces system commercially on 2022-06-30. **Brava+ System launched 2024** (lingual / back-of-teeth aesthetic vers...
• CarDana 2018 · Track Award (Social Enterprise) 2nd Operating Transparent charitable vehicle-donation platform; site live at cardana.co with active KBB-based donation flow, partner/charity onboarding, and a 20% flat-fee model.
• Wing 2018 · Track Award (Consumer Services) 1st Operating Rebranded as Wing Assistant. Raised a $2.1M seed in 2021 (Tracxn lists Mar 31, 2022 as the latest funding date for the seed round). Continues as a subscription managed-virtual-assistant service in 2025-2026 with newer tooling (Pie by Win...
• ELF Therapeutics 2019 · Tech Surge 1st + Track Award (Life Sciences) 1st Operating Now branded eLysis Inc. Raised $400K+ in non-dilutive funding, completed pig animal study, working toward FDA 510(k). Co-founders: Joon You, Michael Hill PhD, Dr. Steve Yoelin (Latisse developer). Pre-clinical-trial / pre-revenue.
• Steth 'n Go 2019 · Track Award (Consumer Products) 2nd Operating Magnetic stethoscope holder still selling at stethngo.com with an active product line and bulk pricing for healthcare facilities.
• Baby Box 2020 · Grand Prize Operating Raised $1.2M oversubscribed pre-seed round in 2023. Lead investors per TechCrunch: XRC Labs (referenced as XRC Ventures on its own portfolio page), Sunstone Fund, Salt Lake City Angels, and a California Crescent fund, with angels Mark Fr...
• ImmunoTarget 2020 · Track Award (Life Sciences) 1st Operating Now ImmunoTarget Therapeutics, Inc. Stephanie Hachey, PhD is founder/CEO/CSO. Tracxn lists company as unfunded as of 2025. UCI conflict-of-interest disclosure on a March 2025 bioRxiv preprint confirms still active and licensing UCI tech.
• Shaka 2021 · Grand Prize Operating Now Shaka Culture Inc., HQ in Kansas City, MO. Raised approximately $120K (Techstars, InnoVenture Iowa, ISA Ventures, UCI Merage). Microsoft Teams integration certified. PitchBook profile current as of 2025.
• StyloSonic 2021 · Track Award (Life Sciences) 1st Operating StyloSonic, LLC has a PitchBook profile. UCI/UCSD alumni team. 2022 peer-reviewed paper in Photoacoustics demonstrating in-vivo periodontal imaging. Continues in Wayfinder accelerator.
• REMSYS 2021 · Track Award (Consumer Services) 1st (tied) Operating Site remsys.app is in active BETA development as of 2026-05-11. Operating as REMSYS LLC (©2024). AI-powered features include resume tailoring, generative AI cover letter creation, and AI-powered mock interviews. Earlier draft marked REMS...
• Noveil 2022 · Grand Prize Operating Founder Michael Allotey (UCI 2021 CS graduate per Sunstone Founder Focus). Co-founder Kendrick Barefield named on Arch Grants company directory. Named to the Arch Grants 2022 cohort. Tracxn shows still active as of early 2026 but ranked ...
• Blue Aqua Food Tech 2022 · Track Award (Social Enterprise) 1st Operating Site bafoodtech.com is live with insect-protein product page. Co-founders Hamoon Shishechian and Parham Mansor Safain (brothers-in-law) operating a black soldier fly farm. No announced funding round; appears pre-revenue / early.
• Sayenza Biosciences 2022 · Track Award (Life Sciences) 2nd Operating Clinical-stage adipose-tissue regenerative-medicine company. Raised ~$1.16M; joined California Life Sciences FAST Spring 2024 cohort; published 2025-trend commentary as recently as Q1 2025.
• Nutripair 2022 · Track Award (Business Products) 1st Operating Founder Catlin Tran's dietary-restriction restaurant-matching app received a $25K Verizon grant in 2025 and was profiled by UCI Social Sciences in March 2025.
• Leprendo 2023 · Runner-Up Operating leprendo.com live with 2026 copyright, active product catalog (specialty produce, dried fruits, oils). Co-founders Dylan Riffle and Dan Ta. Reported $400K first-year sales. Pivoted from short-form-video food marketplace framing to a more...
• Hyperion Therapeutics 2023 · Track Award (Life Sciences) 1st Operating hyperioneye.com active. Newport Beach, CA. Company founded 2022. Founders: Krzysztof (Kris) Palczewski (internationally renowned chemist / pharmacologist / vision scientist; ~50 patents approved or pending) and Jennings Luu (MD/PhD senio...
• Omni Pet Club 2023 · Track Award (Consumer Products) 2nd Operating Modular multi-pet leash system on sale at omnipetclub.com. An earlier draft of this archive claimed retail distribution via Chewy / Walmart / Amazon; verification on 2026-05-11 found those listings are for a different brand (OmniPet by L...
• TeamMade 2023 · Track Award (Social Enterprise) 2nd Operating UCI/Orange Coast College student team continues iterating on modular ADUs. Their LuminOCity unit was donated to Homeless Intervention Services-OC and opened to house at-risk youth in July 2025.
• Sentinel 2024 · Grand Prize Operating Driver-monitoring AI dashcam; working MVP stage as of September 2024 per ANTrepreneur profile. An earlier draft of this archive inferred absorption by Spotter.ai's 'Sentinel' Fleet Safety Platform based on product-name overlap; verificat...
• NeoMold 2024 · Runner-Up Operating neomold.uci.design site is up. No incorporation, funding, or FDA filing yet. Design-stage academic project. Separate established competitor TalexMedical (InfantEar) operates in the same space.
• DermaVision 2024 · Track Award (Social Enterprise) 2nd Operating DermaVision Technologies' multispectral bruise-imaging tool ('Portable Bruise Spectroscopy Across All Skin Tones') competed in the 2024 BMES Medtronic Student Design Competition and placed 3rd in the Mechanical/Electrical track per BMES,...
• Grad2Go 2025 · Grand Prize Operating Won the 2025 Grand Prize on May 22, 2025 (Merage press release published June 2025). Team led by Yifan 'May' Mei. Too recent for outcome data.
• GlowGuard 2025 · Runner-Up Operating Bluetooth/UV-C smart retainer case, 2025 Runner-Up. Too recent for outcome data.
• NasoCoustics 2025 · Track Award (Life Sciences) 1st Operating UCI-affiliated design-stage team (per the .uci.design domain). nasocoustics.uci.design is up; LinkedIn presence. Also placed 1st in the 2025 Beall Competition per bbcomp.tech.uci.edu. Pre-incorporation; design-review stage. Too recent fo...
• PCOSitive Buddy 2025 · Specialty (MIE Award) + Track Award (Consumer Services) 1st Operating Founder Ricianne 'Chi' Rey was hired in October 2025 as the UCI ANTrepreneur Center Program Lead and continues to be described as a PCOS-platform co-founder.
• ServEasy 2025 · Track Award (Business Products) 2nd Operating Confirmed as a 2025 Stella Zhang finalist; no independent product traction yet.
• Oslo 2025 · Audience Favorite + Track Award (Life Sciences) 2nd Operating Passive thermal-imaging vitals monitor for seniors; confirmed as a 2025 Stella Zhang finalist per Merage. Also placed in 2025 Beall/Butterworth competitions per bbcomp.tech.uci.edu. No independent funding or launch news.
• myHealth Today 2019 · Track Award (Consumer Services) 1st Operating Senior-friendly voice assistant for tracking medical appointments; app called myHealthJournal lets seniors record symptoms via phone voice services, parsing data into a provider-friendly format (HIPAA-compliant). Re-researched 2026-05-12...
• Hydroflow 2021 · Track Award (Consumer Products) 2nd Operating Smart bottle cap and phone application that automatically tracks water intake, sets personalized daily goals, and provides customized hydration reminders; designed to attach to water bottles and measure intake during physical exercise. R...

Pivoted Changed direction

• iBesties 2014 · Grand Prize Pivoted Rebranded as 'Middle School Moguls' in 2016, hit Target shelves fall 2016, adapted into a 4-episode CG miniseries with Nickelodeon in 2019. No evidence of activity past 2021.
• Carbo 2016 · UCI Intellectual Property 2nd Pivoted Researched 2026-05-12. Novel therapeutic robot for autism / ADHD therapy in home, classroom, and clinic settings. The work continued as Prof. Jeff Krichmar's research at UCI's Cognitive Anteater Robotics Laboratory; team member Ting-Shuo...
• COMPAS 2017 · Track Award (Business Products) 2nd Pivoted COMPAS (Clinical Operations Management & Patient Analytics System) was developed inside UCI Health's Ops IT department to track patient flow in clinics; reported to have reduced patient cycle time from 86 to 62 minutes and won the 2016 C...
• VolunteerCrowd 2019 · Track Award (Social Enterprise) 1st Pivoted Effective January 1, 2023, the company discontinued membership plans, verification, PVSA certification, and its app, pivoting to 'student experiential learning and workforce development.' volunteercrowd.com returns HTTP 404 as of researc...
• SnapHealth 2022 · Track Award (Consumer Services) 2nd Pivoted mysnaphealth.com is operating (verified 2026-05-11) but its current product is a 'health coverage' platform (insurance) with a coverage calculator for families and broker tools. This is a pivot from the 2022 NVC concept of 'patient healt...

Shut down / Dormant

• Closed Loop Plastics 2018 · Tech Surge 2nd Shut down closedloopplastics.com now serves a Sedo parking page. LinkedIn page exists but most recent press coverage is from 2021. Moved from UCI to Long Beach for a brief expansion phase but appears wound down.
• ValveStrong 2013 · Campus Wide 2nd + TechPortal Orange Residency + Best Concept Paper Dormant Researched 2026-05-12. Gust profile lists ValveStrong as 'Full Product Ready' stage but 'Not Incorporated'; founded October 2012 in Irvine. Founder S. Hamed Alavi moved on to senior R&D roles at Edwards Lifesciences Advanced Technology C...
• FunBand 2016 · Consumer Products 1st Dormant Researched 2026-05-12. Co-founders Rehema Feleke (pediatric emergency medicine physician), Simon Loo, and Cliff Wang built a LoRa-technology child-tracking wristband for amusement parks and event venues. Accepted into UCI Applied Innovat...
• Bottle Rocket 2016 · Most Outstanding Undergraduate Plan Dormant Researched 2026-05-12. Mobile-app and direct-to-consumer recycling service rewarding users for at-home recycling. Founded in a UCI dorm room by political-science / economics major Arthur Avetisov and international-studies major Brian Leu...
• Esqalate 2017 · Track Award (Poverty Alleviation) 1st Dormant Crunchbase profile exists; both platforms now confirmed dormant - proboknow.com redirects to a ww1.proboknow.com parking page; lowboknow.com listed 'for sale at HugeDomains' as of 2026-05-12. Founder Chad Trainer moved on to Blacklight L...
• Failsafe 2017 · Track Award (Consumer Products) 2nd Dormant Personal-safety mobile app concept (Natalie Sweis, Jasmine Yu, Issa Sweis). Listed in 2017 Beall/Butterworth records. Per the UCI Beall Applied Innovation Wayfinder Graduate page, Failsafe completed the Wayfinder incubator program (descr...
• Poo Pal 2019 · Track Award (Consumer Products) 1st Dormant Product listings still appear on Amazon/Etsy but no recent company-side activity.