2021 Completed

2021 NVC

Awards

Category	Place	Team	Prize	Project
Grand Prize	Winner	Shaka Melanie Wertzberger (CEO), Austin Chauncey (CTO), Preston Le (Research Analyst), Agustine "Augie" Pimentel (Customer Success Specialist)	$10,000	A culture-building application for companies to keep employees engaged.
Audience Favorite	Winner	MONI	$1,000	An NFC-activated pet tag with a community-based app to monitor pet health and safety.
Track Award (Business Products)	1st	Shaka Melanie Wertzberger (CEO), Austin Chauncey (CTO), Preston Le (Research Analyst), Agustine "Augie" Pimentel (Customer Success Specialist)	$7,500	See Grand Prize Winner.
Track Award (Business Products)	2nd	Health Libero	Undisclosed	A dual-sided marketplace focused on redefining price transparency in healthcare for patients, while also providing physicians with a CRM system to reduce overall costs.
Track Award (Consumer Products)	1st	MONI	Undisclosed	See Audience Favorite Winner.
Track Award (Consumer Products)	2nd	Hydroflow	Undisclosed	A smart water bottle cap that tracks water intake and monitors hydration levels.
Track Award (Consumer Services)	1st (Tie)	MoodCloud Jimmy Nguyen	$2,500 (tied; split $5,000 with REMSYS)	An AI lifestyle and health management app that helps users improve their long-term health.
Track Award (Consumer Services)	1st (Tie)	REMSYS Victoria Sahrai	$2,500 (tied; split $5,000 with MoodCloud)	A resume management system designed for college students to alleviate the hassle of managing multiple resumes when applying to multiple jobs.
Track Award (Life Sciences)	1st	StyloSonic	$7,500	A handpiece that provides key periodontal metrics to accurately diagnose gingivitis in the early stage and reduce the rate of advanced periodontitis.
Track Award (Life Sciences)	2nd	HydroVasc	Undisclosed	A platform injectable hydrogel with the capability to regenerate tissue and organs.
Track Award (Social Enterprise)	1st	Circular Caleb Finn, Anjan Rana Magar	$7,500	A service that picks up food waste, composts it using worms, and uses that compost to fertilize a vertical farm growing organic produce, which is distributed back to partner restaurants.
Track Award (Social Enterprise)	2nd	Tooke Fabrics Anthea Mudanye, Anthony Eduafo, Hamza Ibrahim, Emmanuel Fiagbe	$2,500	An environmentally conscious means of producing fabric that contributes to climate action and the creation of jobs for widows who are financially marginalized.

Primary source: Merage press release.

Judges

Gina Heitkamp is also a former NVC finalist (2014 Grand Prize with iBesties), making her the first documented finalist-to-judge transition in the archive. The NVC-2021-Report.pdf cites a total of 59 judges across all rounds.

Post-competition outcomes

• Shaka 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.
• Circular No public outcome CEO Caleb Finn was raising $400K to build a fall 2022 pilot facility. No subsequent press, funding, or website. Likely never reached operational scale.
• StyloSonic 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 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. Earli...
• MONI No public outcome NFC-activated pet tag and community safety app. No traceable post-competition activity past 2021 win.
• Health Libero No public outcome Marketplace redefining healthcare price transparency. No traceable post-competition activity.
• Hydroflow 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 ...
• MoodCloud No public outcome AI lifestyle/health management app. No traceable post-competition activity. Founder Jimmy Nguyen.
• HydroVasc No public outcome Injectable hydrogel platform for tissue regeneration. No traceable post-competition activity.
• Tooke Fabrics No public outcome Fabric produced from banana stems, employing marginalized widows. No traceable post-competition activity. A Ugandan banana-fiber producer Texfad exists but is unrelated.