Bill Gross Business Plan Competition Winners
First place: Nexa Labs
Nexa Labs are prototyping minimally invasive microchips for continuous cattle health monitoring.
Team: Zarif Azher, Alvin Zhang, Kyle Berkson, Kenneth Chan
Second place: EchoBlue
EchoBlue is reimagining early Autism Spectrum Disorder detection and care for children with ASD with their AI platform concept.
Team: Mila Hong, Saumya Chauhan
Third place: Matterware
Matterware has developed AI-assisted integrated circuit/chip design software for the semiconductor industry.
Team: Volkan Gurses, Robert George
Honorable Mention: Natrium Labs
Natrium Labs is developing a dietary supplement to regulate sodium consumption.
Team: Yameng Zhang
Honorable Mention: Memento
Memento has created an Augmented Reality integrated app to help support seniors with Alzheimer's or dementia and their families.
Team: Gavin Hua, Leo Jankovic, Zachary Pestrikov
Fan Favorite: MelanoMetrics
MelanoMetrics have identified the need for a racially-unbiased pulse oximeter and aim to close this market gap.
Team: Sara Razavi, Sana Paktiny, Jawhara Ehmered, Ruth Berkun, Reza Razavi
Other Finalists
MindMesh
As generative AI and demand for more processing power increases, MindMesh proposes utilizing laptop downtime to supplement AI processing power.
Team: Maleque Chouayekh, Katherine Avanesov
PathWay
In a first for the competition, a team submitted two such strong concepts that they were allowed to either choose between their ideas, or go forward to pitch both. The team chose to pitch both; PathWay, their second concept, is a platform to streamline & automate construction permit applications.
Team: Gavin Hua, Leo Jankovic, Zachary Pestrikov
Trace
Trace pitched a security concept for autonomous drones to detect crime more quickly than current solutions.
Team: Cesar Arellano
*Please note that companies' names and teams may have changed since the competition.
Watch the 2025 competition here:
Photos are available here.
First place: CAD.it
CAD.it uses generative AI and computer vision to automate the conversion of 2D engineering sketches into 3D models in CAD software.
Team: Aditya Shedge, Sarah Hashash, Sarah Yun
Second place: Chiron
Chiron is a personalized AI assistant that learns from and cites medical papers to help patients interpret their medical results.
Team: Andrea Olsen
Third place: String
String is reimagining the coffee supply chain to increase transparency and quality assurance while increasing profits for farmers and cooperatives in East Africa by directly connecting them with importers and roasters.
Team: Sean Theuri, Eden Obeng Kyei, Nyasha Makaya, Abdulkarim Mugisha
Other Finalists
Helio
Helio is a biosensor that assesses micronutrients through saliva and aims to provide simple, painless, at-home testing to help parents identify clinical nutritional deficiencies in children with autism.
Team: Ashley Mo, Aoi Otani (Harvard University)
OcuFlow
OcuFlow is developing a heating eye mask designed to speed up in-eye fluid flow to improve the efficacy of drug treatments for vision-threatening diseases, with the potential to reduce the frequency of necessary treatment injections.
Team: Stephanie O'Gara
Viriya
Viriya applies AI monitoring to data from smart meters that measure electricity use in nonresidential buildings to propose efficiency and sustainability solutions. Viriya has partnered with sustainability leaders at Caltech (and other universities) to design and test its product.
Team: Aaron Zhao, Kaushik Tota, Avirath Sundaresan
NeuroGuard
NeuroGuard is a stroke detection device designed to be worn while sleeping, with the goal of identifying sleep strokes in order to enable early intervention and medical care.
Team: Haixu Shen, Reza Ghodsi
VerifAI
VerifAI offers Contract Decoder, an AI tool aimed at helping renters understand their rights and the jargon within rental lease agreements and other contracts.
Team: Arjun Pradhan, James Hou, Joray Pieper, Aman Burman, Aditya Mehta, Dhruv Verma, Gautham Kappaganthula,
Tunable Aesthetics
Tunable Aesthetics is developing minimally invasive surgical implants that can be shaped and reshaped with high-intensity focused ultrasound.
Team: Nicole Higdon, Gunho Kim (PhD '23)
kallisto
kallisto aims to identify and track viral RNA in sequencing data to leverage patients' own viruses for improved gene therapy.
Team: Laura Luebbert
ONCOVATE
ONCOVATE is an AI tool that helps hospitals triage cancer patients, using patient and symptom data to recommend genetic tests and assist with outcome forecasting. It is currently in a pilot program stage with Stanford Medicine.
Team: Arya Khokhar, Albert Huang, Adarsh Kumarappan, Shan Gupta,
PulseGuard Technologies
PulseGuard Technologies is an electric-shield technology that prevents biofilm buildup in beer-dispensing systems.
Team: Bryan Gerber
IND CoPilot
IND CoPilot uses an AI model to streamline the investigational new drug (IND) process, bringing together regulatory documents and experimental protocols for the pharmaceutical industry.
Team: Logan Beharry, Katherine Xu
Desert Farming
Desert Farming is developing microbial communities for algae farms in the desert (where there is abundant unused land) that will sequester carbon dioxide, generate carbon credits, and produce biomaterials like algae bricks and packaging materials.
Team: Madison Dunitz, Helen Wexler, Alex Johnson
Encryptiest
Encryptiest is developing a novel encryption technology to enable targeted advertising without compromising user privacy.
Team: Salvador Buse, Dylan Bannon (MS '22)
*Please note that companies' names and teams may have changed since the competition.