Plexus Technology earned first place and the $10,000 award in JBTVL’s Fall 2019 Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition (TVLIC) on December 6, 2019. As Texas Champion, Plexus Technology also won the priceless opportunity to close the Nasdaq in New York City and advising from the Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs staff.
Plexus Technology provides a closed mesh dome for events and crowded locations to provide customers and administrators location and messaging capability without cell tower carriers. Their communication and location services platform is reliable in limited cell environments. The company’s CTO is Casey Roberts, McCombs MBA ‘20.
The other four finalists included HiPR Innovation in second place receiving $5,000. Prolonged contact and pressure caused by sitting on a wheelchair leaves patients at high risk to develop pressure ulcers. To solve this, HiPR is developing the first reactive, smart wheelchair cushion that can dynamically alleviate high pressure and prevent pressure ulcers.
2WayLive placed third receiving $4,000. 2WayLive is an interactive tele-education platform aiming to connect good teachers with students around the world. Using two-way high definition audio/video, real-time chat and synchronous assessment, a teacher can reach, teach, assess and interact with students sitting in several remote classrooms.
Functional Furniture placed fourth receiving $3,000. Functional Furniture enables active living by designing and producing ready-to-assemble furniture that serves the intended household use case while also acting as exercise equipment, promoting functional movement and therapeutic benefits.
CooMo Travel placed fifth receiving $2,000. CooMo Travel is an online platform which allows the individual to plan and book their entire trip, from start to finish, while allowing other real users to provide recommendations and suggestions based on their own personal experience. Those that plan their trip through the platform will have the ability to see other travelers that will be traveling to the same cities at the same time.
In addition to awarding the top five teams, Slick Sigma received the James D. Pippin Veteran Award of $1,000 given to the most promising startup in TVLIC with one or more veteran co-founders. L’MO is a platform that connects retail merchants to crowdsourced delivery options for next day delivery of household goods to end users, homes or businesses. The solution involves ordinary shoppers and the infrastructure currently available through Uber and Lyft style drivers to perform the deliveries to provide a low cost opportunity for local retailers to compete in ecommerce.
The E. Craig Nemec Elevator Challenge Award is given to the best elevator pitches delivered by TVLIC competitors in honor of E. Craig Nemec, a successful McCombs alum. Our three winners this semester were HiPR Innovation, Legacy Project Studios and Plexus Technology. Each team will receive $1,000.