Oxymoron Ink won first place in the first ever virtual 2020 Spring Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition (TVLIC) on May 8, 2020. Because of COVID-19, the competition was conducted over Zoom.
Millions of people around the world are interested in tattoos, but avoid them because they know they might regret their decision later in life. Oxymoron Ink solves this problem by offering inks that disappear after six months, nine months or one year. The company manufactures the world’s first semi-permanent tattoo ink. These biodegradable, patent-pending inks were developed at UT Austin by CEO Matthew Miller, a NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Chemical Engineering.competitive with manual processes.
As the first place winner, Oxymoron Ink receives a cash prize of $15,000 and a seat in the Company-in-Residence Program at the McCombs School of Business plus a wealth of services including free three months at Capital Factory, access to the LeanStack.com tools and a personalized coaching session with the creator of the Lean Canvas, Ash Maurya and $10,000 in Amazon Web Services credits.
Release won the $5,000 second place prize plus $3,500 in Amazon Web Services credits. Release is a web and iOS based platform which offers tenants a straightforward and painless alternative to finding sublessees in Austin by taking over the subleasing process from end-to-end.
The third place winner of $2,500 and $1,500 in Amazon Web Services credits was CooMoo Travel. CooMo Travel is an online platform that allows an 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 experiences.
The E. Craig Nemec Elevator Challenge Award honoring Craig Nemec, a successful graduate and entrepreneur, gives out three $1,000 awards to the teams with the best three-minute elevator pitches. This year’s winners were Good Apple, Empire Learning and Oxymoron Ink.
The James D. Pippin Veteran Award awards $1,000 to a team with one or more U.S. military veterans. The award was endowed by the founders of RideScout to honor James D. Pippin, a Retired Command Sergeant Major with the U.S. Army who served with Joseph Kopser. CooMoo Travel was this year’s winner.
Hosted by Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, TVLIC is open to all graduate students at any University of Texas System school. TVLIC simulates the real world process of raising venture capital. In evaluating the student ventures, judges function as an investment group seeking to reach consensus on the business venture they would most likely fund. This spring’s competition featured 24 startup companies.
For more information on the teams selected to compete in the 2020 TVLIC, visit the JBTVL blog announcement or to learn more about JBTVL’s programs visit tvl.utexas.edu.
ABOUT JON BRUMLEY TEXAS VENTURE LABS
Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs (JBTVL) at The University of Texas at Austin is a campus-wide initiative to accelerate both student and community startups. The mission is to help graduate students learn to take their innovations to market and become great entrepreneurs and business leaders. Since 2010, TVL has accelerated over 220 Austin-area startups in a wide range of industries and 43 percent of these companies have gone on to raise total funding in excess of $836 million. Over 716 graduate students from a variety of disciplines have earned experience working with these area startups. In addition, JBTVL has helped launch more than 80 graduate student companies through the Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition (TVLIC).