Congratulations to Hamperapp, the Spring 2023 TVLIC Texas Champion!

The Spring 2023 Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition was held on Friday, April 28 featuring the top graduate student startups on the UT campus. Twenty companies competed in four Semifinal rounds in the morning with the winners advancing to the Finals at the Crum Auditorium in the afternoon.

Hamperapp was awarded the top prize of $15,000 for their online platform that streamlines the laundry and dry cleaning process with convenient pick-up and delivery services. They are revolutionizing the laundry industry with an innovative and customer-centric approach. Jorge Rodriguez, CoFounder at Hamperapp, is a graduating MBA student at UT Dallas.

The Texas Superstar and $5,000 prize went to Trinity Tube. Trinity Tube is a next-generation solution for neonatal vital sign monitoring. Iman Salafian, a current Ph.D. student of Mechanical Engineering, works on a team to engineer the multifunctional feeding tube that includes wireless vital sign monitoring.

The Texas Rising Star and $2,500 prize went to Tano Pharmaceuticals. Branson Berger and Sean Finney, cofounders of Tano Pharmaceuticals, are developing a compact and effective first-aid solution for extreme outdoor enthusiasts that utilizes the healing properties of banana sap to create the first-ever natural multipurpose first-aid and wound treatment product. They are also one of the teams, alongside Underdog Supplements, to each win the James D. Pippin Veteran Entrepreneurship Award along with a $1,000 prize.

The award for Health Innovation and $5,000 prize went to Longhorn Life Sciences. Longhorn Life Sciences is developing the “Infection Detective,” a micro needle patch integrated into surgical bandages to enable early, objective identification of surgical infections.

FlareXES is the winner of the Sustainability Award and the $5,000 prize. FlarexES is a low-carbon methane mitigation and utilization company that converts flared natural gas into hydrogen with limited carbon footprint. They aim to revolutionize how oil and gas operators think about emissions reductions, focusing on methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The winner of the Technology Commercialization Award and the $10,000 prize went to Trinity Tube.

All twenty teams also presented two-minute pitches in the newly named Ann Whitt Elevator Challenge which awards a $1,000 prize to the top three presenters. The winners were Longhorn Life Sciences, Tano Pharmaceuticals, and Green Credit Exchange.

Congratulations to all of the graduate student startups who competed in the Spring 2023 TVLIC! And thanks to all of our judges, sponsors and volunteers who made it possible. Stay tuned for details on the next Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition and our 40th Anniversary!