Alumni-founded startups M7 Health and Hue came out victorious in the 2023 Alumni New Venture Competition on Thursday, winning the Grand Prize and Runner Up awards respectively in an impressive field of eight global regional winners. During the virtual, live competition, each venture presented a brief pitch to the judges and audience, with the more than 400 audience members then invited to vote for a Crowd Favorite winner.

Grand Prize winner M7 Health is “making nursing jobs work for nurses.” Cofounders Ilana Springer Borkenstein and Eric Gruskin (both MBA 2022), from the New York region, took home the top cash prize of $75,000.

Runner Up winner Hue earned a $25,000 prize. Led by cofounders Janvi Shah, Nicole Clay, and Sylvan Guo (all MBA 2022), Hue helps brands and retailers embed TikTok-style shoppable videos on its e-commerce websites to give customers confidence to add to cart. Hue is based in the Northeastern US/Boston region.

The virtual audience for the annual event also selected Tilden as the Crowd Favorite. Tilden, cofounded by Mariah Hilton Wood and Vanessa Royle (both MBA 2022) from the Western US/Southern California region, creates “spirited connections” with its line of nonalcoholic beverages.

The livestreamed event also included a Founder’s Chat between 2018 aNVC Crowd Favorite winner Benoit Dupont (PLDA 2016), cofounder and CEO of WeMaintain, and Jodi Gernon (MBA 1991), director of the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship.

The annual Alumni New Venture Competition, cohosted by the Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and HBS Alumni Relations, serves as a launch pad for innovative new ventures from HBS alumni, providing access and exposure to potential investors, mentors, and advisors. The competition is open to all HBS alumni founders with early-stage ventures. The alumni event will be followed on March 30 by the student-centered New Venture Competition, taking place in-person in Klarman Hall.

The remainder of the global finalists included:

Haf Haf Inc.
A fun, reliable, effective, eco-friendly personal care brand focusing on children and teenagers who have their own age-specific needs and preference.
Tingting Zhong, MBA 2006, Cofounder & Co-CEO
Region: Asia/Pacific

Deeper Pulse
Deeper Pulse runs platform that generates innovative designs for electric motors. Its software provides motor manufacturers with large sources of gains and cost reduction, reachable only through disruptive computer calculation and inaccessible to engineers' "creativity".
Thomas Baudin, MBA 1997, CEO & Founder
Region: Europe

Globalcare
The firm’s mission is to advance international healthcare mobility. It is building a trusted network of doctors and clinics outside the US to treat elective procedures and a patient-centric platform with end-to-end support to connect both sides.
Aldo Farah Orozco, MBA 2019, Cofounder & Co-CEO
Region: International Track

The Endowment Project
The Endowment Project is an outsourced alumni development, fundraising, and asset management business aimed at creating the philanthropic infrastructure for public high schools in the US. It aims to raise $30B annually and manage over $300B in assets to support public education.
Michael Bor, MBA 2003, CEO
Region: Central US/Atlanta

Codigo
Codigo is a rapid software development platform whose tools help developers accelerate blockchain development by automating the generation of back-end and client code, documentation, and testing.
Jean-Philippe Emelie Marcos, MBA 2001, CEO & Founder
Region: Western US/Northern California

Learn more at the Alumni New Venture Competition website.

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