Judges and investors awarded a total of $2.1 million to 10 finalists at the 30th annual Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge on June 4.
This year’s winner, Slideflow Labs, was awarded the Rattan L. Khosa First Place Prize of $575,000. The competition is hosted by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago.
“We are elated to have won and humbled because there were so many great teams,” said Justin Hoot, head of business development at Slideflow Labs. “It’s remarkable to be among them, let alone be the winner. It’s an experience that we’ll cherish.”
Slideflow Labs was a participant in both the Transform Accelerator and Alchemist Chicago.
The finalists, selected from 27 teams, represented a diverse group of startups. At Chicago Booth’s Harper Center, they presented their business plans to a judging panel made up of nearly 30 investors, entrepreneurs and industry leaders—many of them Booth alumni, who deliberated behind closed doors before announcing the winners.
“For 30 years, the New Venture Challenge has shown what can happen when talented students are both challenged and supported by a strong community,” said Steve Kaplan, the Kessenich E.P. Faculty Director of the Polsky Center and Neubauer Family Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at Chicago Booth. “This year’s finalists carried that legacy forward with an impressive mix of ambition, discipline and momentum. They reflect the strength of entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth and the role the NVC plays in helping students turn promising ideas into businesses.”
The winners of the 2026 New Venture Challenge are:
*After voting was concluded, additional investments were made, so dollar amounts are not indicative of placing.
First place: Slideflow Labs ($575,000)
Slideflow Labs is revolutionizing the way that pathologists determine cancer prognosis and predict recurrence. It has developed cancer pathology AI infrastructure that enables hospitals to discover, develop and run biomarkers in-house, delivering superior insights, accelerating turnaround time, and generating revenue for the hospital rather than for external reference labs.
*Slideflow Labs’ total investment includes the Rattan L. Khosa First Place Prize.
Second place: Nestera ($560,000)
Nestera is a vertically integrated operating system for Hospital-at-Home programs. It automates patient eligibility screening and orchestrates end-to-end home transfer and care logistics, enabling health systems to safely scale home-based acute care. With Nestera, hospitals expand inpatient capacity and improve margins, throughput and patient experience without adding headcount.
*Nestera’s total investment includes the $75,000 second place prize from Venetia Kontogouris, MBA’77.
Third place: Vidnova Therapeutics ($210,000)
Vidnova Therapeutics is advancing a microbiome therapeutic developed at UChicago striving to treat liver disease patients. Its lead asset is under investigation in a Phase 1b clinical trial and uses defined bacterial strains with known safety and metabolomic profiles to enable precise and scalable microbiome augmentation.
*Included in the prize total, Vidnova Therapeutics also was awarded the Moonshot Prize ($25,000), which is given to a team whose unique technology is catalyzing innovative solutions to global challenges.
Fourth place: BRAIV ($150,000)
BRAIV is a precision psychiatry decision intelligence platform solving trial-and-error prescribing for the 80 million Americans on psychiatric medication and addressing the more than $82 billion U.S. behavioral health crisis.
Fifth place: CareLumi ($135,000)
CareLumi is the first unified infrastructure platform that takes over the administrative burden of healthcare compliance. Its AI Compliance Officer, Carl, orchestrates a multi-agent system that manages the relationship between medical providers, facilities and insurance providers.
Sixth place: Hydrastack ($190,000)
Hydrastack compresses the time it takes to convert slot machine games into online formats using AI-driven code translation, reducing timelines from months to weeks. It begins in regulated casino gaming, building the infrastructure for faster software translation in complex, compliance-driven industries.
Seventh place: Rare Earth Rescue ($205,000)
Rare Earth Rescue is a domestic magnet-to-magnet recycling company supplying rare earth oxide to U.S. permanent magnet manufacturers. By securing feedstock and using proven recycling technologies, it delivers reliable material under long-term contracts, capturing premium pricing while reducing supply-chain risk for EV, wind and defense customers.
*Included in the prize total, Rare Earth Rescue was awarded additional investment ($50,000) through the Polsky Energy Transition Leadership Program. Rare Earth Rescue also won the People’s Choice Award, a $5,000 cash prize voted on by the audience.
Inzollo builds modular, distributor-first tools that manage the full lifecycle of inventory, orders and warehouse operations. Distributors start with the modules they need today and expand over time for an all-in-one tech solution.
Unloket is an A.I. concierge for mid-sized independent hotels with fewer than 150 rooms and short-term rental operators that centralizes guest communication, handles requests and provides local recommendations, helping hotel staff respond faster, reduce workload, and deliver a more personalized and consistent guest experience.
eep is a performance intelligence system that forecasts and protects human performance capacity. By predicting when cognitive overload and burnout risk are rising, eep intervenes early to prevent crashes — helping high-performing individuals sustain consistent, reliable performance without pushing past their limits.
Investments in six of the teams were made in part from the Purcell Ventures Investment Award, which was established following a $2 million gift from Greg Purcell and Francine Purcell in 2022.
Since it began in 1997, the New Venture Challenge has graduated more than 200 companies still in operation today, including nationally known brands such as Grubhub, Braintree/Venmo, Simple Mills and Tovala, that have gone on to raise more than $1.5 billion in funding and achieve more than $11.6 billion in exits.
The Polsky Center also runs additional tracks of the NVC; this year’s winners can be found below:
