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Startup Stories

informu (2016) was created by the intrepid, hard-working duo of Lang Mei (Leeds, 2017) and Rishabh Berlia (CEAS, 2017). The two international students, from China and India, respectively, joined forces to add Prerna Nayyer (CEAS, 2017), an international student also from India. This team worked tirelessly to address the issue of lost items; those valuables that are accidentally left behind. The Mu tag, their product, connects to a users phone or smart watch and sends a notification when the user is further than a given distance their valuable item. informu staged a successful Kickstarter campaign in spring of 2017 and raised their seed round in December the same year.

Stateless

Stateless (2016) was founded by the electrical and computer engineering research team of PhD student Murad Kablan and Assistant Professor Eric Keller. Their revolutionary technology makes even the most sophisticated networks simple to manage. After completing Catalyze CU, they were accepted into Techstars Boulder in the spring of 2017. They were awarded an NSF SBIR grant in the summer of 2017 and by winter of that same year, they had completed their first round of seed funding at $1.4 million. In February of 2019, Stateless announced a Series A financing round of $11.33 million, the most by any Catalyze CU alum to date.

Specdrums

Specdrums (2017) was founded in 2015 by Steven Dourmashkin to address his own problem as a lifelong drummer—he wished he could bring his drum set with him everywhere. The result was Specdrums, a wearable ring that allows the user to tap colors to trigger sounds. After assembling Jenna and Jack as co-founders and participating in Catalyze CU, the Specdrums team launched a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, bringing in almost $190,000 in the fall of 2017. The team competed in, and won, the CU Boulder New Venture Challenge in 2018, and shortly afterwards was acquired by consumer robotics powerhouse Sphero, marking the second acquisition of a Catalyze CU alumni startup.

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Launching CU Boulder's top ventures

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Summer 2023 Applications are CLOSED

Launching CU Boulder's top ventures

Summer 2023 Applications are now closed!

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