From the 2026 Magnuson Startup Competition: Judges Andrea Johnson ‘91, Barry Schweitzer ‘82 and Mark Bernfeld ‘78. Winning team members Erik Peterson ‘27, Ranvir Deshmukh ‘26, Veer Patel, Victoria King ‘27, Levi Olevsky, Thayer ‘26, and PhD Innovation Program Fellow Peter Bertone.
This spring, startup support programming from the Magnuson Center provided over $75k in funding to help founders make progress on their ventures and continue our commitment to supporting innovators in our ecosystem who choose to push new ideas forward.
2026 Magnuson Startup Competition
On Saturday, May 9, after being selected from over 30 aspiring student startups, 10 finalist teams pitched in Filene Auditorium for a shot at prize funding. They were each given 4 minutes to pitch their idea, followed by questions from our judges: Magnuson Center Board of Advisors Chair Andrea Johnson ‘91, Magnuson Center Board of Advisors member Mark Bernfeld ‘78, and Barry Schweitzer, PhD ‘82, Associate Director of the Magnuson Center.
The Jeff Crowe ‘78 Grand Prize was awarded to RealPact, founded by Ranvir Deshmukh ‘26 and Erik Peterson ‘27, providing the team with $20,000 to help scale their AI solutions for real estate brokers.
“Winning the pitch competition honestly felt unreal. We weren’t expecting it and we’re incredibly grateful to the Magnuson Center and Venture Studio for the opportunity to share what we’re building. The support and encouragement meant a lot to us, and we’re excited to keep building from here,” says Deshmukh.
Also receiving awards were GyroGel, founded by PhD Innovation Program Fellow Peter Bertone and Levi Olevsky, Thayer ‘26, winning $5,000, and Vaskular AI, founded by Victoria King ‘27, earning $2,500.
Founder Grants
The Magnuson Center offers Founder Grants each fall and spring, and this spring’s cohort of grantees received over 20k in funds to help them experiment and learn.
“We had 43 pitches from across campus, and the 12 finalist teams all made compelling pitches to earn some funding to move forward,” says Roy Schmidt, Program Manager for Startup Support. “Given the strength of this term’s applications, I think we need to figure out a way to increase our budget for this program!”
Congratulations to the following recipients:
FlexCommit - $2,500: Katie Kleinknecht, Tuck ‘27, and Nina Wilk, Tuck ‘27, are commercializing technology that aims to reduce emissions from energy generation, developed by Dartmouth professor Jim Smith and Duke professor David Brown.
Voima - $2,000: Emmanuel Dey ‘28 is building a platform to help people with sickle cell disease. “Voima was born from seeing how preventable health crises continue to impact millions of patients globally. This support from the Magnuson Center helps us continue building technology that shifts care from reactive treatment to proactive prevention.”
Fluent Communication - $3,000: Thomas Thesen, PhD, Jonathan Lichtenstein, PsyD, MBA, Simon Stone, PhD, and Karen Blackmon, PhD, have developed an AI platform for conversation training, building on the success of the AI Patient Actor tool for medical students. Lichtenstein says, “We are thrilled to be recipients of the Magnuson Founder Grant! These funds are going to support our product's transition from academic project to commercialized entity. We know this is going to be a worthwhile investment in our young company. Thank you!”
Ingenerex - $3,000: Sam Li ‘27, Sarah Parigela ‘27, and PhD candidate Chinmay Vaidya are building a platform to create transgenic toolkits for new organisms.
edugen - $1,500: Moin Mattar ‘28 says, “This support comes at an incredibly meaningful time as we continue building edugen, and it will help us accelerate development over the summer as we work toward bringing more adaptive and interactive STEM learning experiences to students.”
Vincere - $1,500: Jacob Crawford ‘27 and his co-founder Zachary Gordon are working to commercialize their innovative solution for production of lightweight, conformal electronic surfaces with technical advisor William Scheideler, Associate Professor of Engineering.
Wall Street Bound - $1,000: Tari Kandemiri, Tuck ‘27, says, “Receiving the Founder Grant gives me the resources to scale Wall Street Bound ahead of the fall recruiting season, ensuring our infrastructure is ready to help even more candidates practice and fine-tune the exact skills they need for their interviews. Knowing that the Magnuson Center believes in me and my mission means so much, and I am excited to continue building!”
1HeliX - $2,000: MD/MBA Candidate ‘27 Aaron Rubanowitz is building an AI-powered federated platform for genetics data to improve clinical and scientific outcomes.
Gradient Path - $1,500: Co-founded by Geisel students Vishva Natarajan and Ravi Sandhu, the team says, "We’re grateful to the Magnuson Center for supporting Gradient Path as we work to make high-quality virtual staining more accessible for high-impact therapeutic development and translational research. This grant will help us take the next step toward building the platform and validating it with early users."
Pest OS - $1,000: Co-founded by Jack Cook ‘26 and Jacob Posner ‘27, Pest OS is building AI customer service solutions for pest and wildlife operators.
ANNA2 - $750: Annabelle Morrow ‘28 and Anna Beeson ‘28 are designing a new clothing line featuring reversible, multi-functional pieces delivering more value with fewer items.
Sprout - $750: Ahmed Rafique Choudhry, Thayer ‘28, and Aikins Acheampong, Thayer ‘28, are building low-cost agricultural technology for regions underserved by current solutions. "The support and guidance from Magnuson Center will help us tremendously in building Sprout and prototyping tools to make a real difference for smallholder farmers in Asia and Africa."
The Class of 2005 Grant
The Class of 2005 Grant is awarded to recognize an undergraduate founder who has demonstrated their commitment and shown traction with their venture. The $2,500 award is intended to be an accelerant to help take an existing project to the next level.
This year’s recipient is The New Critic, founded by Tessa Augsberger ‘26, Rufus Knuppel ‘26 and Elan Kluger ‘26. The team previously won a Founder Grant in Spring 2025 in support of their mission to create the longform gen z nonfiction serial magazine. Since then, they have continued to grow their audience with their singular vision to build a sustainable creative community and unique media brand. Now they are ready to go all in to keep building full-time after graduation.
“I’m so impressed with this team and I really appreciate their dedication to building a quality creative brand for this audience, offering a showcase of talented young writers and artists who directly counter short attention spans and generative AI shortcuts,” says Schmidt of this year’s recipient.
Wily Initiatives Fund
The Wily Initiatives Fund was established to promote off-term undergraduate internships at early-stage, technology-focused startups. Recently, the program was adjusted to focus on summer full-time opportunities, providing $10,000 both to offset internship costs as well as recognize the commitment to have a meaningful learning experience in a fast-paced, unpredictable startup setting.
Two students were selected to receive the grant for this summer:
Anjali Phadnis, Thayer ‘28, will be working at GyroGel in both Hanover and Boston.
Daniel Choi ‘27 will be working at LP Search Engine in New York City.
SBIR/STTR Proposal Assistance Grant
This year’s recipient of the SBIR/STTR Proposal Assistance Grant is Rebecca Ashley Valls in support of her startup Axobiome’s development of potential new treatments for patients with cystic fibrosis and other gut-related diseases.
The SBIR/STTR Proposal Assistance Grant will provide grant writing assistance for Valls and her team as they prepare a September 2026 application for Phase I funding from the NIH to help bring their technology to market.
This grant provides up to 25 hours of professional grant writing support from the Tn Consulting team, experts in preparing competitive SBIR & STTR funding applications.
Congratulations to all of the awardees!
Regardless of where you are in your startup journey, any new founders in the Dartmouth community looking for support should schedule office hours with Roy Schmidt to learn how the Magnuson Center may be able to help.