NuLife Kicks is on Its Way for a Chance to Win a Total of Over $50,000 in Prizes

28 Student Teams Selected as Annual Pitch Competition Semi-Finalists


From over 130 nominations, 28 student teams from 24 schools have been selected as semi-finalists in the 2022 Blackstone LaunchPad Pitch Competition. They will compete to be one of five finalists pitching for a chance to win a total of over $50,000 in prize money and in-kind prizes.

Nominated by Campus Directors from across the network, these students represent the top candidates based on four criteria: Innovation, Business Model and Viability, Team, and Pitch Quality.

Over the next several weeks, the semi-finalists teams will pitch live to Blackstone LaunchPad judges, who will select the finalists. After receiving ongoing mentoring support from Blackstone Ambassadors, the finalists will pitch live on April 12, on the main stage of the Startup Grind Global Conference in Silicon Valley. The competition will also include a virtual People’s Choice Award, with online voting starting soon, so stay tuned!

With nearly half of the students led by a woman founder and nearly three-quarters led by a student who identifies as BIPOC, the cohort of semifinalists is one of the most diverse groups to participate in a LaunchPad signature program. They demonstrate diversity of industry focus as well, with companies running the gamut from Zuk Fitness, which provides specialized workouts tailored to wheelchair users, to Culturally Kreative, a publishing company aiming to diversify the children’s book industry. More than five of the student founders previously participated in the Blackstone LaunchPad Fellowship, a program geared towards helping earlier stage founders.

Last year’s first place winner was Marla Beyer, founder of pediatric mental-healthcare platform Hopscotch. Read about the other 2021 winners here.

Meet the 2022 LaunchPad Pitch Competition Semifinalists:
T4 Movement UT San Antonio
Algeon Materials UC San Diego
AllergFree UT Southwestern
Bonsai UT Dallas
Clocr UT Austin
CoStudy New York University
Culturally Kreative Spelman College
EthosSphere Cornell University
EV Motorworks University at Albany
FutrDoc UT Rio Grande Valley
Highlights DR UT Permian Basin
Illumenar Syracuse University
KovaDx UC Berkeley
Middlemen UC San Diego
Mindset & Milestones UC Los Angeles
Nailerz CUNY City College
Nex Generation Quantum CUNY Baruch
Nile Hair University of Southern California
NuLife Kicks College of Southern Nevada
OYA UC Los Angeles
REVCORP PC UT El Paso
Sentrify University at Bufffalo
Spikepen UC Irvine
SPORA UC Santa Cruz
StaffOnTap Cornell University
The Giddy Thrifter University of Montana
The Next Step CUNY Brooklyn College
Zuk Fitness University of Southern California