Eight student teams pitched real VCs in the middle of finals — and they were on point | Silicon Valley

Addressing the room at the Startup Pitch Showcase, Shilpi Padhy tapped into both the excitement and trepidation that comes with new ideas. An entrepreneur and the CEO founder of Authentified.io, she was in attendance as a judge for the upcoming student presentations.

“This time is beautiful,” she said, addressing the aspiring entrepreneurs gathered for the event. “Your canvas is completely empty; you can do whatever you want. At this time, this moment is very important and beautiful… This is the moment you’re crafting your dream.”

Also volunteering their expertise on the panel of judges were Nao Shibata, venture capital associate at BGV and manager at Marubeni America Corporation; Jerry Zhu, investor associate at Plug and Play Ventures; Jose Sampedro Mazon, MS in Computer Science student, founding researcher and industry partnerships lead with the AI-focused student-faculty group NEURAI Lab, and former principal at Mach49; and Ilmi Yoon, teaching professor and director of computing programs for the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at the Silicon Valley campus.

The format of the event was a fast-paced face off between student projects. Each team had five minutes to give their best power pitch, followed by five minutes of questions and feedback from the judges.

Holding a microphone and dressed in a white blazer, the lead judge speaks with a smile and holds up a finger while making a point.

Shilpi Padhy addresses the students assembled to give their pitches for the judges.

Essential skills for entrepreneurs

Perhaps more than anywhere else, in Silicon Valley the origin tale of the founders working out of the proverbial garage is as embedded in a company’s public profile as its mission statement. A new venture begins building its own mythology from day one as a way to attract funding and market share.

And the trends show that striking out with a new idea is a path followed by an increasing number of young people. Since the 2020 pandemic, many have responded to uncertainty in the market by launching their own businesses, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Of those, the highest participation rates in the U.S. are amongst those aged 18 to 34, a change from earlier years.

Innovative ideas and groundbreaking technology are the core of a successful new tech business, but the pitch comes in very soon after those foundations are established. It’s not a skill that comes naturally to everyone, and can be a dreaded part of launching a business.

The pitch showcase was a first attempt at pitching to an audience for many of the participating students, and an opportunity to demystify the process and sharpen their narratives.

Jose Sampedro-Mazon, leveraging his experience as a VC and AI startup entrepreneur, has taken on a role as an advisor on entrepreneurship for the Dean’s office. He acted as a mentor and coach to support the teams in preparing their pitch. Through several office hours sessions, students received feedback on market seizing, business models, and pitch format. The teams stretched to go from “technical R&D idea” to a business venture.

A row of judges is seen listening to the presentation, some taking notes, as the student gestures to her deck and speaks

The panel of judges listen as Preethi Shyam pitches PrismAI

Top placing pitches excelled by selling both their concept and their team

When the pitches got underway, the creativity and diversity of the groups was evident in the breadth of the industries they targeted with their concepts.

Each presentation showed polish and professionalism, with the teams including the key components of a strong pitch: identification of the problem, definition of the target market share, evaluation of potential revenue, and a clear plan for the development and roll out of the product.

In choosing the winners, Shilpi Padhy explained on behalf of the judges, “we didn’t just look at the idea; we looked at the personas of the founders. Usually what happens is, you start with idea one, you go to idea two, and scale idea three. The founder’s persona is more flexible. Who can execute it? Who can take it from here to there? So this is the first evaluation we did.”

Sales Analytics: PrismAI
First Place

The pitch that ultimately took top prize was presented by MS in AI student Preethi Shyam, for a venture for which she plans to be CTO and is recruiting teammates. Responding to gaps she saw in her previous role at a major B2C corporation, she proposed a business intelligence platform that uses conversational insights and agentic automation to give non-technical decision-makers tools to identify sales trends and insights.

International Real Estate Investment: Nihonkey
Second Place

Japan has famously struggled in recent years with an increasing number of vacant properties. Seeing the comparatively low prices on some of the homes, students Xiajun Yu, Weijia Kang, and Kun Xu were inspired to create Nihonkey, an app that aggregates listings of these properties for potential buyers in more expensive markets. The app combines a property search engine with guided advice for acquiring property.

Skincare and Beauty: Trace
Runner Up

Students Siyuan (Ash) Liang and Danyang Huang teamed up to create a mobile app for users to track the effects of their skincare routine using product ingredient analysis and computer vision. Users log the products that they use in their routine along with a daily photo, and an AI analysis for the presence of features like redness, pore visibility, and scarring identifies the results over time and recommends products based on the evidence.

Members of the Nihonkey team react to their second place win

An exciting portfolio of projects with unique proposals

“I was amazed at the curve of learning from initial idea to this crisp messaging that you all had, and the polish of the slides was amazing, too,” said Silicon Valley Dean Caroline Simard, speaking after the final pitch. “I’m impressed that you did this during finals and in less than a month, too.”

Each of the other teams also offered a well-crafted pitch for consideration, making for a competitive pool.

Consumer Home Furnishing: Ottera

Siyi Gao, an MS in Computer Science student at Northeastern and a Stanford Ignite Fellow, pitched an AI-powered solution for furnishing a new home. Using photos or floorplans, the proposed app incorporates a visual design tool, one-click shopping from multiple vendors, and a resale market amongst members. A week later, Gao went on to pitch to another group of investors as a part of the TiE Silicon Valley University Mentors program.

Commercial Drone Software: Drone Ranger

A drone system that integrate vision-based perception, agentic decision making, and autonomous control over the hardware itself — “Drone as a Service” for various industry needs. This project was pitched by Xiaoman (Rip) Zou, Chunzhang (Sam) Liu, Renxiant (David) Yin, and Zhipeng Ling (with PI Ilmi Yoon and further R&D contributions from Jiading Zhou, Haoran Lyu, Tanishq Pradhan, Tiantian Wang, and Danyang Huang).

Standing at the lectern next to a screen showing an image of a living room with the name of the proposed furnishing app, Ottera, a student pauses and makes an expression of contemplation after hearing a question from the judges.

Siyi Gao considers a question from the judges during her pitch of Ottera

Productivity Software: Orbit

Professionals working remotely, especially early in their careers, can suffer from a lack of engagement with their teams, noted Siting Wen and David Kuo, the team behind a proposed “AI coworker” app. Using AI analysis of a user’s voice and facial expressions, their app offers real-time encouragement and a tracking dashboard.

Mental Health: SimPath AI

An AI-powered mental health crisis response training platform with the ability to generate voice-based roleplaying scenarios that adapt to the progress of the responder in training. The team includes Fanchao Yu, who is herself a former hotline crisis responder, and teammates Vatsal Mehta and Zinan Zhang.

Sports Talent Scouting: Laksh.AI

Students Parv Paditia, Dishaa Bornare, and Yash Gupta created a standardized dashboard where student cricket players throughout India can log their stats for scouts to view. The solution addresses inequalities and inefficiencies in the professional draft which shut out many rising players.

Three young men stand at the front of the room, two at a lectern at the side while the third stands in front of the projection screen. He gestures at a blue slide with illustrations. The judges are seen in the foreground.

The Drone Ranger team presenting to the panel of judges.

A campus culture of research and development

This event was the first of its kind on campus, but part of a strong cross-departmental focus on nurturing students as they explore independent research, entrepreneurship, and other forms of R&D.

Regular events like student research showcases and visits from industry recruiters and VCs offer opportunities for everyone on campus to become familiar with how to build a self-directed project.

For Ash Liang, one of the founders of Trace, the throughline traced back to an earlier “Vibe Coding” AI workshop where students had formed teams to go from idea to prototype and pitch in 90 minutes. Dr. Yoon, who had organized the event earlier in the fall, invited her to support as a teaching assistant. Liang found the experience transformative.

“In order to do that role well,” she shared, “I studied a lot about vibe coding. That learning later became the foundation that allowed me to build the MVP for the Trace app. Without our school’s platform, there would have been no Trace as it exists today. This opportunity gave me direction, motivation, and the confidence to try.”

Eight student teams pitched real VCs in the middle of finals — and they were on point