2019 McCloskey new venture competition results

17 area teams were awarded more than $350,000 in cash and in-kind prizes at the 2019 McCloskey New Venture Competition on Friday, April 12.

Resonado and Vital View Technologies split the $50,000 McCloskey Grand Prize, which is awarded to teams founded by Notre Dame students or alumni. Frost Control Systems and Game Changer split the $50,000 Startup South Bend-Elkhart/Elevate Ventures Grand Prize, which is awarded to the top community based teams.

Altogether, $209,500 was awarded as cash and $160,000 was given as in-kind prizes such as banking, tax, legal and intellectual property support.

Teams presented before a panel of nationally-known judges and 600 attendees in the Dahnke Ballroom at the University of Notre Dame stadium. Charles Adler, co-founder of Kickstarter; Rick Smith, co-founder and managing director of CrossCut Ventures; Matt Strottman, alumnus, COO of In-Q-Tel; Paul English, CTO of Lola.com and co-founder of Kayak, GetHuman and Boston Light; Courtney Kingston, founder of Kingston Family Vineyards; John Tabis, alumnus, founder and CEO of The Bouqs Company and Tim Connors, alumnus, founder of PivotNorth Capital served as this year’s final round judges.

The McCloskey competition began in 2001 with $30,000 in awards and 70 teams. Now in its nineteenth year, the competition gave out more than $350,000 in prize money and attracted a record 175 teams in 2019.

Teams from the South Bend-Elkhart community could also compete for prizes, with more than $100,000 being available to them.

“We were very pleased with how McCloskey went this year,” said Karen Slaggert, director of the McCloskey competition and director of student entrepreneurship at the IDEA Center. “Each year the quality of the pitches at McCloskey increase and this year was no exception. The teams did a fantastic job during their presentations and the panelists were very engaged with them throughout.”