Taking place over three days between Friday April 11 and Sunday April 13, USC and Techstars Startup Weekend 2025, put on by USC and the Techstars Digital Economy Program, had a convincing turnout. Dozens of participants from the Trojan community attended to pitch ideas, build teams, and launch startups during an immersive event in which they were connected to mentors, investors, co-founders, and sponsors who offered unique insight into commercializing the startup ideas of participants.
This was the second annual event of its kind, where attendees had the opportunity to put their startup ideas in competition with others in front of three judges: Managing Director of the Office of Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Ralph Lin, Founder and CEO of RxPlace Patty Bollenbach, and the Managing Director of Techstars Gabe Schlumberger. The ideas pitched spanned several fields including DeepTech, Health/BioTech, AI, EdTech, and FinTech.
Eleven USC schools were represented, with participants hailing from the Viterbi School of Engineering, Marshall School of Business, Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, Iovine and Young Academy, Keck School of Medicine, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Rossier School of Education, Alfred E. Mann. School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Gould School of Law, School of Architecture, and Sol Price School of Public Policy.
On the first day, participants met other builders over food as well as mentors and speakers. After hearing from Steve Moldin, the Associate Vice President of Research Strategy & Innovation, participants pitched their ideas, voted for the ones that would be used, and formed working teams that they would stick with for the rest of the weekend.
On the second day, under the mentorship of industry experts, teams cultivated viable pitches to market their products. After a masterclass on startup fundamentals, they broke into groups to get to work. The day also consisted of a workshop on licensing and patenting ideas, one on building an MVP, and one on one mentoring sessions between teams and mentors with industry experience.
On the third day, completed proposals were pitched in final presentations. Participants also got to network further and attend a masterclass on pitching ideas. After dinner the winners were announced. Winners received certificates and gift bags.
Third place went to a startup called Thera, which provides a platform for therapists to scale their practice, offering AI-trained digital twins. Leading the initiative were Avani Bedagkar, Kailin Rutherford, and Nibin Nithyanandhamrepresenting, respectively, the Keck School of Medicine, Marshall School of Business and Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and the Viterbi School of Engineering.
Second went to one called Data Care, which provides software built to streamline pre-authorization forms for medical providers. Among the leads of this startup are Swapnil Kumar and Katherine Nguyen of the Marshall as well as Arpita Sharma of Dornsife.
Taking home the gold was a startup by the name of Tummi. Tummi provides a real-time gut health tracker inside the cap of a water bottle. Their tag line is “Your gut talks—Tummi listens.” First among leaders for this startup was Kenzi Feliciano, representing the Viterbi School of Engineering.
Techstars is the most active pre-seed investor in the world, its accelerator program consisting of over 4,000 companies.In collaboration with USC, the next step for Techstars is the University Catalyst, a part-time, virtual, ten-week, pre-accelerator program. Currently applications are being accepted for participation in it. Following, startups and companies will have the chance to partake in the USC and Techstars Digital Economy Accelerator, a thirteen-week program taking place on the campus of USC whose inaugural cohort launched in March of this year.
For more information on the USC and Techstars University Catalyst you can visit the Techstars website (https://sites.google.com/techstars.com/usc-techstars/university-catalyst & https://www.techstars.com/usc-and-techstars-university-catalyst). Information about the USC Innovation Ecosystem, USC’s hub for entrepreneurial innovation led by the Office of Research and Innovation, can be found on this website (https://innovation.usc.edu/who-we-are/).