Announcing the finalists for the 2025 Velocity Pitch Competition: All Stars

The Velocity Pitch Competition (VPC) provides equity-free funding to early-stage startups to help remove some of the barriers that hinder innovation and entrepreneurial growth. This year, the competition features a first-place award of $25,000, bringing together exceptional current and past Waterloo founders to compete head-to-head.

Join us to witness ambitious startups as they pitch their groundbreaking ideas, providing a glimpse into the future of innovation. The competition also serves as a platform to support Velocity's most promising new founders as they present their ventures, offering encouragement and recognition for their entrepreneurial endeavors.  

We are pleased to announce this year's VPC finalists:

CELLECT.

CELLECT. revolutionizes women's health with a non-invasive device embedded in menstrual products, enabling easy cervical cancer and HPV screening by collecting and preserving cells from menstrual blood. This innovative solution improves access to life-saving diagnostics, particularly for women in underserved regions, while paving the way for broader reproductive health applications.

• CT Murphy (BASc ’23, MASc in progress), Co-founder/CEO
• Ibukun Elebute (BEng ‘14, MSc ‘20, MBET in progress), Co-founder/COO

Doro

Doro is your AI-powered coach offering immediate support to prevent everyday stressors from developing into severe mental health issues. It provides personalized guidance to help you improve your lifestyle and well-being.

• Rastin Rassoli (BCS in progress), founder/CEO

GreaseTech

GreaseTech automatically verifies that your manufacturing equipment is being lubricated properly and helps manage the manual lubrication preventative maintenance processes in your facility.

• Jesurun Ramesh (MBet ’24), co-founder/CEO  
• Nathan Wong (BCS in progress), co-founder/CTO)

GrownStone

GrownStone creates sustainable construction material by transforming construction and agricultural waste (such as corn stover and bean pods) into innovative building supplies.

• Daniel Gonzalez (MES ’19), co-founder
• Adrian Simone (BASc ‘23), co-founder/CEO

MapMate

MapMate is a platform designed for farmers, organizations and cooperatives to streamline farm management and agricultural value chain operations. With customizable modules for tracking inputs, inventory, and farmer profiling, it enhances coordination, optimizes resource allocation, and reduces inefficiencies

• Kwaku Owusu Twum (PhD and MBET in progress) co-founder/President
• Daniel Buston (BA ’11), co-founder

NewGen Health

NewGen Health focuses on creating a non-invasive test to detect kidney function. Our mission is to provide affordable and convenient health monitoring solutions that empower people to take control of their health.

• Shiv Naik (BSc ’22), co-founder/CSO
• Mazhar Shahen (MASc in progress), co-founder/CEO

PatientCompanion

PatientCompanion is a modern, user-friendly, and fully customizable patient care platform that empowers nurses to deliver exceptional care.

• Ethan Alvizo (BASc ’24), Co-founder
• Christy Lee (BASc ’24), Co-founder

Swish Solar

Swish Solar is developing self-cleaning solar panel technology to prevent losses caused by snow and sand accumulation. Unlike inefficient and unsustainable cleaning methods, Swish’s solution offers a more effective, cost-efficient, and sustainable way to maintain solar panel performance.

• Amirhossein Borer (MEng ’24), co-founder/CTO
• Miswar Akhtar Syed (MASc’24), co-founder/CEO

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Judging this year's competition

‍Ross Robinson, general partner, Velocity Fund

Ross began his VC career as an application reviewer for Y Combinator, screening over 12,000 companies before returning to University of Waterloo to support entrepreneurs at Velocity, where he served as a business advisor, fund lead, and interim director. A founder himself, he started his first company at Velocity in 2010 and later co-founded Tinker (YC ’14), a cryptocurrency market maker that dominated Canadian Bitcoin trading. Over the past two years, he has led 30 new investments and advised over 70 companies as they scale from pre-seed to Series A.

Danielle Rose, CEO and Co-Founder, Ceragen

Danielle is the CEO of Ceragen, a biotechnology company that is pioneering the field of precision microbiome engineering through a combination of inoculant products and data-driven microbiome engineering software. Her mission is to revolutionize agriculture by helping help farmers increase their crop yields through plant microbiome engineering.  

Danielle is a microbiologist and entrepreneur who is passionate about using synthetic biology to solve tough problems and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2023. She brings a wealth of experience in sustainable AgTech and other biotech-related investments. Danielle has a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from the University of Guelph.  

Sarah Willson, principal, Panache Ventures

Sarah is a Principal at Panache Ventures, a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm investing in Canadian founders at the earliest stages of building transformational companies. Sarah is also a Professor at the Schulich School of Business, where she teaches a course called Financing Growing Ventures. Her experience building her own consumer marketplace allows her to deeply understand the challenges founders face in the early days of building their companies. She also hosts regular office hours to support founders as they navigate similar challenges and other key business decisions.

Join us

Come out to the Velocity Pitch Competition: All Stars on April 1st to watch. The competition kicks-off at 7:00 pm. Register to attend – limited capacity.