Velocity Digital’s TrainPro excels in March Madness pitch competition
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TrainPro nabbed second place and a $5,000 prize in a March Madness-style pitch competition in which 64 student teams from universities across Canada participated.
Organized by Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, the competition mimicked the NCAA March Madness basketball competition.
But instead of basketball, teams pitched their business idea.
TrainPro, co-founded by fourth year mechanical engineering students Anna Liebenberg and Shreshth Mehra, is developing smart, wearable sports clothing that gives auditory and visual feedback to correct users’ workout form, providing the same benefits as a personal trainer.
Anna said having access to Velocity programs and advisers was beneficial in preparing for the March Madness competition.
“We’ve had a lot of opportunities to practice our pitches...and having the advisers to ask questions has been helpful as well — we met with one adviser or another every week.”
TrainPro was one of the four finalists at Velocity’s $5K pitch competition fall term 2022. In the handful of months since then, the team has reached important milestones.
“At the $5K we just had a conception of the tech,” Shreshth said. “Now we have a prototype and soon we’ll be giving it to users to get feedback.”
He said being part of Velocity Digital has been instrumental in reaching these milestones.
“Through Velocity Digital we have access to multiple hardware resources,” Shreshth said. “The community that has developed in Velocity Digital is also highly encouraging, giving us new ideas and resources we need.”
Anna and Shreshth plan on working full time on TrainPro after graduating this spring.
