CoMotion’s Spring 2021 DubPitch Brings Together UW Startups and Investors

The power of innovation was on full display at the Spring ‘21 CoMotion DubPitch event on Wednesday, May 19th. Nine startups from the University of Washington gathered online to pitch their companies to a worldwide audience of investors and venture capitalists.

A crucial part of the startup journey is connecting with the right investors to support research, prototyping, testing, regulatory applications, marketing, and more, to ultimately help move an innovation closer to impact. CoMotion’s twice yearly DubPitch event creates the space for these connections by bringing together startups from the UW ecosystem and investors to exchange ideas and potential investment opportunities. DubPitch features startups from a broad range of sectors including medical/life science, therapeutics/diagnostics, engineering, IT, cleantech, software, and hardware.

Teams presented a wide range of innovations including:

Retinal imaging augmented by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI)
Light-activated dyes harnessing the power of oxygen to destroy pathogens
Over-the-counter, self-fitting hearing aid systems
Solutions for managing and restoring microbiome health
An AI-based solution helping people with neurological challenges live and communicate more independently
A machine-free device for sleep apnea and snoring
Molecular diagnostics enabling fast, lab-quality COVID-19 testing from home
Automated air quality monitoring system
Organic electro-optic (OEO) materials for the future of photonic computing

To keep DubPitch as interactive as possible, teams and audience members gathered over the virtual event app Remo. Each startup had ten minutes to share key information about their innovations, teams, and plans. The presentations were followed by a live Q&A from the DubPitch Slack channel.

New this year, an added Slack channel provided dedicated streams for teams to add details about their companies and what they were seeking in investment. In some cases, this led to meetings even before the event began. The final hour of the event was dedicated to networking where investors mingled with the entrepreneurs and learned more about each team.

The next CoMotion DubPitch will be held in fall 2021. Investors interested in attending may contact us here.

Learn more about the innovative startups that participated in Spring 2021 DubPitch below: