On April 23, 2025, the Galant Challenge returned to UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce to connect innovative seed- and early-stage ventures with investors. One of the nation’s premier university startup events, the annual “Demo Day”-style pitch competition hosted by McIntire’s Galant Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, welcomed six finalist companies who were selected to present.
This year’s edition of the Galant Challenge raised the stakes: The first UVA-connected venture capital cohort (“VC Cohort”) were invited to bring both startups and their capital to the event. The new approach resulted in all six finalist teams securing funding with a total commitment exceeding $5 million.
All told, since the Challenge began in 2012, the judges have invested more than $35 million in the ventures selected to pitch.
Panel of Judges and VC Cohort
This year, Galant Center for Entrepreneurship Founder Mark Galant (McIntire ’80), CEO, Tydall Investment Partners, welcomed fellow Challenge judges Elizabeth Blankenship-Singh (Darden ’22), Senior Associate, Overlay Capital; Aditi Rajagopal (Darden ’21), Principal, Good Growth Capital; and David Zusman (McIntire ’97), Managing Partner, GoPoint Ventures.
In addition to Blankenship-Singh, Rajagopal, and Zusman, the new VC Cohort included alumni from McIntire, the College of Arts & Sciences, Darden, and the School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. The by-invitation group of venture capital professionals comprises University alumni who come together as representatives of their respective firms to share potential investments with each other and introduce the UVA venture community to founders of some of the country’s top early-stage startups who presented at the event.
According to Challenge moderator Professor Eric Martin, Director of both the Galant Center and McIntire’s Entrepreneurship Minor, the VC Cohort supports due diligence of those UVA-affiliated venture entrants, while members of the Cohort “enjoy the opportunity to invest in the amazing startup talent found among UVA’s students, faculty, staff, and alumni.” Martin explains that the group acts as “an extension of the amazing angel investors—including in the past Paul Tudor Jones (A&S ’76), John Griffin (McIntire ’85), Baiju Bhatt, and CAV Angels—who have historically invested in the Galant Challenge’s entrants. To sum it up, the Galant Challenge is about showcasing the University’s standout founders and funders that create a network leading to outsized entrepreneurial success.”
A key outcome enhanced by the inclusion of the VC Cohort concerns maintaining the level of investment offered each year to Challenge participants: “Millions of dollars is a regular occurrence,” confirms Martin. “The startups brought to UVA by the VC Cohort expose our attendees to the highest-caliber founders and concepts, and the VC’s due diligence provides real-world experience to our community members when it becomes time for them to raise funding. Finally, the VC Cohort creates an investor community already working together on promising deals.”
CAV Angels
Rich Diemer (McIntire ’80), Managing Director of longtime Galant Challenge partner CAV Angels, spoke briefly about the organization to attendees. A nonprofit network composed of alumni, faculty, parents, students, and friends of the University, CAV Angels has an education-focused mission, with an interest in enhancing the University’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by connecting, funding, and mentoring the extended UVA startup community. Diemer noted that CAV Angels counts a growing number of more than 350 student members from across the University and explained that in the eight years since the organization’s founding, they have already invested in 57 companies, with 43 active. In addition, their high level of engagement resulted in being ranked the 16th active angel network by the Angel Capital Association (ACA); within the top 20, CAV Angels is the youngest network, the only group based in Virginia, and the lone group focused on an educational institution.
Galant Challenge Sponsor Wilson Sonsini Law Firm
Scott McKinney, Partner at Wilson Sonsini in its technology transactions group, serves as Founder and leader of the global law firm’s AI practice. McKinney discussed the firm’s extensive history as being purpose-built to service technology and life sciences startups along with their investors and partners. He also noted that as part of the Challenge sponsorship, Wilson Sonsini would be providing free services to all of the finalists.
Galant Challenge Teams
Buzz Solutions
Kicking off the Challenge, Kaitlyn Albertoli, Co-Founder and CEO of Buzz Solutions represented the first finalist company invited by the VC Cohort to present. Introducing the company as a vision-powered intelligence platform aimed at transforming energy infrastructure maintenance, Albertoli explained how Buzz Solutions helps utilities tackle challenges like aging infrastructure, labor shortages, and grid stress from renewable integration by using machine learning to process visual data from drones and cameras. Highlighting the company’s journey from its 2017 launch at Stanford University to commercial success, Albertoli noted their collaboration with major utilities such as Dominion Energy, where Buzz Solutions significantly reduced manual inspection times. With $1.8 million in annual recurring revenue and strong backing from investors like GoPoint Ventures, the company focuses on innovation and expanding into the renewable energy market.
“The opportunity to share our vision alongside such passionate, innovative founders was both humbling and inspiring,” says Albertoli. “The event and its ecosystem do an amazing job of bringing together entrepreneurs and venture capital to support and grow impactful ideas, and I was grateful for the opportunity to participate.”
Chordia
Mehul Vora (Darden ’04, M.S. in MIT ’05), a McIntire and Darden graduate, presented Chordia, emphasizing the company’s mission to revolutionize customer service in the call center industry by enhancing, not replacing, human agents with voice AI technology. Building on the success of their first venture, Matchbox, Chordia offers solutions like automated AI evaluations and live agent assist, improving call quality assurance from the current 4% sampling rate to complete oversight. Vora highlighted Chordia’s zero integration and immediate onboarding, offering high customer ROI through a subscription model, and showcased a proprietary evaluation portal used by supervisors and managers for real-time feedback on call quality. Founded on principles of capital efficiency and technological innovation, Chordia has already processed over half a million minutes of call volume across continents and is expanding its pipeline of prospective customers globally. The company was seeking funding in its seed round to advance infrastructure and scale operations in the rapidly evolving voice AI market.
Coral Innovations
Vikas Nandwana, Co-Founder and CTO of another VC Cohort invitee, Coral Innovations, showcased a unique water remediation solution, emphasizing its efficiency and eco-friendliness. He underscored the critical issue of water contamination, with over 100 trillion gallons of wastewater generated annually across various industries. Nandwana detailed inherent flaws in existing solutions, namely inefficiency, high operational costs, and environmental hazards, thus creating a demand for Coral Innovations’ proprietary nanotechnology-based sponge. This innovative sponge deploys a custom nanostructure coating to selectively extract pollutants such as oils, heavy metals, and organics from water and offers reusability, significantly reducing both costs and physical waste.
Nandwana highlighted successful pilots across diverse markets, from stormwater management to oil spills, establishing efficacy in lowering pollutants and costs. The technology’s competitive edge over traditional filtration media and sorbent pads—given its reusability and reduced environmental footprint—has already generated revenue, albeit currently constrained by manufacturing limitations. With an upcoming manufacturing expansion, Coral Innovations is poised to ramp up production and profitability, raising $4 million in seed funding for further R&D and commercialization efforts. Spearheaded by an experienced team led by executive chairman Professor Vinayak Dhawan of Northwestern University, Coral Innovations aims to revolutionize water treatment by offering sustainable, efficient, and profitable solutions.
“It was an incredible opportunity to share our mission at Coral Innovations with a room full of thoughtful investors, mentors, and fellow entrepreneurs,” says Nandwana. “The experience helped us build valuable relationships, and even led to a couple of investment commitments, a clear sign of the momentum the Challenge helped us build.”
PS Fertility
Jeff Lysiak, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, and Kevin Combs, Co-Founder and CEO, of Charlottesville-based PS Fertility, presented their revolutionary approach to male infertility through the company’s PS Detect test. Lysiak introduced the company’s scientific breakthrough, explaining that traditional semen analysis tests are inadequate for predicting fertility, as they overlook sperm competency, the ability to fertilize an egg. Drawing from his research conducted as a UVA professor during his more than 25 years on Grounds, Lysiak revealed that phosphatidylserine, a molecule found on sperm, is essential for fertilization, and its inhibition leads to infertility. PS Fertility’s test evaluates this molecule, generating a PS score to more accurately determine male fertility. With their recent launch in early April, their market strategy focuses on engaging reproductive urologists to incorporate this novel test, which also relieves women of the traditional diagnostic burdens. Offering an at-home testing service for privacy, the firm aims to enhance fertility outcomes and reduce stress on women. Combs emphasized the company’s robust advisory team and business scalability, citing vast opportunities in a market conducting millions of tests annually and predicting a significant trajectory of growth.
“PS Fertility was honored to be selected as a finalist in the Galant Challenge, as the program offers a unique opportunity to pitch to several investor classes across the startup ecosystem at one time,” says Combs. “Mark Galant’s noted success in identifying topflight companies, bringing together groups of recognized and respected investors, along with the affiliation of one of the top business schools in the country, provided PS Fertility with a great opportunity to share our male-side fertility platform and bring in additional investors for our Series A.”
Vendera
Three Class of ’19 McIntire alumni—Ken Lin, along with co-founders Alfred Udquim and Austin Wallace—introduced Vendera, their solution for the vending machine industry. Together, they have crafted an innovative approach that leverages AI and cloud computing to revolutionize retail interactions. Founder and CEO Lin highlighted how Vendera’s AI-powered smart cooler vending machines simplify the purchasing process, allowing operators greater flexibility and insight through an advanced software platform. The team emphasized their technology’s 99.7% accuracy in image and video recognition, tackling theft and optimizing operational costs more effectively than traditional vending solutions. They outlined their strategic engagement across the AI recognition, smart vending solutions, and a complete vending management software ecosystem. With Vendera’s successful market entry, operational efficiency, and plans to raise $1.5 million for scaling operations, they aim to solidify their role in redefining the vending industry through technologically advanced and scalable solutions.
Apis Cor
Anna Cheniuntai, CEO and Co-Founder of Apis Cor, a VC Cohort invite, introduced her company that aims to transform the construction industry by using robots to 3D print full-scale concrete houses. With a background in space physics and over a decade of experience in construction and industrial machinery, Cheniuntai highlighted her journey from managing a small construction company to winning NASA competitions and collaborating with SpaceX. She emphasized Apis Cor’s proprietary technology, which offers a fast and cost-effective solution to the inefficiencies of traditional construction, presenting Frank and Gary, their robotic systems, as a groundbreaking alternative. Unlike competitors that repurpose existing equipment, Apis Cor’s robots are uniquely designed for mobility and efficiency, able to print a building in less than a week with only one operator controlling an iPad. The company’s commitment to transforming construction processes, ensuring predictable timelines, and significantly reducing costs makes it an appealing choice for leading homebuilders like DR Horton, promising substantial savings and an increase in annual housing production. As Apis Cor prepares to scale up, Cheniuntai announced that they aim to complete a pilot project with DR Horton that would unlock further funding and commitment for building more homes, establishing their place in the multi-trillion-dollar housing industry.
