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NCET2 Competition Winners

WASHINGTON, D.C – Two local companies affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison – Centrose and AquaMost LLC – emerged with top honors from the National University Startups (NCET2) Competition held in Washington D.C. The two were chosen from among a field of more than 400 U. S. start up companies during the competition held at last fall’s annual University Startups Conference.

Centrose, a biotechnology company that is applying scientific breakthroughs in sugar chemistry to discover, develop and commercialize small molecule therapeutics, placed third. The company is headquartered in Madison and started operations in 2007 based on research of Professor Jon Thorsen of the UW-Madison School of Pharmacy. Centrose co-founder and CEO  James Prudent presented an overview of the company to NCET2 conference attendees.

Placing sixth in the competition was AquaMost, a company based on the research of Professor Marc Anderson of the UW-Madison College of Engineering. AquaMost has invented a new water purification device that can convert aqueous ammonia directly into nitrogen gas, thereby eliminating contaminants and unwanted microorganisms from water.  President Terry Barry represented the company in Washington and presented the AquaMost overview at the competition finals.

Both companies completed several presentations via an online showcase platform to over 300 venture capital, angel investor and university judges.  This inaugural competition was primarily designed to provide a forum for exposure, education and feedback to entrepreneurs and universities on the subject of how to create top-level investment-worthy university spin-outs. In all, ten UW-Madison startups participated in the national competition, including Marvel Medtech, Platypus Technologies, Echometrix, AhR Pharmaceuticals, Stemina, BioInfoRx, DriveAlternatives.com, and Windlift.

UW-Madison co-hosted the 2008 National University Startups conference with Columbia University. The annual event is produced by the National Council for Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer and is co-organized by National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
 
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For more information on the University Startups Competition or University Startups Conference, please visit http://www.ncet2.org or call Tony Stanco at 202-580-8382 or PR@ncet2.org .