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6/7/2016 REEcycle wins 2016 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition | 20 | 05 | 2016 | News | Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
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6/7/2016 REEcycle wins 2016 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition | 20 | 05 | 2016 | News | Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
http://tees.tamu.edu/news/2016/05/20/reecyclewins2016texasamnewventurescompetition/ 2/9
REEcycle wins 2016 Texas A&M NewVentures Competition
May 20, 2016
An innovative approach to recycling consumer electronics to reclaim the essential
elements inside of them is a step closer to reality after startup company REEcycle was
awarded $50,000 in funding as the top company at the 2016 Texas A&M New
Ventures Competition (TNVC) at Texas A&M University.
The Houston-based based company headed by Co-founder and CEO Casey McNeil
was named ﹗rst-place winner of the competition. The competition, which awarded a
total of $150,000 in cash prizes this year, promotes the commercialization of emerging
technology by recognizing companies with high growth potential. It was hosted by the
Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES).
“This competition is important because lack of funding and visibility canbe challenging for a fledgling company to move to the next level,” said M.Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of Texas A&M Engineering anddirector of TEES. “We must support our faculty, students and researchersas they move research ideas into the marketplace.”
REEcycle reclaims materials known as rare earth elements from recycled electronics.
REEcycle primarily targets neodymium and dysprosium, two rare earth elements
essential to the production of consumer electronics, clean energy technologies and
national defense systems.
“This win for us really means the advancement of a lot of diퟗ阫erent technologies that
we are working on,” McNeil said. “There are some really interesting additions that we
6/7/2016 REEcycle wins 2016 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition | 20 | 05 | 2016 | News | Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
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would like to make to our technology in the way of purifying our materials a little bit
further and also expanding on the conversion of our material alloys – so really just
advancing some of the research we are working on, this funding is absolutely critical
towards furthering.”
REEcycle is the second company to earn top honors at TNVC, which began in 2015 and
was won by Noninvasix, a Galveston-based company developing medical technology
that enables monitoring of a baby’s brain oxygen levels during labor and delivery.
"The Texas A&M New Ventures Competition helps elevate real companies with
credible prospects, and win or lose, the bene﹗ts of competing in such events is
invaluable," said Graham Randall, CEO of Noninvasix. “Since participating, we've been
able to further develop our prototype, make inroads with high-level investors and
clarify our regulatory path with the FDA.”
In addition to REEcycle, ﹗ve other companies were recognized as ﹗nalists and received
prize money. TriFusion Devices earned second-place honors and received $35,000 for
its 3-D printing technology aimed at revolutionizing the health care and sports
equipment industries. Voyager Biomedical Corp. ranked third and received $25,000
for its development of better vascular access technologies for use in dialysis and other
treatments requiring long-term blood access. Fourth-place honors and $15,000 in
prize money were awarded to NuPark, Inc. for its technology to create a virtual
parking permit. Siva Therapeutics Inc., a company developing technology for targeting
therapeutic heat to treat melanoma, was awarded ﹗fth place and $10,000.
CartoFusion Technologies, Inc., ranked sixth and was awarded $5,000 for its mapping
and planning tool for use by public safety and emergency management organizations.
“As one of the first universities to include research commercialization aspart of the tenuregranting process, Texas A&M believes passionately inthe transfer of new and innovative technologies that will improve the livesof the citizens of Texas and beyond,” said Vice President for Research
6/7/2016 REEcycle wins 2016 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition | 20 | 05 | 2016 | News | Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
http://tees.tamu.edu/news/2016/05/20/reecyclewins2016texasamnewventurescompetition/ 4/9
Glen A. Laine. “The Division of Research is excited to be a sponsor of theTexas A&M New Ventures Competition – recognizing and helping viableyoung companies execute their ideas."
As part of the TNVC elevator pitch competition, which gave eight companies the
opportunity to present their technologies in the format of a one-minute pitch, ECM
Technologies took top honors, winning $5,000 for its unique platform technology that
enables non-animal bacterial collagens for medical devices. Acoustic Shield earned
second place and $3,000 for its one-minute pitch of an acoustic gunshot detection
sensor. Rounding out the honorees, Astrapi Corp. ranked third and received $2,000
for its proprietary spiral modulation technology.
“It is exciting for us to see this competition continue to grow and attract such an
amazing group of entrepreneurs,” said Dimitris Lagoudas, deputy director of TEES. “It’s
the work of innovators and thought leaders like the ones who took part in this
competition that will make it into the marketplace and into the hands of the public.”
The daylong competition, which was open to all Texas-based companies seeking to
bring new or enhanced technology to the marketplace, required 16 companies in the
pre-seed/seed, start-up or early growth stages to pitch their ideas to judges that
included angels and venture capitalists, experienced entrepreneurs, non-pro﹗t
founders, legal professionals, patent experts and banking/investment professionals.
The esteemed group of companies was previously selected from a larger pool of
competition applicants prior to the event. In the days leading to the competition,
participants received personal coaching and access to mentor strategists as they
developed their competition business plans and presentation pitches.
“Mays Business School takes very seriously its sustained commitment to support
entrepreneurial excellence fueling innovation and collaboration across local, state,
national and global economies,” said Blake Petty, director of the Center for New
Ventures and Entrepreneurship at Mays Business School. “In that respect, we are
proud to partner in and support the Texas A&M New Ventures Competition, the
6/7/2016 REEcycle wins 2016 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition | 20 | 05 | 2016 | News | Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
http://tees.tamu.edu/news/2016/05/20/reecyclewins2016texasamnewventurescompetition/ 5/9
distinction this program bestows on its participants, and its celebration of
entrepreneurial success for societal bene﹗t.”
Funding for TNVC was made possible by TEES, Texas A&M Division of Research, Mays
Business School, Texas A&M Health Science Center, The Texas A&M University System
and Spirit of Texas Bank. In kind support was provided by the Aggie Angel Network,
the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship, the Department of Biomedical
Engineering and Texas A&M Technology Commercialization.
“We are proud to support the Texas A&M New Ventures Competition, an important
asset for building the startup ecosystem at Texas A&M, particularly in Bryan-College
Station,” said Paul Ogden, M.D., interim senior vice president and chief operating
o即䭰cer, Texas A&M Health Science Center and interim dean, College of Medicine. “This
event is helping develop a culture of entrepreneurship and ﹗lls the gap that exists
locally in providing companies with early-stage, non-dilutive funding, ensuring the
most promising ideas end up in the marketplace.”
For more information on the Texas A&M New Ventures Competition, including a full
list of the day’s competitors, visit www.texasnvc.org.
-30-
Contact: Duncan Maitland, TEES Assistant Agency Director for Commercialization and
Entrepreneurship, at 979.458.3471 or via email: [email protected] or Ryan Garcia
at 979.847.5833 or via email: [email protected].
Tags
New Ventures Competition
recycling
startups
6/7/2016 REEcycle wins 2016 Texas A&M New Ventures Competition | 20 | 05 | 2016 | News | Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
http://tees.tamu.edu/news/2016/05/20/reecyclewins2016texasamnewventurescompetition/ 6/9
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