Meet the 10 ventures graduating from HATCH this summer
HATCH Venture Builder is a collaborative initiative between entrepreneurship@UBC and the Institute for Computing Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS) supporting UBC’s thriving community of interdisciplinary innovators who are building ventures driving social, environmental and economic impact to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.
This summer, we are congratulating 10 ventures who are graduating from the program after some 12-18 months scaling their companies, achieving key milestones and preparing for market.
As part of HATCH, teams work closely with our bench of Entrepreneurs in Residence who lend their expertise and experience to the next generation of leaders creating impact. Teams go through curated training sessions, pitch events and showcases as well as receive office space at UBC Point Grey and Robson Square, all while having access to ICICS’ state of the art Makerspace.
Congratulations to the following teams:
ApplyChance
ApplyChance is the 'Indeed.com' of grad school, connecting grad school applicants to university grad school programs. The venture is led by Dr. Mahyad Aghigh, Co-Founder and CEO, who earned his MSc and Ph.D in Condensed Matter and Material Physics and Physical Chemistry respectively from UBC. During their time at HATCH they’ve raised $225k with a $200k commitment, with the likelihood of being oversubscribed. In addition, they’ve had 300% user base and revenue growth in the first half of 2022 (compared to the same time period in 2021), hitting 23,000 registered users and $120K in total revenue. Their global network of mentors (current graduate students) has grown 2X with more university professors joining them every month.
Daanaa
Daanaa’s proprietary chip-based technology allows forward-thinking manufacturers to reimagine fundamental engineering problems through advanced, integrated power transfer. The venture was Co-founded by Dr. Soroush Dehghani, who earned his Masters and PhD from UBC in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Former Entrepreneur in Residence, Udi Daon, now serves as the company’s CEO. Notably, the team raised a $7m US Series A led by VoLo Earth in Winter 2021.
HealthQB
HealthQb objectively measures holistic health to enable recovery from chronic illness. They measure BioPsychoSocial (BPS) variables and the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) to understand a patient’s health and well-being. The team was founded by Guy Davis, an alumni from UBC with a B.Sc in Cellular Biology and Genetics, and co-founded by Greg Elliott and Christine Somerville. Throughout HATCH, HealthQb has grown their team to 15 people with an additional 5 Health Coaches and substantially completed its second independent research study in collaboration with UBC. They designed and developed their Beta clinical system, which was tested on 135+ users over 10 months resulting in 87% 30-day user retention and 77% daily compliance (compared to the industry average of 3-5% for mobile health and wellness apps).
Hubly
Hubly revolutionizes practice management for financial advisory firms by bringing efficient processes, easy client tracking, and team collaboration into a single visual workspace. The team was founded by UBC Sauder alumni Louis Retief and his Co-founder Ron Gorodestky in 2019. Hubly has made significant strides building their team and getting their product to market, raising a $1.7M Seed round in Winter 2021.
Neupeak Robotics
Neupeak is building robots to usher in Agriculture 4.0. Their fully autonomous berry harvesters are designed to work in all weather and lighting conditions, alongside human workers, to save farmers money by charging a fixed rate per pound of berries collected. Their team was founded by UBC Bachelors of Applied Science grad, Anshul Porwal. This past winter, Neupeak was awarded $500,000 USD from the Grow-NY Competition and has been featured in publications including BNN Bloomberg for their strawberry picking robots helping labor shortages.
Pocketed
Pocketed makes government funding more accessible to every business owner. The team was founded by Sauder alumni Brianna Blaney and Dr. Aria Hahn who earned her PhD in Metagenomics and Bioinformatics from UBC. Pocketed has grown significantly since launching in 2020, with over 7,000 active users. The team was recently in the news for winning the 2022 Forum Pitch competition taking home $25,000 and they raised an oversubscribed Seed Round of $1M this past winter to fuel their expansion to the US. They are also in the running for a 2022 BC Tech Technology Impact Award (TIA) in the Company of the Year - Startup category, landing themselves on Techcouver’s 2022 BC Startups to Keep an Eye on list.
SkyLab
Skylab is an AI photo and video processing service that makes high quality retouching accessible to anyone in the world. Skylab was founded in 2018 by TJ Rak, a photographer with 15 years of industry experience, and Alireza Shafaei, a machine learning PhD. They met through UBC’s computer science PhD program. While in HATCH, the team successfully bootstrapped the business and their growth, exceeding revenue targets by 3X receiving acquisition interest from big players in the industry. They’ve made significant tech advancements to their products including photo glasses glare and braces removal. Since launch, the team has processed over 25 million photos through their technology.
Susgrainable
Susgrainable is creating healthy baking mixes made from rescued grains from local craft breweries. The team was founded by Marc Wandler and Clinton Bishop after Marc earned his MBA from Sauder School of Business. Clinton also has ties to UBC with a certificate in Immigration: Laws, Policies and Procedures. Susgrainable has made big strides since starting HATCH, evolving on their product line with items including chocolate chip cookie mix, pancake and waffle mix as well as upcycled barley flour. They can be found online and in stores such as Pomme Natural Market, SPUD, Bean Around the World and more.
Sustained Therapeutics
Sustained Therapeutics is utilizing its advanced clinical and research expertise to develop locally injected, sustained-release therapeutics primarily for the treatment of pain and urologic diseases. The team was founded by UBC Professor Dr. Martin Gleave, Chairman of the Department of Urologic Sciences at UBC. Throughout their time at HATCH, the team was granted a US patent, protecting their novel drug delivery platform which forms the root of their business, recruited industry veteran, President and CEO Bill Annett and raised their first tranche of $5M USD in financing, with a second round closing this summer.
Zennea
Zennea has created a proprietary medical device that helps reduce chronic snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The team was founded by Rachel Chase and Oliver Luo. In early 2021, Zennea raised an oversubscribed seed round of $1 million helping the team to launch their clinical trials for their novel solution for chronic snoring.
Congratulations to our graduates! We look forward to championing the next steps of your venture building journeys.
Are you interested in getting in touch with any of the teams?