Last Friday, six talented founders pitched their startups during the Thunderpreneur’s 2022 Pitch Competition at the Thunderbird School of Global Management. While only three took home the top prizes, all six startups showcased truly innovative and impressive ideas. To learn more about the competition winners and honorable mentions, read on below!
First Place: Kogo
Founder: Simon Roca
About the Company
“Kogo is taking a waste product from coffee processing and processing it into a healthy superfood, providing small scale coffee farmers with desperately needed income, all the while protecting the environment.”
Second Place: Godsway’s Agri House Limited
Founder: Godsway Dorlah
About the Company
“Godsway’s Agri House Limited uses Supply Chain and food science expertise to ensure efficient processing and distribution of quality food products to vendors in various cities. Our business model focuses on ensuring post-harvest loss reduction among rural farmers. This model also ensures an increase in food production among local farmers, which results in increasing farmer’s income.”
Third Place: Studio Artesanos
Founders: Ana Paula Chavarry Pizzorno & Nuria Shu
About the Company
“We are Nuria and Ana, the founders of Studio Artesanos, a social venture led by Latino women that partners with native artisans from rural communities who have been hit the worst with the pandemic to allow them to offer their handmade art to the US market through in-person sales and our Instagram account. Our customers are not only interested in looking for high-quality and unique locally-made products, but also in learning about the story behind the art they purchase.”
Honorable Mention: CarboHarvest
Founder: Juily Sawant
About the Company
“CarboHarvest is a social enterprise that uses biodiversity in agriculture to help farmers, consumers, and the planet. We transform the lives of farmers by revitalizing their precious soil, building resilient and self-sustaining forest-like food ecosystems while conserving native biodiversity. The task at hand is extremely tough but necessary, thus CarboHarvest will continue making an impact one farmer at a time until this becomes a big moment.”
Honorable Mention: Comada
Founder: Lily Hannan
About the Company
“Comada connects digital nomads with people, places, & communities.
With the standardization of remote work and global reliable internet, the number of digital nomads is on the rise, with a 112% percent increase since 2020. Our target digital nomad is passionate about exploring while achieving geoarbitrage (living in a developing country, while earning a salary in a developed country).
Digital nomads are experiencing many pain points such as loneliness, travel fatigue, and unprofessional workspaces. Their choices are to either stay at a hostel, make friends, but be surrounded by noise, mess, and partiers in a place where it’s difficult to sleep and stressful to work. Or, stay in an Airbnb or hotel, where it’s clean, quiet, and organized, but isolating and lonely. They also feel “trapped” by reservations and “stressed” when searching for a professional space to take an important work call.
Comada provides community among nomads by combining accommodation in private suites, professional co-working space, and opportunities to connect in one home. We satisfy the need for community by attracting like-minded travelers and hosting community-building events, excursions, and volunteer opportunities (Sustainable Development Goals 4 & 13). We decrease the stress and fatigue of traveling by upholding a standard of accommodation (ideal destination, walking distance to attractions, quality sleep) and co-working (reliable Wifi, video conference booths). We offer a network of homes across LATAM that guests can flexibly travel among. Guests can manage reservations, hassle and fee-free, through an app.”
Honorable Mention: Jokko
Founder: Cheikh Thiam
About the company
“Jokko is a mobile-based b2b platform that connects farmers with retailers and agri-processors.”