Last Wednesday, March 26, 2025, the Boyd Innovation Center buzzed with energy as our Spring 2025 cohort of founders took the stage to present their innovative ideas to Columbia's startup community. The event marked the culmination of six weeks of preparation, mentorship, and growth through our ColaStarts pre-accelerator program.

Connect with Our Founders from Pitch Night

Pitch Night represented the program's capstone event, where nine founding teams presented their ideas to a packed house of investors, mentors, community leaders, and fellow entrepreneurs. Each founder delivered a 3 minute pitch outlining their problem, solution, market opportunity, and next steps.

The future of Columbia's startup ecosystem was represented by these new entrepreneurs:

  • Cole Kountis & Matthew Harrison - Creating a fitness app making the gym more accessible and less intimidating for beginners

  • Angel Lee - Developing a gamified productivity app specifically designed for neurodivergent minds

  • Elisha Wilson - Building a financial literacy app meeting students where they are with age-appropriate content

  • Reneé Lyons - Designing a community and organization app supporting mothers through their unique journeys

  • Lauren Tillar & Jordan Tillar - Crafting a tool simplifying the planning of family and class reunions

  • Qais Attarwala - Engineering an AI-powered job application assistant helping job seekers land interviews faster

  • Ziliang Chen - Developing technology to detect and prevent driver drowsiness before accidents happen

  • Katelyn Wyandt, Alyssa Nichols, Stephanie McCummings - Creating an event space rental marketplace connecting businesses and planners seamlessly

  • Shrihan Ganesh Babu - Innovating a smart medical device focused on respiratory safety

The diversity of ideas ranged from healthtech, fintech, productivity tools, and community-building platforms.

About ColaStarts

ColaStarts is a 6-week pre-accelerator program based at the Boyd Innovation Center in Columbia, SC, focused on developing tech and tech-enabled startups. Designed specifically for idea-stage founders, ColaStarts provides structured support, resources, and community connections to help entrepreneurs transform their technology ideas into viable businesses.

About the Boyd Innovation Center

The Boyd Innovation Center, powered by GrowCo (BIC) is a central hub for all high growth high tech (HGHT) startup activities in the Columbia metro region. The BIC serves as Columbia's destination where forward-thinking individuals of all backgrounds come together to develop groundbreaking ideas that change the world. Meanwhile, GrowCo acts as the nonprofit organization that curates startup activities.

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