FAIRFIELD, Conn. — On Thursday, April 24, 2025, five teams of business students will engage in a riveting Shark Tank-style pitch event, presenting their startup ideas to investors for seed funding ranging from $2,500 to $12,500.
Serving as judges, the investor panel features alumni, business experts, and C-suite executives including Gonzalve Bich, CEO of BIC. Together, they will decide which student team delivers the best pitch. The StartUp Showcase is more than a culmination of the students' hard work; it offers the opportunity for real-time feedback and immediate outcomes for their businesses. The event will take place before a live audience at the Regina A. Quick Center for Performing Arts and will also be available for viewing via livestream.
The StartUp Showcase's five teams of student-entrepreneurs have worked for a year alongside mentors to perfect their business plans and practice their pitches. In addition to a $5,000 Audience Favorite award, this year's event will introduce a new prize for the team whose business is recognized for having the greatest societal impact.
The top pitch will be awarded a Grand Prize of $12,500 with additional awards for runner-up companies.
“The Fairfield StartUp program has long been a platform for innovative ideas and I look forward to engaging with these promising teams, evaluating their pitches, and sharing insights with the students," said Gonzalve Bich. "This inspiring program fosters creativity and strategic thinking, and I can't wait to see how this year’s showcase develops.”
Meet This Year’s Teams:
Clean N’ Go Powerwashing is an exterior cleaning company that serves residential and commercial customers across Long Island, N.Y. They offer tailored cleaning solutions based on customer needs, including house washing, driveway cleaning, roof washing, paver cleaning and sanding, and more.
Creditcare is a digital microfinance business based in Zambia, Southern Africa. Their mission is to utilize technology and alternative data to provide financial services to underserved individuals and businesses across Zambia. They focus on empowering their clients by offering tailored loans and agency banking services to help them achieve their goals and improve their livelihoods.
I'mCookin' is a smart meal-planning app designed to make healthy eating accessible and stress-free for young adults and college students. Their platform provides easy, personalized recipes, generates custom grocery lists, teaches cooking skills, and helps users balance health, time, and budget constraints.
Manus is a web-based platform revolutionizing early-stage investing with enhanced financial due diligence. By quantifying key KPIs and valuation milestones, Manus optimizes the due diligence process so investors can make better investment decisions and accurately analyze risk. Its intuitive interface enables real-time scenario modeling, standardized reporting, and AI-driven predictive analytics to streamline collaboration and maximize ROI for investors.
Evaluating the teams on their pitches and awarding the seed funding amounts will be the job of this investor panel of industry experts: Gonzalve Bich has served as director and CEO of BIC since May 2018; Joe Bronson ’70 is currently the CEO and principal of The Bronson Group, LLC, a business advisory group focused on operational and financial consulting; Chris Hillock ’00 leads the portfolio development function for Dell Technologies Capital, the venture capital arm of Dell Technologies; Celine King ‘23 is the founder and CEO of GreenIRR Inc., a disruptive carbon accounting platform designed specifically for the trucking industry; and Robert W. Liptak, P’27 is a senior managing director in the Blackstone Life Sciences group and a member of its investment committee.
Hosting the 2025 StartUp Showcase event is Mariana Antaya ’23. Antaya is a product manager at Microsoft Teams and founder of quantifAI — a fintech startup that commenced at Fairfield's StartUp Showcase in 2022. Antaya actively mentors on product management, big tech, and startups on Tik Tok and in her online community, Product House.
For more information on the teams, panelists, host, and livestream information visit Fairfield.edu/startup.
Fairfield University is a modern, Jesuit Catholic University, rooted in one of the world’s oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students from 44 states, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and 46 countries, are enrolled in the University’s five schools. In the spirit of rigorous and sympathetic inquiry into all dimensions of human experience, Fairfield welcomes students from diverse backgrounds to share ideas and engage in open conversations. The University is located in the heart of a region where the future takes shape, on a stunning campus on the Connecticut coast just an hour from New York City.