The 2022 Crossroads Collegiate Pitch Competition is a wrap! Congratulations to Andrew McMaster, a Kelley School of Business student at IU Bloomington. His startup Finniva took home a $2,500 investment from Flywheel Fund and access to Flywheel’s network of mentors and support services. Finniva is building a streamlined marketplace for large multi-family and commercial real estate developers to source materials directly from the supplier.
Finniva helps developers efficiently locate the best materials for each project’s specs—keeping the work on time and on budget. Andrew cofounded Finniva with Kelley grad Michael Wayne, who is also CEO of Detroit Riverside Capital, a real estate investment firm with focus on constructing mixed-use communities.
The market opportunity is substantial. According to the winning pitch, the US construction material market was $650 billion in 2021. Finniva has targeted Michigan for their initial launch, with a focus on doors: a $500 million market in itself. They’ve already begun working with developers at Counterpart to build the platform and are populating it with suppliers. Finniva expects to launch in January 2023.
“Crossroads Collegiate was a beautiful experience: ambitious student entrepreneurs coming together to explore their work with a group of passionate investors,” said McMaster.
“Finniva, a real estate development material sourcing marketplace, is the startup I got the chance to share with the judges. We believe in rethinking how things are done and aim to revitalize the way developers source direct materials for good. I couldn’t be more proud of the work we’ve done and am ecstatic to dive into working with the Flywheel Fund!”
Crossroads Collegiate Pitch Competition was open to any student currently enrolled at any Indiana university or college with a startup based in Indiana. Each student submitted an executive summary, a pitch deck, and a 10-minute pitch video to the competition. A panel of seventeen judges of entrepreneurs, investors, and business experts selected four finalists from twenty-one semifinalists.
“Andrew McMasters and the team have done the customer validation and market analysis to set up Finniva for success,” said Andy Lehman, Head of Accelerator Programming for The Mill. “It’s exciting to see the scale of ambition from these Hoosier collegiate founders and the breadth of their reach. This year’s finalists pitched innovations in real estate development, personal care services, cancer treatment, and theater. They wowed our judges, and I hope to see them again in The Mill’s other entrepreneurial programs and competitions.”
The other finalists were Freshen Up (Rahil Kumar, IU Bloomington), Lodos Theranostics (Scott Clark, Purdue University), and Platform (Patrick Startner, Notre Dame).
Freshen Up is an app to schedule mobile barbering, ideal for busy male students and young professionals. It’s a bigger market than you might think—over $3 billion in the US, according to Rahil’s research. And the app could later grow into women’s mobile services such as manicures (no more sitting in a stinky nail salon? Yes, please!).
Lodos Theranostics is developing a new cancer therapy that combines the therapeutic power of x-ray, UV, and chemotherapy, delivered by nano particles. It offers very high efficacy, with low side effects, and is the only nano particle therapy that delivers the full spectrum of chemotherapy.
Platform, a production company, aims to make the performing arts more accessible to audiences and performers through livestreaming theater productions of new works, according to cofounder and CEO Patrick Starner. They’ve got their MVP and have already livestreamed 22 events.
Thank you to all the judges throughout the competition, and special shoutout to our panelists for the finals: Amanda Findlay, Managing Director, MatchBOX Coworking Studio; Audrey Wessel, attorney from Gutwein Law, and Elise Young, Director, gBETA Bloomington-Columbus.
We’re also incredibly grateful to our spotlight sponsor, Velocities, as well as our supporting sponsors: 50 South Capital, Carmin Parker PC, Old National Bank, gener8tor, and the Gayle & Bill Cook Center for Entrepreneurship at Ivy Tech Community College Bloomington.
See you next year at Crossroads Collegiate 2023!