Ventures

How Tea Made in a Small-Town VFW Is Helping Rebuild Haiti’s Forests

Founded in 2017, while Sotomayor was a sophomore, Treecup’s motto is “buy a tea, plant a tree” — for every bottle of tea that is sold, Treecup plants one tree in Haiti’s deforested Artibonite Valley. 

E+I leadership team forms Stitch Brigade to meet a need

As states continue to recommend or require citizens to wear face masks, the demand for them during this pandemic has been overwhelming. In response to the need, Yvonne English, executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship + Innovation (E+I) at Grove City College and professor of Entrepreneurship, co-founded Stitch Brigade with Lynn Stillwaggon, program manager for the Center for E+I.

Can’t decide what to eat? A GCC Entrepreneur made an app for that!

Our very own Jake Murphy ’21 (Computer Information Systesm) made an app called Restaurant Picker that makes picking where to eat not only easy, but fun too! Jake participated in E+I’s VentureLab and E+I’s Wolverine Venture Battle last year.

Student entrepreneur’s tea makes it into Whole Foods

The business that senior Entrepreneurship major Mark Sotomayor ’20 started his freshman year at Grove City College reached a major milestone recently when Whole Foods began stocking their shelves with his product.

Building robotic safety inspectors nabs Gecko Robotics $40 million

E+I alumni business Gecko Robotics lands $40 million in financing as it looks to build an additional 40 robots over the next year to meet what the company sees as growing demand for its safety and infrastructure monitoring services.

App helps kids make Santa lists, parents check them

An student business fostered by E+I at Grove City College has developed a free app that allows parents to manage and incentivize Santa-crazed kids at Christmas time while directing donors to a local children’s charity.

Competitions

Wolverine Venture Battle champion crowned

Seven teams of student entrepreneurs made the final round of the annual business venture competition hosted by the College’s Center for Entrepreneurship + Innovation (E+I). They competed for a piece of a $27,050 cash prize package controlled by a panel of 14 judges who heard the teams make the case for their ventures and decided how much to award the students. This year’s prize package included cash prizes for both the Redemptive Impact Award and the Fan Favorite award.

Wolverine Venture Battle puts student entrepreneurs to the test

For students seeking a piece of the prize pool, the final round of the annual venture business model competition often marks the culmination of their journey through an entrepreneurial ecosystem.  Building on the skills they have acquired along the way, the competition, presented by the Center for Entrepreneurship + Innovation (E+I) at Grove City College, allows teams to compete for prize money and in-kind services that will help them  fuel their commercial or social venture. 

Grover team seeks a piece of $215,000 prize

More than $200,000 is on the line at e-Fest, a virtual event hosted by the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. that seeks to encourage undergraduate entrepreneurs and support their ventures.

Student entrepreneurs take top spots in PTC Hackathon

Student entrepreneurs from Grove City College took top awards in the Pittsburgh Technology Council Civic Hackathon.​

GCC team wins entrepreneurship simulation challenge

A team of Grove City College student entrepreneurs took first place in a national business simulation challenge with a product design, marketing strategy and sales plan that dominated the virtual market and outperformed the competition.

Students claim $6,100 in prizes in Elevator Pitch Competition

Winners of the 2020 Elevator Pitch Competition gained invaluable experience at Grove City College’s annual contest, along with larger-than-expected monetary prizes.

GCC E+I innovates, Elevator Pitch rises in spite of COVID

Preliminary rounds in the competition winnowed a field of 168 entries – representing individuals or teams of students from 20 different majors –to just 21 finalists. 

Out of only twenty e-Fest national finalists, two are from Grove City College

Two E+I student businesses, SafesSnack and Treecup, reach the finals of national competition e-Fest. Each team will be awarded a $3,000 prize and a $1,000 grant for the College.

Alum wins $30K to develop training aid

Grove City College alumna Hannah Vaccaro ’18 took first place – and $30,000 – in this summer’s ACU Startup Madness entrepreneurship competition with an idea to make potty training fun.

Classes

Student entrepreneurs raise a record amount for charity

Eight local charities have an additional $4,878 this year to advance their good works, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of student teams in the eCommerce class this Fall semester.

E+I’s Venture Village opens for business

The Center for Entrepreneurship + Innovation (E+I) at Grove City College is launching its first online e-commerce marketplace in conjunction with the Department of Entrepreneurship at Grove City College.

eCommerce class project generates money for charities

Thanks to Grove City College’s innovative approach to Entrepreneurship education – which is recognized as a model for other programs – six charities have an additional $4,650 this year to advance their good works.