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February 26, 2017 | Tom Ballard

Grow Bioplastics captures top prize of $60,000 in Baylor New Venture Competition

Grow BioplasticsIt’s another big pitch competition win for the team at Grow Bioplastics. The Knoxville-based start-up took the top prize – $60,000 – in the Baylor New Venture Competition held Friday.

“We’ve come a long way since this time last year, and this competition at Baylor has really been a culmination of a lot of business development work and great mentorship from the Tennessee entrepreneurial community,” Co-Founder Tony Bova said. “From UT to KEC and Launch Tennessee, we’ve been privileged to participate in top notch programming to help us craft our message and have had some of the best direction to help us focus our attention on important milestones. This prize from Baylor will fund some key equipment in our lab, and we can start looking at expanding our team.”

In addition to the grand prize, Bova said the start-up captured the “Elevator Pitch Competition” with a $1,500 prize, and an anonymous donor gave every team an additional $2000. Out of 166 total teams that applied this year, 12 were selected.

As noted in this teknovation.biz article from January, Grow Bioplastics had already won nearly $70,000. This was clearly the start-up’s biggest financial win as it prepares for next month’s finale for “The TENN” teams participating in Launch Tennessee’s master accelerator program.

Here’s a picture of the award that Grow Bioplastics’ Tony Bova tweeted over the weekend.

Grow Bioplastics - Baylor Event


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