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April 21, 2024 | Tom Ballard

Wesley Pitts takes third place in UGA’s “Next Top Entrepreneur Pitch Competition”

It is the latest competition where he won some funding for his KnoxBots start-up.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) student Wesley Pitts captured third place on Thursday night during a student business competition hosted by the University of Georgia (UGA).

Known as the “Next Top Entrepreneur Pitch Competition,” the event was open to current students from any college or university. It is the second time that a UTK student has either won the competition or placed highly. In 2019, Lia Winter, Co-Founder of Winter Innovations, captured first place. The event was not held in the COVID-19 year of 2020.

Wesley Pitts with Symbolic Check

Pitts is the Founder of KnoxBots, a company focused on bringing robotic mowers to the region to serve everything from individual lawns to campuses, golf courses, athletic fields, and other large or hard-to-mow areas. He is a serial winner of competitions, capturing $25,000 in successive months in 2023 by winning first place in the growth category of the “Graves Business Plan Competition” and doubling down less than a month later by taking the top prize in the “Boyd Venture Challenge.”

Both competitions are hosted by UTK’s Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

In winning the UGA competition, Pitts pocketed another $2,500.



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