Florida State University-affiliated startup companies competed “Shark Tank”-style at the fourth annual Discovery Challenge event, pitching their business ideas and winning a combined $85,000 in funding.
The event featured five startups pitching their technologies to a panel of judges and a packed audience, explaining how they planned to advance their products and bring them to market. The event, held Wednesday at FSU’s Herbert Wertheim College of Business, was part of FSU’s annual Discovery Days, a weeklong celebration of research, creativity and innovation.
Anosh Gomes with Cryton Biosciences won the first-place prize of $50,000. The audience choice award of $10,000 went to Zachary Asarnow with Esperance Biotech and the second-place prize of $25,000 went to Kimberley Christopher with Radical Solutions.
“Discovery Challenge is an opportunity for some of our technology-based companies to come and pitch live to venture capitalists who are judging for real prizes and looking at the opportunity for this technology to move into a business that’s going to change the world,” said FSU Vice President for Research Stacey S. Patterson. “This is just one example of what we’re doing this week, of real innovation that will ultimately impact real lives. That’s what we do in research is take ideas, test them, evaluate them and move them into products and services that are going to impact Floridians and beyond.”
The five presentations featured technologies aimed at destroying forever chemicals, treating a rare metabolic disorder and cardiovascular diseases, improving outdoor sports court management, addressing mitochondrial dysfunction and its relation to diseases, and detecting salmonella in poultry.
Each presenter had six minutes to pitch their project followed by eight minutes of questions from the judges. This year’s three judges were: Christina Larkin, CEO of Mobius Care and FSU alumna; Zach Brodsky, senior associate at Florida Funders; and Tom McNamara, vice president at DeepWork Capital.
Anosh Gomes: Cryton Biosciences
Gomes won first place with a presentation that highlighted how mitochondrial dysfunction is often the root cause of many diseases. Cryton Biosciences is addressing this by stabilizing and restoring mitochondrial function, specifically focused on treatment for refractory metastatic colorectal cancer.
The Cryton Biosciences treatment activates the PJM2 enzyme, enabling cells to attack and kill cancer cells more efficiently while also directly causing cancer cell death.
“We’re hoping one day that our drug we’re developing will end up being a medicine that people can take,” Gomes said. “Now, this $50,000 will allow us to do a number of key experiments that we need to do, so we can start working our way into taking our drug into human clinical trials.”
Kimberley Christopher: Radical Solutions
Christopher won the $25,000 second-place prize for Radical Solutions’ scalable, energy-efficient reactor, which destroys so-called “forever chemicals” known by the acronym PFAS. The technology can be easily integrated into existing treatment systems.
Zachary Asarnow: Esperance Biotech
Asarnow received the $10,000 Audience Choice Award for Esperance Biotech’s engineered probiotic pill, designed to treat the rare metabolic disorder trimethylaminuria, which causes a strong fish-like smell released through body fluids such as sweat and saliva. The technology also has potential applications for treating cardiovascular disease. In 2024, he helped FSU’s team earn a gold medal at the iGEM Grand Jamboree.
Anjli Kumar Singh: Assay Obsession
Singh presented Assay Obsession’s digital PCR test for detecting and quantifying salmonella in poultry samples. The testing kit is designed to be simpler and more reliable than competing products while delivering high accuracy at a reasonable cost.
Mark McNees: CourtSense
As a local high school sand volleyball coach, McNees noticed the need for a better system of tracking points, players and games for outdoor volleyball games. In response he developed the app CourtSense, which has already been put to use by some Florida high schools and cities.
Discovery Challenge was supported by FSU’s IGNITE initiative, a program designed to grow new technology ventures through business development expertise, an expansive community network, top-of-the-line facilities and access to funding sources.
FSU Discovery Days events continue through Saturday, Oct. 24. For the full calendar of events, visit the Discovery Days website.