AI-powered Quality Control Platform Wins Cannabis Start-up Competition
On Wednesday, November 18, 2020, Innovate@BU transformed its 4th annual Cannabis Start-up Competition grand finale pitch night into a virtual event that welcomed over 100 attendees. Four start-up finalists, all co-founded by a BU student or alumni, presented a six-minute pitch to a panel of expert judges that included Kim Napoli, senior director of corporate social responsibility for Parallel, Jaime Lewis, managing director and co-founder of Coldwater Consulting, and Peter Bleyleben, partner at Converge Venture Partners.
While the judges deliberated, representatives from cannabis policy reform organizations, including Marijuana Policy Project, Last Prisoner Project, and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, presented updates from their field and opportunities to support their work.
After a tough deliberation, the $10,000 grand prize was awarded to MBA student Chris Donaldson (Questrom’22) and his start-up EROWTH, an AI and spectral analysis start-up that aims to provide quality control for cannabis manufacturers.
This year’s finalists also included:
- Budrisk, co-founded by James Boynton (Questrom’07), specializes in risk management for the cannabis industry as strategic advisors helping companies navigate the insurance roadmap.
- Climate Smart Cannabis Growing, co-founded by Sarabeth Buckley (PhD candidate, Earth & Environment), is an that app uses “energy aikido” to work with, not against, the Electric Grid–saving money and climate.
- GreenShare, co-founded by Matthew Farmer (ENG’15), Yassine el Yousifi (ENG’16), and William Belt (COM’16), connects landowners who are open to growing cannabis to growers with the know-how and drive to get it done.
The competition was founded in 2017 by BU alumni Jeffrey M. Zucker (Questrom’10) and Mike Bologna (Questrom’10), co-founders of Green Lion Partners, a Denver, CO-based business strategy firm focused on early-stage development in the regulated cannabis industry. Zucker and Bologna created the competition to heighten awareness that the cannabis industry provides viable career and entrepreneurship opportunities and to encourage social activism as a part of any new start-up–which is why competition ideas must be ancillary business ideas and must incorporate a social impact component into its mission. For Innovate@BU, the competition provides BU students and alumni an opportunity to test an idea and learn from experts, and to apply their major or expertise–from engineering to sustainability to finance or computer science–to a growing industry.
In addition to providing the finalist teams with pitch coaching and preparation, Zucker and Bologna supply the grand prize of $10,000 and consulting services from Green Lion Partners.
Innovate@BU caught up with Donaldson after the competition to learn more about EROWTH and what’s next after winning the competition.
INNOVATE@BU: What does winning this competition mean for ERWOTH–what’s next?
DONALDSON: It’s no doubt an honor winning this year’s competition and I was humbled to find myself in the company of the other finalists. Every idea, at least from my vantage point, was a winner and I’m excited to see where each one of them land next. Winning will help fund the next stage of growth for EROWTH, specifically around building a prototype, data models, and doing outreach with independent testing labs and growers (and other housekeeping items like building a website and seeking counsel from industry experts).
How long have you and your team been working on EROWTH and how did you initially come up with the idea?
EROWTH is fairly new. I invested in a cannabis pre-roll and flower brand last year and that ignited a spark to start looking at the cannabis industry in a completely different way. Rather than focus only on the consumer facing side of the industry–an area where I could leverage my experience in media, marketing and brand management–I wanted to find a problem and solution for the supply chain and industrial side. That’s what led me to EROWTH three months ago. When I came across the competition, I knew that I needed to finely tune my idea and start looking for real-world, applicable business solutions that reduce cannabis waste and optimize yields using machine learning.
What was the preparation experience for the competition like for you and your team?
My team provided a solid sounding board in addition to gentle pushes to go forward with the competition. Most of my time was spent on market research and outreach to Los Angeles-based manufactures for their feedback. A big shout out also goes to Jeff and Mike at Green Lion Partners. Their input and suggestions kept me focused on presenting accurate and compelling solutions for testing and prediction models.
I was thrilled to find out that Boston University supports cannabis entrepreneurs. It’s a unique competition, founded by BU alumni, that focuses on innovative ancillary businesses in the cannabis space. Most people in my network think about cannabis as a consumer good, but they rarely think about all of the things that happen behind the scenes (especially when it comes to technology). I would also encourage the Boston University community to check out the resources offered by the BUild Lab.
Learn more about the competition.
