The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign proudly announces the winners of the inaugural Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge. Seven finalist teams representing technological innovation spanning quantum computing, AI, health care, defense, sustainability and advanced materials competed for $200,000 in prizes.

The seven teams pitched their breakthrough innovations in front of leading Chicago venture capitalists and founders at the TechChicago Capital Summit on July 22. Part of the broader TechChicago Week, the summit was hosted by P33, a non-profit organization focused on driving inclusive growth for Chicago’s tech sector.

Grand Prize Winner
Xatoms, University of Toronto

Xatoms won $100,000 in funding for their groundbreaking approach to water purification. Making sustainable water sources accessible to everyone, Xatoms is using AI and quantum chemistry to discover new materials that purify water using just sunlight or LED light. Their novel photocatalytic molecules remove pathogens, chemicals, and heavy metals, cleaning polluted water from indigenous communities to heavy industries. Xatoms has raised $3 million in funding to date.

In addition to the grand prize funding, Xatoms also won $10,000 worth in-kind services from law firm, Cooley, $12,000 in advisory services from the Hyde Park Venture Partners and an annual membership at TeamWorking, a co-working space in Chicago managed by TechNexus for up to one year.

Second Place
K1 Semiconductor, University of Chicago

K1 Semiconductor earned second place with $50,000 in funding for transforming the semiconductor industry with groundbreaking wafer-splitting technology. K1 Semiconductor enables up to 20x wafer reuse across high-performance materials. Their proprietary platform is powering the future of mobility, clean energy, industrial automation, defense and AI infrastructure through enhanced efficiency and economics.

K1 Semiconductor also won $5,000 worth in-kind services from Cooley, $12,000 in advisory services from the Hyde Park Venture Partners and an annual membership at TeamWorking by TechNexus for up to one year.

Third Place (Tie, $12,500 each)
Photon Queue and Solitude Labs 

Photon Queue (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Solitude Labs (University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Colorado Boulder) shared third place funding.

Photon Queue is pioneering the quantum computing revolution, developing free-space quantum memories that could become the “RAM” for utility-scale quantum computers. The startup is commercializing photon-storage technology that addresses critical efficiency gaps in quantum information processing.

Solitude Labs is building a zero-trust, decentralized cybersecurity platform to protect America’s critical infrastructure. The startup's focus is on securing distributed energy resources (DERs) to prevent malicious actors from causing devastating disruptions to the energy grid.

Other finalist teams Tandemn, Pilbo Health and AG3 Labs won $1,000 in prizes each. Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge received 110 applications from over 35 leading national and international universities.

Unleashing Innovation in Chicago

Dean Rashid Bashir of Grainger Engineering, said, “The caliber of solutions we witnessed was truly exceptional. These breakthrough innovations address critical global challenges and have the potential to transform entire industries. The teams demonstrate the engineering excellence, innovative thinking and entrepreneurial drive that defines the very best of global talent.”

The Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge exemplifies Grainger Engineering’s expanding role as a vital partner in Chicago’s tech ecosystem, fostering the next generation of entrepreneurs and providing a platform for student-led startups to accelerate their growth and impact.

“As we continue to expand our presence in Chicago, we remain committed to forging strategic collaborations with industry leaders, investors and innovators who share our vision for strengthening Chicago's position as a global tech hub,” added Dean Bashir.

Closing Keynote Address: Divey Gulati

Divey Gulati, ShipBob co-founder and Illinois alumnus delivered the closing keynote at the event. Divey transformed his Illinois engineering education into a billion-dollar logistics empire, embodying the entrepreneurial spirit and technical excellence that defines Grainger Engineering. 

“Grainger Engineering experience and courses taught me resilience. It is one of the values that stuck with us throughout,” said Divey Gulati.

Key Highlights

• Focus on Customer Relationships: “We spend 40% of time building relationships with customers. Paul Graham with Y Combinator reinforced this concept, ‘Build something that people want.’ It is a very simple concept, but we see so many companies innovating for the sake of innovation and not really building what customers want.”
• Co-founder Dynamics: “Be equal partners from day one and that solves 90% of team dynamic problems particularly financial equity differences. Have clear delegation about ownership of ideas, responsibilities and decision making.”

• Investor Strategy: “We raised over $300 million in the past decade, so we have gone through multiple investor funding rounds and met more than 200 investors. We were rejected by 90% of the investors. Investors have a portfolio of several companies, and their attention is split among their portfolio companies. Understand that and don’t rely completely on investors to solve your company problems. You must solve your own business problems.”

• Learning from misconceptions: “Too focused on the demand side and not on the supply side. We had this misconception that it will be hard to get customers. As we continued to grow, demand grew rapidly, and we were caught off guard in 2019 as we didn’t have the scaled supply chain to match the demand.”