The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship Names Three 2022-23 Terp Startup Fellows

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship is proud to announce its fourth cohort of the Terp Startup Fellows program, made possible by a generous donation from Dingman Center board member Bill Boyle ’81. This program was created due to the success of Terp Startup Accelerator, the center’s eight-week summer program which has been running for eight years. Terp Startup Fellows aims to further advance the most promising student startups and selects student founders from the accelerator program that have demonstrated a strong commitment to their ventures and the ability to innovate as they push towards commercialization. The Dingman Center has named three Terp Startup Fellows ventures for the 2022-23 academic year: Arch Dash, Juju Food Delivery, and Platybase.

The founders of these three ventures will receive up to $20,000 in non-dilutive funding, coaching, and co-working space to work on their businesses for 10 hours a week with the Dingman Center. These founders have all been heavily involved with the Dingman Center’s programs and have all participated in Terp Startup Accelerator. The founders have also won several awards and accolades outside of the university through the entrepreneurial community.

Throughout the next year, the Dingman Center team including Holly DeArmond, MBA ’17, Tsega Tadesse Belachew, Lottie Byram, MPH, and Alex Onufrak ’21, will work directly with the selected fellows and their ventures.

“During the last few years, the Terp Startup Fellows program has provided individualized support and funding for our most advanced founders,” said Belachew, director of venture development at the Dingman Center. “The fellowship has enabled founders to grow their ventures by capitalizing on initial business traction and securing additional funding. We are excited about a strong and diverse cohort of founders this year leading technology ventures that are working to solve problems across industries: mental health, food delivery, and architecture.”

Student ventures selected to participate in the 2022-23 Terp Startup Fellows:

Arch Dash, founded by Ina Kovacheva ’23, enables architects to make data-driven decisions that will result in healthier, efficient, and more sustainable building designs. Kovacheva participated in Terp Startup Accelerator in 2022, where she won the Go-to-Market Award ($1,000) at Demo Day and received the second place Audience Choice award. Kovacheva also recently completed the regional I-CORPS program.

JuJu Food Delivery, founded by Weixiang Wang ’22, Ziqi Zhang ’22, Zijian Zhang ’22, and Zeyang Liu ’22, offers an affordable bulk delivery and order pickup service for customers and restaurants that are facing higher-than-ever food delivery expenses. The JuJu Food Delivery team participated in Terp Startup Accelerator in 2022, where they received the Path to Product-Market Fit Award ($1,000) at Demo Day. They were also recently awarded second place at Contrary Capital Pitch Competition. Juju Food Delivery currently has 600 users and has generated $10,000 in revenue over two months.

Platybase, founded by Mika Panday, ’21, Colleen Baldwin and Olivia Bruno, is a HIPAA-compliant visual diary that celebrates milestones between families and providers of autism care centers while increasing behavioral outcomes, creating community, and allowing center operations to emerge competitively from a historically analog industry. Platybase is a company founded exclusively by disabled women, for the disability community. The company, formerly known as Dorothy's Place, participated in Terp Startup Accelerator in 2021. The team also won the 2Gether International women’s pitch competition last spring and received a $10,000 prize.