The annual competition featured eight companies—four “general track” businesses and four social impact organizations. The Fordham-connected teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges and more than 200 members of the Fordham community during the event, where $25,000 was distributed among the winners to provide seed funding and support for early-stage businesses.

Al Bartosic, director of the Fordham Foundry, said that this was “the largest field ever—we started off with 186 teams.” Through the mentoring process, the field was narrowed down to the eight finalists that made an official public pitch.

General Track Winner

Mila Mend Inc., a women’s health company that provides community and “comprehensive solutions for women seeking to balance their hormones.” The company also features multiple social media platforms with more than 600,000 members.

Founders: Lucas Labelle, GABELLI ’20 and Camila Magnan

Labelle said that one of the key strengths of the company is the accessibility of its products.

“We provide access to reliable information, we bring science-proven solutions to market and we also innovate,” he said, adding that they work with two medical advisors to create effective products.

Magnan said the idea for the company came from her own experiences trying to treat PCOS and other health issues caused by hormonal imbalances.

“My voice was not being listened to by doctors and this is where my boyfriend came to my appointments—and having a male present, I finally got listened to,” she said. “Something that he says is, ‘This affects 50% of the population but also the other 50% that live with that person—this is as much our problem as it is a woman’s [problem].’”

“It’s incredible that a male committee of judges believed in a woman-focused product, and it just shows how the space is evolving,” Magnan said.

General Track Finalists

Second Place: Spike Cover, a magnetic product that covers the bottom of track and field spikes, founded by Anya Alfonsetti-Terry, a junior in the Gabelli School of Business

Third Place: Credentialed, a vendor that offers streamlined media credentialing services, founded by David Skinner, a sophomore in the Gabelli School of Business

Fourth Place: Libri di Lucciola, a dark romance publishing house, founded by Isabella Frassetti, FCLC ’20

Social Impact Winner

Alliza, a recruiting service that brings people with autism into the workforce and provides them with ongoing training and resources

Founder: Shoval Liel, who will be graduating from the Gabelli School’s MBA program in May

“[The recognition] means a lot; it means that we can help more people. And I believe that what we are doing is really changing lives for autistic individuals, which is something that not many companies are doing. We’re providing help and employment opportunities …. Think about how important and critical it is to have a job.”

Social Impact Finalists

Her Migrant Grounds, a coffee cafe and community-building space that enhances the work of Fordham’s Her Migrant Hub—a resource by and for women asylum seekers that provides them with access to health care resources. Her Migrant Grounds was born from the current group involved with Her Migrant Hub, due to the leadership of women activists Sara Tekle, Marthe Kiemde, Christiane Keumo, and Nneka Ugwu; and Graduate School of Social Work students Catilin Kreutz and Jake Schefer.

Kids Building Wealth, a Bronx-based nonprofit that provides financial education to underserved children. Founded by Olga Baez, MC ’05, GSE ’16

Tap Thread Count, a digital platform that connects designers, seamstresses, tailors, and dressmakers to clients looking for diverse clothing offerings. Founded by Babalwa Nogwanya, GSAS ’24

People’s Choice Winner

Credentialed, a vendor that offers streamlined media credentialing services,

Founder: David Skinner, a sophomore in the Gabelli School of Business

“The Foundry’s an incredible resource that has been there through every aspect of my entrepreneurial journey,” he said, adding that the process of participating in the Pitch Challenge was “exciting, fulfilling, and unbelievably beneficial.”

Directed by serial entrepreneur and executive director Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, the Foundry also oversees the Fordham Angel Fund, which offers investments of up to $25,000 to the University’s active student and alumni founders.

Fordham Magazine caught up with a handful of alumni who received funding, coaching, or other support from the Foundry to find out where they—and their businesses—are now, and how they got there.

Mary Goode, FCRH ’20
Founder and CEO, Nantucket Magic
Fordham Degree: B.A. in Economics

The launch: I grew up on Nantucket Island and watched the tourist landscape change dramatically over the years, becoming increasingly popular yet harder to navigate. The company uses local expertise to offer hotel-like concierge service and amenities to vacationers in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida, including pre-arrival fridge stocking, dinner reservations, private chefs, backyard movie nights, beach picnics, wellness experiences, and more.

The challenge: Our biggest challenge has been navigating how to scale the business while maintaining exceptional service. To surmount this, we have recruited hospitality experts to work seasonally in both locations.

The assist: The Foundry has played a huge role in the success of my business! I learned so much during the process of the pitch competition alone. The actual funds I won helped us pay for marketing campaigns as well as expand our team, among other things.

The goal: I have been trying to broaden the definition of what success means to me. No matter what happens in the future, what I have created so far feels like an immense personal success, chiefly because of the incredible people I have worked with over the past three years.

Marquice Pullen, GSE ’21
Co-Founder, DAB Pickleball
Fordham Degree: M.S.E., Curriculum and Teaching

The concept: DAB Pickleball is a one-stop shop for pickleball players worldwide. Comprehensive infrastructure, certified coaching tips, quality equipment, competitive prices. Events, tournaments, and a thriving community. Your ultimate pickleball resource. I can’t take credit for the idea. My business partner and brother, Antonio, stumbled upon the sport at Acworth Community Center in Georgia.

The process: We participated in three pitch challenges: Fordham Foundry Rams Den, Fordham vs. Bronx, and Black Ambition, all within one year, and were successful in all three, thanks be to God. Social media marketing, risk management, inventory management, tax filing, bookkeeping, and opening our first facility in July 2023 were all challenging aspects of the process. However, we found our momentum in late December 2023.

The foundation: Initially unfamiliar with Fordham University, my enrollment through the Army Civilian Schooling (ACS) program, driven by my aspiration to become an instructor at the United States Military Academy, inadvertently initiated our entrepreneurial journey. Rooted in Jesuit principles, my education at Fordham eventually led me to the Fordham Foundry. Without Fordham University as a catalyst, I might not have discovered the Foundry or ventured into entrepreneurship.

The win: Success is evident through our community of players and dedicated volunteers and supporters. Seeing the smiles on our consumers’ faces as they enjoy the game of pickleball and, more importantly, witnessing the competitive spirit of our elderly pickleball players, is a success story in itself.

Rachel Ceruti, GSAS ’20
Founder and CEO, Reclypt
Fordham Degree: M.A. in International Political Economy and Development

The vision: I kind of fell into the sustainable fashion scene in New York City and upcycling—when you or designers take something that was going to be thrown away and repurpose it, diverting textiles from landfills. I started a blog that transitioned into a marketplace for fashion, but our community told us they wanted to do the upcycling, not just buy it. We listened, and our mission is to use our platform to explore circular economy structures, with Reclypt as a hub that explores how we create change.

The challenges: Funding really comes to mind. You can’t rely on unfair wages and volunteers. Another challenge, too, is letting people know why circular fashion is needed and what it is.

The assist: I would go into the Foundry space and pop ideas off of the other entrepreneurs and the Foundry team. I benefited from the free office hours with a lawyer. The business aspects that are behind the scenes, I would have never been able to navigate without the Foundry.

The next step: We want to host consistent events; be able to grow and hire, including start monetizing my team’s time; gain more visibility; and establish a steady revenue stream.

Usman “Ozzy” Raza, PCS ’14, GABELLI ’21
Founder and CEO, Equepay
Fordham Degrees: B.A. in Economics, Executive M.B.A.

The concept: Equepay is at the forefront of simplifying billing and payment processing, not just in health care but extending our innovative solutions beyond. We aim to convert the complex financial operations in hospitals and clinics into streamlined, user-friendly processes, ensuring easy and efficient financial management for all involved.

 The launch: Equepay was born out of discussions with friends in the health care sector who highlighted ongoing challenges with payment processing and collections. Recognizing the untapped potential in this underserved market, I founded Equepay. Since launch, Equepay has been expanding its solutions across various hospitals in the U.S.

The foundation: My EMBA from Fordham has been crucial in shaping my entrepreneurial journey. The knowledge and skills acquired laid a solid foundation for Equepay’s strategies and operational methodologies.

The goal: Success is an evolving target. Our immediate goal is to integrate our platform into 196 hospitals by the end of the year, continuously enhancing our services to meet the growing needs of the healthcare sector.

Emmit Flynn, FCRH ’21
Co-Founder, Awful Cloth
Fordham Degree: B.A. in English

The brand: We started Awful Cloth to be an online apparel company for street and lounge wear, with a lot of colorful designs and bright, vibrant ideas. All of them were hand-drawn original designs and I was the designer.

The launch: For eight or 10 months, it was all planning. We got all the domains, Twitter, and Instagram very early on before we had anything produced. That made all the difference when we finally did start to get traction. Then it was a lot of workshopping and pushing it out to our friends and family to see what the response was.

The hurdles: The true hurdles were things that are intangibles. It wasn’t “where do we find this factory” or “how do we do this.” Those things were small hurdles, but we were so driven that there was nothing like that that would stop us. It was more about the mental hurdles: having patience and confidence and being sure of ourselves. Especially early on when things were slow, and we weren’t making any sales, and we weren’t making any profit.

The win: We recently sold the business to a medium-sized retail group called Lilac Blond. We were very happy to do it because selling was a goal of ours and we knew these people—and we were sure that they wanted the best for the brand.

That’s the philosophy of Albert Bartosic, executive director of the Fordham Foundry, a hub where Fordham community members learn how to launch and grow their own businesses. 

Most people already use the skills required for entrepreneurship in their daily lives, including pitching new ideas and working in a team, said Bartosic. What most people don’t know is that we are all capable of coming up with the next big idea—and bringing it to life. In a recent interview with Fordham News, Bartosic explained how to get there: 

Answer three key questions: What problem are you solving? How is that problem being addressed now? And why is your idea new, different, and better? “Why are people going to change their behavior and take your solution, as opposed to the solution that they’re using now?” 

Narrow your market. “The least successful thing you can do is say that your idea is for everybody. This won’t be successful, at least initially. Focus on a market that really needs this solution and is willing to pay for it.” 

Present something tangible. “If it’s a product, you can construct something using a 3-D printer. If it’s a service, you can try offering it to people on a test basis. You could use a GoFundMe or Kickster campaign if you need some money to put this together.” 

Survey your target demographic. “One shortcut is to construct a three-question survey and share it with your social media followers. You might get a small response rate, but you’re going to start to gather some data. That’s going to tell you if you’re on the right track. But don’t just talk to friends and family. They’re going to tell you, ‘You are brilliant, and this is the best thing I’ve ever heard of.’ You really want to speak with people in your target demographic who are friendly-adjacent—willing to give you both time and honest, valuable feedback.” 

Learn from the feedback—and try again. “It’s an iterative process. Take what you’ve learned and try it again, adjust it, and keep trying until you either know that you have a product that makes sense, or you don’t.” 

Learn from the process. “The skills and tools that you learn through entrepreneurship—how to sell an idea, how to get people to work with you, how to build a team, how to deal with setbacks, how to stay resilient in the face of failure—will help you, no matter what.” 

Finally, you need to convince the world that your idea is worth investing in. Watch a brief crash course video featuring Bartosic and other experts from the Fordham Foundry—Associate Director Shaun Johnson and alumna and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Lauren Sweeney—on how to pitch your idea to the public.

Sweeney is the CEO and co-founder of DeliverZero, a service that makes it easy for restaurants and grocers to offer customers the option to order in returnable reusable packaging, eliminating emissions and waste with every order. She’s also the entrepreneur-in-residence for the Fordham Foundry. Below, she shares five common myths about entrepreneurship.

Myth #1: Your startup idea has to be fully developed in order to launch.

Often aspiring entrepreneurs have a “really big vision of where they want to go,” but don’t have the resources to make that happen immediately.

“They’re like, ‘well I couldn’t start the next Uber for dog walkers,’ so then they just don’t start at all,” Sweeney said. “Whereas I think the best thing you can do is start in a smaller way that feels actually doable for you.”

By launching with a smaller product, Sweeney said, it allows them to get their idea out in front of customers and try different things before committing too much time and money. By engaging with customers early, she said they can learn more about the problem they’re working to solve in a timely manner and gain increased access to resources.

Myth #2: The first business idea is the best idea and never has to change.

Gathering customer feedback is incredibly important, Sweeney said, because it allows the entrepreneur to change course if they need to.

“The likeliest scenario—and this is the thing that really scares everyone—is that customer feedback is going to actually show you that you should pivot, which is a terrifying word for entrepreneurs, but also kind of the key to every successful outcome,” she said.

For example, her own business pivoted away from a “zero waste version of Grubhub” to a network
of reusable packaging that allows customers to access reusable packaging at all points of sale. This pivot
was due in large part to hearing customer feedback on how they would like to see the packaging waste problem solved in a bigger way.

One way for entrepreneurs in the Fordham community to start getting that feedback, she said, is to participate in activities and competitions, such as the Foundry’s Pitch Challenge.

Myth #3: All entrepreneurs are funded through venture capital or angel investors.

According to Al Bartosic, head of Fordham Foundry, and Sweeney, only between 1% and 5% of startups receive venture capital funding, meaning 95% of startups are not backed by venture capital funds. More than 70% of startups are funded through loans, personal savings, or friends and family, they said.

The amount of venture capital available to early-stage startups is also decreasing, according to Sweeney, particularly following an increase in interest rates. Before 2022, many venture capital firms were deploying capital at a faster rate, often into businesses with little or no market validation.

“I think what we’ve really learned in the last few years is that venture money really should only go towards companies with some proof of concept,” she said.

Myth #4: All entrepreneurs are immediate success stories and don’t have to work hard.

Sweeney said that before FTX failed, its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried—who has been convicted of fraud—was seen as “this mythological creature.” But the failure “reset a lot of thinking about what it means to be an entrepreneur.”

She said now there’s more of an “understanding that you have to put work in and that there are no overnight billionaires—and a ten-figure net worth might not be what you’re looking for anyway.” From the outset, she said it’s important to outline personal goals and what fulfillment means, and then work to meet that definition of success.

Myth #5: Entrepreneurs have to develop their business alone.

While entrepreneurship can at times feel isolating, Sweeney encouraged entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs to find community where they can. At Fordham, that can mean meeting fellow student entrepreneurs, guest speakers, and coaches at the Foundry.

“What spaces can you consistently show up in, just be welcomed in, maybe not even have to talk about entrepreneurship, but just be a human being near other human beings?” she said. “I think it’s important for entrepreneurs, especially because it can be such a lonely grind in the beginning.”

“We were kind of shocked by the numbers that came out of it,” said Manning, who will graduate in December. “On average, I think something like 85% of the seats were just left empty.” And this was before the pandemic.

Manning walked away from that experience knowing that he wanted to do something to help the industry that he loved.

“I want the theater experience to stay alive—even with the combative forces from streaming services and other difficulties, especially with COVID,” he said.

That’s how Cinesave was born. The company, which was just chosen as the first investment by the Fordham Angel Fund, aims to help small independent theaters track and analyze data about when people are attending and help them make decisions about pricing, marketing, and other strategies.

“He’s thought of movie theaters—which I think is a very clever idea—as an airplane,” said Albert Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, head of the Fordham Foundry, which oversees the Angel Fund. “Once you push the button, the movie starts showing whether there’s two people in the seats, or whether there’s 1,000 people—it’s still the same cost.”

Bartosic said that by using dynamic pricing to get more people in the seats, theaters could not only benefit from ticket sales, but also the extra purchases of food and drinks.

Cinesave received $15,000 to start, and can earn an additional $10,000 if the company hits certain milestones. That would add up to the total that the Angel Fund can invest in a company—$25,000.

Fellows From Across Fordham’s Schools

The Fordham Angel Fund began about two years ago with an initial investment of $100,000 from Fordham and the Gabelli School of Business. Since then, the fund has been reviewing applications and working with founders. Cinesave was the first company chosen.

The fund has two main parts to it—students who work as venture associates, known as the Angel Fund fellows, and an investment committee, made up of a board of professional venture capitalists and angel investors. The Angel Fund comprises about 16 students from across all of Fordham’s undergraduate and graduate programs. The group allows them to gain hands-on experience in the startup and venture capital world.

“They’re out there looking for investment opportunities—they’re interviewing founders, they’re talking about companies, they’re assessing whether or not the company is ready for funding,” Bartosic said. “It’s a long road to find the entrepreneur, find the team, cultivate that relationship, understand the business, do the due diligence, and then finally, present to the investment committee.”

Jennifer PoChue, who also goes by J.A. Thomas in her writing, was one of the fellows from the Angel Fund who brought Cinesave to the group’s attention.

“There really is a sense of community in film, and that’s where my passion for the Cinesave project stems from,” said PoChue, who is working toward a master’s in social work at the Graduate School of Social Services.

Convincing the Angel Investors

The investment committee, which is the other half of the fund, is made up of five investment professionals who work as venture capitalists or who are angel investors in other companies.

“What they do at the meeting, in the nicest possible way, is ask annoying questions and [try to]shut down the idea,” Bartosic said with a laugh. “That’s their job—they can’t write a check to fund everything that comes through the door.”

Bartosic said that it’s a testament to Cinesave’s founders and the company’s model that the committee was convinced to invest in them.

Chan Park, a senior business administration major at the Gabelli School, oversees the fellows as the fund’s Rose Hill director of operations. He said that Manning’s commitment and idea are what sold the committee on Cinesave.

“They mentioned a lot about having a product that actually changes or helps solve an issue,” he said. “Cinesave really does that—it tackles an issue the movie theater industry hasn’t been able to solve.”

Manning said that participating in Foundry programs such as the Pitch Challenge helped prepare him for the process of applying to the Angel Fund.

“It’s always a challenge to take the ideas you have and communicate them properly to people who are important,” he said. “What [the Foundry mentors]did was strip down my business to a more reasonable pitch that focused on the parts that actually drew in people’s attention.”

Manning said that Cinesave plans to start with helping theaters first before potentially moving to a customer-facing model.

“We’re going to give these tools to theaters so they can evaluate how their company’s doing, and basically build smart ways for them to discount their own tickets,” he said. “As we evolve, we will eventually open up to that front-end consumer side.”

Ideally, at that stage, consumers would then be able to purchase discounted tickets from their site or app.

Manning said that the initial investment from the Angel Fund would go to startup costs such as incorporation and legal fees, advertising, and underwriting the costs of a website and payment-processing server.

Gaining Experience

Bartosic said that the students, both on the Cinesave side and the Angel Fund side, gained valuable hands-on experience.

“It’s a great experience for entrepreneurs to be able to see what it’s like to go through the process,” he said. “And it’s a great experience for the Angel Fund fellows to see what that’s like in terms of bringing a company to the investment committee and learning how venture capital works.”

Park said that he’s been able to see what works and what doesn’t from the investment committee’s view.

“I was really excited about a deal last semester that I thought was going to get funded, and the investment committee just disagreed with my views, which I think was great. I looked at the deal one way, but they looked at it a different way,” he said. “And through that, I got to learn a ton.”

In 2014, as he was heading into his senior year at Fordham College at Rose Hill, Kim worked with his brothers Dylan and Elliott to design and create a camera bag that could double as an everyday backpack.

Six years later, what started as passion project has turned into Brevite, a direct-to-consumer company that is expected to bring in more than $3 million in revenue in 2020. And earlier this month, the company’s success earned the brothers a spot on Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30” list of the top young entrepreneurs in retail and e-commerce.

The idea for their company came to the Kim brothers after Dylan was looking for a bag he could use to carry his school books and keep his camera gear safe.

“It turns out nobody made products like this,” said Kim, who began thinking about how best to design the kind of bag his brother wanted. “I started with sketches. And then I started making cardboard mock-ups.” He even bought a used sewing machine at a thrift shop, taught himself to sew, and created a few samples before hiring someone to prototype the bags.

From Prototype to Production

Shortly after they had a few samples, Kim said he decided to join the Fordham Foundry, the University’s hub of innovation and entrepreneurship, to learn more about how to move from prototype to production and turn their project into a business. In January 2015, after talking to people at the Foundry, the brothers launched a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $30,000. They contracted with their first supplier and began selling the specially designed camera backpacks directly to consumers.

Over the next three years, Brevite began slowly taking off while the brothers were still in school. After graduating from Fordham, Kim enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he earned a master’s degree in design. Instead of seeking venture capital funding, the brothers bootstrapped the company through campaigns and competitions, such as the Ram’s Den Competition, the Fordham Foundry’s annual alumni pitch event, which Brevite won in 2018.

Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, executive director of the Fordham Foundry, has worked with Kim in recent years. He said that Kim and his brothers understood that launching and growing their business would take hard work.

“It’s nice to see [that work]come to fruition and see Brandon and his brothers really fulfilling their dream and making it happen.” He said that entrepreneurship has gotten a “glamorous rap” lately, with some people thinking, “I go to college, and while I’m in college … I get a venture capitalist to write me a check for a million dollars, and then the next thing I know, I’m retiring on an island somewhere. And that’s kind of not the way that it really works. And Brandon and his brothers understand that.”

Kim said that 2018 was a pivotal year for Brevite. In addition to winning the Ram’s Den competition and completing internships and degree programs, he and his brothers decided to fully invest their time and energy in growing the company.

“We were like, ‘All right, what are we doing here? It’s just taking up all this time, and we’ve got no time for anything else.’ So we finally just were like, ‘OK, we’re gonna do this.’”

Two years later, “the business is totally different than when we started out,” Kim said. “Taking it up to seven figures required a complete revamp,” including branching out to design backpacks for general consumers, in addition to photographers.

Fordham Foundry: A Hub for Innovation

Kim said that his decision to join the Fordham Foundry in 2015 helped him and his brothers connect with like-minded entrepreneurial students and gain a base of knowledge and insight about how the startup community operates and how to run a business.

“The people running [the Foundry]are very practical and they’re very accomplished in their own entrepreneurial careers. And then on top of that, they just give really great advice on how to build a business, not necessarily companies but businesses,” he said, emphasizing that the skills and lessons learned go beyond just forming a singular organization.

Bartosic said that the Foundry serves all students, regardless of their major, and provides a space for students and alumni to test, grow, and try out their ideas, with the backing of a supportive community.

“We offer, hopefully, an environment where it’s safe to talk about your ideas, and it’s OK to fail,” he said. “I think that generationally, everybody wants to look cool on Instagram—my life is perfect, and everything is great. … And that’s just not the way that life works. Entrepreneurship really forces you to face that. As long as you’ve got someone that’s supporting you and saying, ‘It’s OK [to fail], or here, let’s try to learn what you did, so you don’t do it again’—those are the kinds of services we provide.”

Over the past few years, the Foundry has grown to provide resources ranging from roundtable discussions to one-on-one mentorship. In addition, the Foundry works with the Gabelli School of Business school to offer two courses—Launch Your Startup and the Startup Venture Experience.

Kim has been a part of the Foundry’s growth since he graduated from Fordham. He was an entrepreneur-in-residence for about 18 months, providing advice, mentorship, and guidance to students who were interested in launching their businesses, and he currently serves on the Foundry’s alumni council.

He said his favorite piece of advice to students is to stay in school and get their degree, instead of dropping out to pursue their idea full time. “Get your degree, do your degree,” he said with a laugh.

He also advises students to take advantage of the Foundry’s mentoring programs and connections. And he encourages alumni who are entrepreneurs to get involved with the Foundry, too, particularly through its alumni council.

“I think the Foundry is a fantastic resource. I think it’s heavily underutilized,” he said. “I think student founders should certainly go to the Foundry [and]even like if they’re not interested in founding companies, but they’re interested in startups, it’s a great place to go.”

In March 2019, Leviashvili was still reaching out to lawyers for advice, and connected with a lawyer who specializes in cryptocurrencies like BitCoin.

“He said, ‘you know, I’m a sole practitioner, I can definitely use some legal work. I could use legal assistance from a law student. I don’t have the overhead to be able to bring you on full time, but would you be willing to do project-based work for me?’” she said.

A Business Idea Blossoms

And with that, GigLaw was born.

Leviashvili went on to recruit nine more clients like that lawyer, and she was able to use the revenue to completely pay off the tuition of her final year of law school. She’s now ready to scale up to include others, having won the Fordham Foundry’s fourth annual pitch challenge. The competition, which culminated with a live Zoom meeting on April 4 in which finalists made their cases to judges, featured 115 participants from 38 teams from around the University.

Because contestants were unable to make their pitches in person, the first round of the competition were held asynchronously, with teams submitting three-minute-long videos that judges could weigh in on at their convenience.

In the end, the teams that came out on top were Leviashvili’s Gig Law, SwapUP, from Gabelli School of Business MBA students Jaz Foster and Liz Stack, BeautiMaps Technologies LLC from Gabelli School of Business MBA student Brandon Adamson, and Shadow Me, from Fordham College at Lincoln Center freshman Alex DeVito.

While SwapUp describes itself as a “circular fashion company” that allows consumers to swap special occasion clothing based on a credit system, BeautiMaps is a global freelancing platform tailored to the wellness and make-up industry. Shadow Me is job shadowing platform that connects students with career professionals to help them find their true calling through on the job experiences.

The social impact award was given to North Node, a platform for connecting volunteers to nonprofit institutions run by Gabelli School EMBA students Hallie Anderson, Emily Penzo, and Doug Wallner.

The winners were announced at the end of the final round of the competition on April 4, and invited to a May 1 meeting with Fordham Provost Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., and Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School of Business.

Harnessing the Entrepreneurial Spirit

Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, the Foundry’s executive director, said the Foundry briefly considered canceling the pitch contest because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, he said, he realized that entrepreneurial spirit is exactly what is needed now.

“In this environment, everyone’s an entrepreneur, right? Because no matter what you’re doing, you’re improvising on the fly, you’re pivoting to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and you’re trying to see what’s effective,” he said.

“Whether you’re trying to reopen a university or start up a business, all of these things really come to the fore right now.”

Although the Foundry had no experience with holding a large event via Zoom, Bartosic said he was very proud of how it ultimately pulled it off. Among the tools they employed to keep it interesting was an interactive tool that gave audience members an invisible pot of $25,000 to invest in whoever they were most interested in.

He also found a silver lining in the new format: access to representatives from private industry that might not have been able to make it if the competition was held in person.

“We had two judges in California, we had a judge in the first round who was in Hawaii. We got the benefit of their expertise and insight, and these were people we’d asked before if they could come and be a judge, and they said their schedule wouldn’t allow for it,” he said.

Equally exciting, he said, was the breadth of talent that the contest drew from the University. He credited the Office of the Provost for spreading the word via several emailed solicitations earlier in the year. The pitch challenge drew teams from Fordham Law School, the undergraduate and graduate divisions of the Gabelli School of Business, and in a first, the Graduate School of Social Service. Leviashvili is the first Law School student to win the contest.

“It really changed the scope of the playing field,” he said.

Very few of the entries required major retooling in light of the pandemic, which also gives him hope, he said

“All four of the businesses that were in the finals were really all about using technology that makes problem-solving more efficient. I think that’s kind of a foreshadowing of what’s happening now, post-COVID-19, which is figuring out how to use new virtual realities to get some of these needs met,” he said.

A Boost of Confidence

Leviashvili said she knew that the success she’s already had with GIGLaw factored in her win. success. But it would have been worth going through the process even if she hadn’t won. She plans to used her $9,500 prize money to fund the design and launch of an online platform in the fall that will connect students with firms interested in 13 areas such as intellectual property law, start-up law, trusts and wills, bankruptcy, energy law, entertainment law, and technology law.

“There’s no resource for law students who don’t take the traditional route to figure out and get experience, and on the other side of it, there’s no resource for small firms and practitioners to get high-quality talent to do project-based work for them,” she said.

She said praise from judges from places like Adobe and venture capital funds was the “nail in the coffin” for a more “traditional route” she might have once been considering, like corporate law. “It gave me this boost of confidence that I absolutely wouldn’t have had before.”

This fall, the University committed $100,000 to a new fund called the Fordham Angel Fund. Overseen by the Fordham Foundry, it will provide seed money to businesses run by current undergraduate and graduate students.

Donna Rapaccioli, Ph.D., dean of the Gabelli School of Business, said the fund, which will commit investments of up to $25,000 in individual businesses, exemplifies application-based learning and industry connectivity, which are key elements of the college’s approach to education.

“Launching the angel fund is another great opportunity for our students to get exposure to the real-world practices of an investment committee, and a chance at real-time decision-making with tangible outcomes,” she said.

“It will provide the added benefit of seed capital for worthy businesses that will add value to society.”

Al Bartosic, GABELLI ’84, the Foundry’s executive director, said the fund is in many ways the pinnacle of offerings that the Foundry can offer.

“We started with the basic mentorship, then we put a pitch challenge together; we’ve been doing that for four years. Last year we put our Ram’s Den competition, which was then called Venture Up!, together; we’ll be doing the second one this month,” he said.

“We wanted to give students an opportunity not just to get mentorship and guidance, but also, what a lot of them need is cash to work with their businesses.”

A Volunteer Effort

The backbone of the fund, which is open to students from all of Fordham’s nine colleges and schools, is two committees of volunteers staffed by students, alumni, and experts in venture capital including academics and working professionals.

The investment committee that will evaluate potential companies is made up of Kevin McQuillan, whose son Chase graduated from the Gabelli School in 2017; Vipin Chamakkala, GABELLI ’10; Donna Redel, LAW ’95; Jerry Wong, program director of the Gabelli M.S in Global Finance; and Bronson Lingamfelter.

“These are people who live, work, eat, breathe, and sleep venture capital or startups,” said Bartosic.

The task of locating companies that might be worth investing in, meanwhile, falls to members of the second committee, the Angel Fund Fellows. Though the position is also open to all undergraduate students,tthe first cohort is made up of Gabelli School students:  seniors Tigerlily Cooley and Christian Pankovcin, and juniors Luis Navarro, Julia de Xavier, and Matthew Nguyen.

The fellows, who have been searching for investment-worthy companies since September, will present the investment committee with 15 potential investment opportunities this month. In January, the investment committee will whittle that list down to four or five finalists who will be invited to present their plans in person.

Bartosic said he expects that at least one company will receive funding. In March, the fund will refer that company to the Law Schools’ Entrepreneurial Law clinic, where law students will conduct their own due diligence.

“The goal is to give these fellows a taste of how a venture fund really works, so they understand that it’s not all just opening a business up, riding around on a skateboard, and feeling good about things. The due diligence is really the hard work,” he said.

Learning How Venture Capital Works

The fellowship program was an obvious fit for Tigerlilly Cooley, a global business honors program student at Gabelli Lincoln Center. She’s currently interning at venture capital fund Future/Perfect Ventures, and before that, she was a Venture Capital College Fellow at the Female Founders Fund. She also interned at Sony Music and currently fronts her own band, Bleachbear. The two fields are not so far apart, she said.

“I like meeting with people. I like client-facing things where you talk to other people. I have a band, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the business element of it. I kind of think of that as my startup,” she said.

McQuillan, a member of the investment committee, said he was excited by the opportunity to help students learn the ropes of the venture capital industry. It’s one he knows well, as he’s currently a general partner of OCA Ventures and the founder and general partner of Focus Opportunity Fund. He credited Rose McSween, Ed.D., senior director of development at the Gabelli School, with bringing him on board.

“We sat down one night and talked about how kids want to learn about starting businesses, and how Fordham needs to start one of these funds. She got a bunch of people to volunteer their time, and I was one of them,” he said.

“One of the key responsibilities in life is, you should help the next generation, and share your successes and failures so they don’t make the same mistakes. I’m doing this because I want to help the next generation. The motivated ones are the ones I get the most excited about.”

Bartosic said that when it comes to choosing companies, the Angel Fund will require them to meet standards such as the Environmental, Social and Governance Criteria (ESG), and those set forth by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASBE), but otherwise fellows will not be steered to specific industries.

“There’s a small subgroup of students that are steadily working away on their businesses while they’re at Fordham. We’ve seen them, we’ve identified several of them, and we’re sure there are lots and lots of them that never come to the Foundry,” he said, adding that Fordham entrepreneurs can be found beyond the Gabelli School.

“I just ran into someone from the Graduate School of Social Service who has a business, and we didn’t know about it, and she was like, ‘Can I get some help?’ So people are out there, doing these things.”