Pasadena Startups Make Their Pitch With Big Ideas

Katie Sicinski (Left) and Casey Ritts of Caltech, were awarded $2,000 for their Venture Potential Award at the Pasadena Pitch Startup event Tuesday at the Pasarroyo complex, as part of LA Tech Week. [Photo by Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]

A better way to heal chronic wounds. A device to help sleep apnea patients breathe without cumbersome masks. A technology to recover valuable copper from mining waste. And a new approach to developing treatments using RNA.

The ideas were ambitious, the science sometimes complicated, and the stakes very real Tuesday evening as six emerging companies made their cases before investors and technology executives at Innovate Pasadena’s Startup Pitch Competition.

Held at the Pasarroyo complex as part of LA Tech Week, the event brought together entrepreneurs, researchers and venture capitalists for an evening that was part scientific presentation, part business negotiation and part friendly competition.

Michael A. Giardello, co-founder and chairman of Innovate Pasadena, said organizers received 53 applications before selecting six finalists.

Each company received eight minutes to pitch its technology, followed by questions from a four-member judging panel.

“It’s a little more sophisticated than that,” Giardello said when asked whether the competition resembled television’s “Shark Tank.”

Indeed, the evening’s proposals were considerably more complicated than consumer gadgets.

Kanishk Rai, founder and CEO of RaiCare, presented SparkHeal, an experimental self-powered electrical stimulation patch designed to promote wound healing. MahiBio described using artificial intelligence and fermentation to develop proteins intended for people with food allergies.

NexGenMT, a Caltech spinoff, proposed recovering copper from mining waste using advanced membrane technology. Arroyo Sleep Research presented ASRMax, a mouthpiece-based device intended to prevent sleep apnea episodes through electrical stimulation.

The judges questioned presenters about patents, regulatory approvals, manufacturing costs, market opportunities and, inevitably, when their companies expected to begin generating revenue.

Two companies emerged with $2,000 awards.

Censera, developing technology to improve RNA-based therapeutics, received the Venture Potential Award, recognizing its prospects for commercial growth.

BiliSense, developing a five-minute blood test to detect newborn jaundice, received the Pitch Excellence Award for its presentation.

For Censera researchers Katie Sicinski and Casey Ritts of Caltech, the recognition offered encouragement for work still in its early stages.

“It’s extremely exciting,” Ritts said afterward. “We’ve been working a long time on this idea.”

Sicinski noted that the award represented the company’s first $2,000 in prize money.

Founded in 2013, Innovate Pasadena has been rebuilding its event programming following the pandemic, which effectively halted its once-busy calendar of in-person gatherings.

For Giardello, who returned as chairman this year, Tuesday’s competition represented another step in restoring the connections between Pasadena’s research institutions, entrepreneurs and investors.

And for the six finalists, the evening offered something potentially more valuable than a cash prize: an audience capable of helping turn laboratory ideas into businesses.