The DEMO 2023 Entrepreneurship Conference, organized by TroyLabs at USC’s Ronald Tutor Campus Center Ballroom, took place on April 5. The event drew a crowd of startup founders, investors and students alike.
TroyLabs, USC’s student run venture platform, facilitates startup development by providing funding, startup strategy and support, and community engagement.
The conference kicked off with an introduction by Lloyd Greif Center Director Elissa Grossman. The keynote speech was delivered by Jared Grusd, Chief Strategy Officer at Chime and moderated by Marshall Assistant Professor Dr. Glenn Fox.
With a total of 50 startups showcasing their products, the event provided an opportunity for students of various disciplines, investors looking for potential opportunities and startup founders to discover each other and put forth their pitches and ideas.
“I wanted to explore, learn about the companies, talk to founders, see latest developments and just see what’s going on at the grassroot level in terms of the cultivation of new ideas, new startups, to meet people and gather new ideas,” said business analytics grad student Kai Hoffmann, who attended the event.
Six founders presented their companies at the Pitch competition held later that evening in front of Zhenni Liu, Partner at MaC Venture Capital, Todd Foreman, former CEO at UCG and former Partner at SWaN and Legend Partners, & Tiffany Nguyen, Co-Founder and CEO of Asprodental. Among the six competing companies, Spotlight claimed the third prize, Elete took second and Haven emerged as the winner.
As the conference and other entrepreneurial endeavors hosted at USC continue to be platforms for driving innovation and inspiring newer generations of founders, collaboration and support in the world of startups and venture capital will continue to be key motivators for building world-changing products and services.