Three teams of student and alumni entrepreneurs received more than $25,000 in cash prizes at the Third Annual Biola Startup Competition hosted by the Crowell School of Business on Friday, March 23. Each team focused on transforming a promising idea into a successful startup company. Teams youniquely_made, Eleven Streetwear and Polymigo placed in the competition.

The competition consisted of three rounds and began with a kickoff event in September. In December, six finalists selected from registered teams presented their final pitches before four judges on Friday.

Team youniquely_made, an e-commerce matchmaking platform for artistic creators and

marketing clients, won the first-place prize of $15,000 as well as a legal package valued at $10,000 from Brown & Streza, LLP. The members of youniquely_made are MBA students Karissa Le, Jasper Lee and Chris Wong. Team youniquely_made flips the traditional freelancing platform by empowering artistic creators with information about potential marketing clients and providing a matching service based on the creative profiling of both sides. Their hope is to build a process that goes beyond a one-time logo.

“The youniquely_made team entered the startup competition for the opportunity to create a startup in a structured environment about entrepreneurship,” said team leader Le. “The competition was a completely different experience that allowed us the opportunity to put the things we've learned in our MBA program to use!”

Team Eleven Streetwear won the second-place prize of $7,500. Eleven Streetwear is a soccer lifestyle brand that provides ethically sourced, high quality apparel to players and fans seeking to wear their passion for the game anytime. Their business model seeks to impact the world by giving kids in under-resourced communities the opportunity to participate in organized soccer.

Team Polymigo won the third-place prize of $5,000. Polymigo’s mission is to advance God's kingdom through effective and innovative language-learning education by providing an augmented reality language-learning children's book. Polymigo hopes to create a product that will enhance children’s ability to learn a second language.

The Biola Startup Competition is a faith-based entrepreneurial initiative hosted by Biola's Crowell School of Business to accelerate startups across Biola University. The competition was open to all current Biola students and recent alumni (2007 or later) to compete.

The judges were Christeen Rico, Global Expansion at Apple; Jessica Ray, founder and CEO of Rey Swimwear; Larry Stofko, EVP of The Innovation Institute and Wes Wasson, CEO and co-founder of DreamStart Labs.

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Learn more about the Biola Startup Competition.

Written by Alisa Ohara, media relations intern. For more information, contact media.relations@biola.edu.