The final round of Hen Hatch featured four teams with widely divergent concepts: straws that change color to discreetly reveal spiked drinks, an app for women to manage chronic health conditions, a clothing line that supports animal shelters and autonomous robots that look for leaks in water lines.
Hen Hatch is the University of Delaware’s premier startup funding competition, and the final round was one of the highlights of the second annual Blue Hen Innovation Fest, held recently on the STAR Campus “An entrepreneur requires something bold, something different,” Dr. Daniel Lee, an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at Horn Entrepreneurship, said before moderating the round.
SafeSip
Mackenzie Frank (BE27), an Entrepreneurship major, created SafeSip, a straw to be chemically engineered to change colors when a drink has been compromised by drugs.
Spiked drinks are a huge problem, she said, with potential for victims to suffer loss of “vision, memory and consciousness.” Current defenses are obvious, cumbersome and unsanitary, she said. They include a scrunchie that covers the glass, fingernail polish that changes color when the finger is dipped into the drink and test strips that change color when a drop from the drink makes them wet. Their technology usually recognizes GHB, ketamine and Rohypnol, tasteless and fast-acting chemicals known as “date rape drugs.”
Her research has identified a large and deeply concerned market for her inconspicuous straws, but she does not yet have a working prototype. It’s “a very big issue,” judge Joelle Flynn, a 1994 UD alumna and “Shark Tank” winner for FunkkOFF! TeethRefreshers, told her and the crowd.
The judges and consultants agreed on the huge potential of SafeSip straws. It received the most generous awards of the night: $11,500 in cash, 10 hours of consulting from BLS, Certified Public Accountants; eight hours from Placers, a workforce solutions company; help on filing on provisional patent from SenseIP; and five hours from Kelsey Kosinski, a user experience analyst at ChristianaCare. The startup also won the Moskowitz Award, named for Jeremy Moskowitz, founder of PolicyPak Software and a Horn Entrepreneurship Philanthropic Investor for Summer Founders.
Relief Chronic Care
Emilie Delaye (BE24, AS27M,), a Fashion and Apparel Studies major, created Relief Chronic Care, which aims to provide “credible resources, practical tools and a supportive community” to women navigating chronic illness.
Women are 80% of the $4.83 billion market in management of chronic diseases, and she’s one of them, saying on the website that she’s been battling chronic illness since she was 10, with a lot of help for her and the app from her mother, a nurse and entrepreneur. She gave her pitch in a video recorded at her home, referring to her needs to balance medication management, doctor’s appointments, treatment planning, financial management and being a student and person.
Her slide deck included four revenue streams: $15 to $30 a month for the app, plus health-product, research and corporate partnerships. She hopes that the app (with 155 people signed up for beta testing) will be “transformational for lives and relief.”
Relief Chronic Care received $6,125 in cash, five hours of consulting from Kosinski and two hours from Placers.
Happy Dog Surf Shop
Three dog lovers and serial entrepreneurs form the executive board of Happy Dog Surf Shop: Brandon Schweitzer (BE27), a Finance major; Kyle Oehlmann (BE27), a Finance and Management Information Systems major; and Emanuel Sobin (BE27), a Finance and Wealth Management major. Their startup makes dog-inspired clothing, selling for $25 to $40, with 90% of profits going to animal shelters.
People can “literally wear their heart on their sleeves,” said Schweitzer, who’s been involved in two other startups. Shirts are printed on demand and delivered by the printer, keeping capital costs light.
Happy Dog was created with friends from other schools and younger siblings who can take over. That youth-oriented vibe is important because they said that 84% of Gen Z rank animal welfare as their top donation priority, but only 32% support animal welfare charities. Yet “73% are willing to spend extra for pet-related fashion.”
Their 501(c)(3) also emphasizes volunteerism, which after a heavy commitment in high school he characterized as “a missing piece in our lives.”
Happy Dog received $3,625 in cash, the $1,000 audience choice award, 10 hours of marketing consulting services from Epic and a $500 gift card from ShopRite.
PipeFix Bot
PipeFix Bot was partly inspired by a 2025 break in a Newark water main, bad enough to call for a boiling advisory, said Rushabh Dhoke (EG25), a Robotics Engineering major, who cofounded it with Sneh Shukla (EG25) and Riya Baranwal (EG25), both Robotics Engineering majors.
Aging water mains are a huge issue, particularly in the Northeast, with some dating to before the Civil War, they said. There are 240,000 breaks annually across the US, and 20% of treated water doesn’t make it to the customer, meaning it yields no revenue.
They feel that they can improve on existing devices that find breaks. Their robot would be autonomous and would be designed for an underserved market: pipes 8 to 18 inches wide. They hope also to incorporate artificial intelligence to improve predictive maintenance.
Their primary market would be an inspection service, $250 to $400 per mile, with a secondary market of selling the robots for $10,000, plus an annual subscription.
PipeFix Bot received $2,750 in cash and a $1,000 gift card from ShopRite.
All four finalists won up to $2,500 in travel experiences for future competitions and 100 printed shirts from judge Craig Pfeifer, owner of Maryland Screen Printers.
A special thank you to the final round judges:
- Brian Feuer, a UD alumnus, former Global Head of Investments & Negotiations for McKinsey & Co. and the keynote speaker for Innovation Fest.
- Joelle Flynn, a 1994 UD alumna and Shark Tank winner for FunkkOFF! TeethRefreshers.
- David Heitzer (EG81), of BP Retail Energy Co., and a member of the Horn Entrepreneurship Advisory Board.
- Lynn Roberts, a UD alumna and program manager at the Pete du Pont Freedom Foundation.
- Craig Pfeifer (AS85), owner of Maryland Screen Printers.
Innovation Fest Audience Likes Skincare Startup
A skincare startup won the $1,000 audience Innovation Showcase award at the second annual Blue Hen Innovation Fest.
Arima Skincare was part of the showcase for a dozen creative projects and startup ventures at the University of Delaware. Arima was founded in 2022 by Arielle Mahugu (AS27), a Biology major and Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship minor.
She said her products are natural, vegan and cruelty-free, without the “harmful chemicals and additives” used in many well-known brands. “All products are handmade, packaged, and shipped by me,” she wrote on the Arima website.
Arima was a semifinalist this year in Hen Hatch, the University of Delaware’s premier startup funding competition.
About Horn Entrepreneurship
Horn Entrepreneurship serves as the creative engine for entrepreneurship education and advancement at the University of Delaware. Currently ranked among the best entrepreneurship programs in the US, Horn Entrepreneurship was built and is actively supported by successful entrepreneurs, empowering aspiring innovators as they pursue new ideas for a better world.
