Icorium Engineering Company Wins Big at 2024 Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) in Houston
Dr. Kalin Baca, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer for Icorium Engineering Company, and Abby Harders, University of Kansas Ph.D. student and part-time Icorium R&D Engineer, competed in the Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) held by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship at Rice University in Houston, April 4-6. Baca completed her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at KU in 2023 under the supervision of Foundation Distinguished Professor Mark B. Shiflett. Shiflett, who is Icorium’s Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, is also Harders’ Ph.D. advisor and accompanied the team to Houston along with Icorium’s Chief Strategy Officer, Erik Blume.
Over three days, Baca and Harders pitched through multiple rounds of intense competition, refining their pitch based on the judges’ feedback as they made it to the 15-team semifinals on Friday, and then on to the 7-team final round on Saturday. Icorium finished fifth-place overall, winning nearly $182,000 in investments and other cash and in-kind prizes. “All of the teams presenting at the competition were really impressive, and even making it to the final round was an incredible experience,” said Baca. “The prize money will make a huge difference for the company at this stage, and we’ve made important connections with several investors who are interested in helping us succeed down the road. We were also thrilled to learn that we were the first team to compete in the RBPC from the University of Kansas.”
The RBPC is one of the country’s premier pitch competitions and showcases the best university startups from around the world. The competition, entering its 24th year, gives collegiate entrepreneurs real-world experience to pitch their startups, enhance their business strategy, and learn what it takes to launch a successful company. This year, more than 450 teams applied and 42 were selected to pitch their technologies for more than $1.5 million in cash and prizes. The RBPC is the largest and richest student startup competition in the world, and the competition had over 350 judges providing feedback to the teams, with hundreds of investors in attendance and over 700 people at the gala.
This isn’t the first time Baca and Harders have successfully joined forces to pitch for the company. A year ago, the duo brought home the $20,000 third-place award at the 2023 DOE EnergyTech University Prize competition in Austin, TX. “Kalin and I have worked together really closely for the last few years, both at KU and Icorium, and we make a great team,” says Harders. “Some of the Q&A sessions felt a little intense, but we received a lot of excellent and valuable feedback from the judges during and after the competition, and also a lot of supportive advice from investors afterwards that will help us strengthen the pitch and company’s strategy even more.” Harders, who will complete her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in July, will join Icorium full-time after graduation along with another KU engineering student, Luke Wallisch, who is an Icorium R&D Engineering Intern and KU Mechanical Engineering senior. “We feel very fortunate and are incredibly grateful to RBPC and all the judges and investors at the competition,” says Harders. “The plan has always been for me and Luke to join the company full-time when we graduate this summer. Thanks to the prizes and investment from the competition, we know for sure we can make that happen and can just focus on finishing strong at KU.
About Icorium
Icorium Engineering Company is a sustainable engineering company a spin-out of the University of Kansas’ Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering (WISE-KU). Located at KU Innovation Park in Lawrence, KS, Icorium is developing novel technologies and transforming them into commercial solutions to enable and incentivize circular, sustainable economies for refrigerants and other critical materials. Learn more at www.icoriumengineering.com.
About the RBPC and Rice Alliance
The Rice Business Plan Competition, entering its 24th year, gives collegiate entrepreneurs real-world experience to pitch their startups, enhance their business strategy and learn what it takes to launch a successful company. Hosted and organized by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship—which is Rice University's internationally-recognized initiative devoted to the support of entrepreneurship—and Rice Business. Over 23 years it has grown from nine teams competing for $10,000 in prize money in 2001, to 42 teams from around the world competing for more than $1.5 million in cash and prizes. It is the largest and richest student startup competition in the world. The results of the 2024 competition can be found at 2024 Results | Rice Business Plan Competition.
About WISE-KU
The Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering is advancing global sustainability through transformational engineering, science, and education. WISE-KU aims to focus on creating solutions that can be applied to real world issues promoting the societal, economic, and environmental benefits of sustainable and green engineering. The institute goals include: providing multidisciplinary scientific and technical expertise in applied sustainability research, developing sustainability concepts in engineering education for graduate and undergraduate students, working with industry to advance research and development in sustainability projects, creating measurement tools and frameworks for guiding the design of more sustainable products and processes, and developing education programs and certificates for industry and society that include the roles of engineering and science in creating a more sustainable future. To learn more about the Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering, its faculty, students, and programs, please visit www.wise.ku.edu.