Lawrence-based sustainable engineering startup and KU spinout company, Icorium Engineering, won 5^th place overall and took home more than $180K in prizes at the prestigious Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC), held April 4-6^th at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Icorium was one of only 42 teams selected from over 450 applicants to compete in the intense, multi-round pitch competition, which featured the best student startups from top universities around the globe.  

Hosted annually by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, the RBPC is the world’s largest and richest student startup competition. The RBPC offers real-world opportunities to learn what’s required to successfully launch a new business. In addition to the substantial cash, investment, and in-kind prizes, the heart of the competition is the mentoring from investors and experienced entrepreneurs. RBPC alumni have raised more than $6.1 billion in capital and 288 are in business or have had successful exits.

Icorium, which is the first ever team from Kansas to compete in the competition, was represented by its Co-Founder and CEO, Dr. Kalin Baca, alongside Icorium R&D Engineer and KU PhD candidate, Abby Harders. Icorium Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Dr. Mark Shiflett, also accompanied the team to Houston as its academic advisor. Shiflett, who is a Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at KU and the Director of KU’s Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering, is currently Harders’ PhD advisor. Baca also completed her Ph.D. under Shiflett’s supervision in 2023. “I couldn’t be more proud of Abby and Kalin,” said Shiflett, “they’ve both worked incredibly hard over the past several years developing these technologies in the labs at KU, and they are working just as hard to build this company and create the opportunity to bring their research to the market where it will help address some significant real-world problems.”  

The three were joined in Houston by Icorium’s Chief Strategy officer, Erik Blume, who joined the company full-time in November to help focus on commercializing the company’s growing pipeline of technologies and services. A graduate of KU’s School of Law and MBA Program, Blume first worked with Icorium in 2021 during his 6-year tenure at the KU Innovation Park, where he worked with dozens of startups seeking to create companies and commercialize KU research. “The Rice Alliance put on an incredible competition with a roster of truly impressive teams, many of them from powerhouse entrepreneurial universities,” said Blume. “The chance to compete and to connect with the other teams was a great learning experience for all of us. We were honored to learn that Icorium was the first ever team from Kansas to compete at RBPC, and we’re looking forward to sharing all we learned with other KU and KU Innovation Park startups so we can see more promising Kansas teams at the competition in the coming years.” 

Kicking off the competition on Thursday evening, a single member from each of the 42 startup teams delivered a 60-second elevator pitch. Icorium’s pitch, delivered by Baca, won the company the Mercury Elevator Pitch Prize for best sustainability/energy company. Friday and Saturday, 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, and then on to the 7-team final round on Saturday afternoon. Icorium finished fifth-place overall, receiving the $5K fifth-place prize sponsored by EY, plus a $25K investment provided by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.  All-in-all, Icorium took home more than $182,000 in investments and other cash and in-kind prizes, including the $100K Owl Investment Prize, $40K Courageous Women Entrepreneur Investment Prize from nCourage Investment Group, and the $1K Anbarci Family Company Showcase Prize. “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, “Even though this was an intense competition with a lot of prize money and potential investment on the line, all the teams were incredibly friendly and supportive of each other throughout the competition.”   

“We couldn’t be happier with the outcome,” says Blume. “Icorium has a great story, and I don’t think anyone could have told it better than Kalin and Abby did in the final round”. Blume emphasizes that the prize money will make a huge difference for the company at this stage, and the connections they made with investors and other key partners who see the potential in Icorium will equally contribute to their success moving forward.

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 very 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 a fellow 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 Luke and I 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 now focus on finishing strong at KU.” 

See story featured on KU News