How NUvention: Medical and VentureCat Propelled Two Student Entrepreneurs

If not for NUvention: Medical, Giuliana Zaccardelli (Feinberg/Kellogg ’22) and Blair Matthews (Pritzker ’22) would not have met.

And if not for two different turns at VentureCat, Northwestern University’s student startup competition, Zaccardelli and Matthews might not have gained the resolve and momentum necessary to advance their personalized digital fertility app called Zuri.

Since meeting in NUvention: Medical in fall 2020, Zaccardelli and Matthews have transformed their original idea into a promising entrepreneurial venture. Propelled by their experience in NUvention: Medical and VentureCat, and an earnest commitment to address the stress and anxiety infertility often causes, the Zuri cofounders continue pushing their solution to market.

The origins of a business 

One of the Farley Center’s flagship courses, NUvention: Medical exposes students to the holistic process of developing and commercializing new medical technologies. 

In brainstorming potential business ideas in the course’s opening week, Matthews shared his and his wife’s personal struggle with getting pregnant. Having worked in Northwestern’s fertility clinic, Zaccardelli was drawn to the familiar tale and crafting a relevant solution. She teamed with Matthews to tackle the problem.

Over the next six months, Zaccardelli and Matthews sharpened their plan for a digital app to streamline the infertility process by offering treatment options and care plans. They interviewed potential customers and conducted business and financial modeling. They tackled intellectual property and regulatory hurdles.

“NUvention: Medical was like a pre-accelerator challenging us to create a thoughtful, marketable solution,” Matthews said.

At the end of the two-quarter course, Zaccardelli and Matthews pitched their business idea to a panel of guest judges and received encouraging feedback.

“NUvention: Medical helped us feel confident we had a viable business,” Matthews said.

So confident, Zaccardelli and Matthews entered Zuri Fertility into VentureCat, the annual competition supported by the Farley Center, the Kellogg School of Management, the Donald Pritzker Entrepreneurship Law Center, and The Garage.  

The next step: VentureCat 

At VentureCat 2021, Zuri – a name inspired by the Swahili word for “good” or “beautiful” – captured a semifinalist nod in the Life Sciences and Medical Innovations track. Its journey, however, ended short of an appearance in the finals and a shot at any of the competition’s top prizes. The experience delivered Zaccardelli and Matthews to a crossroads: continue or quit.

“Our first VentureCat was a disappointing experience, but it was also a valuable experience because it helped us realize how much we wanted to keep developing Zuri,” Zaccardelli said. “We decided jointly we wanted to keep moving forward.”

Throughout their final year in school, Matthews and Zaccardelli solidified Zuri’s business plan with eyes on VentureCat 2022. They interviewed more customers to gain a better understanding of user needs, improved the app’s features, and refined their pitch with the help of Pritzker School of Law senior lecturer Jason DeSanto.

After earning semifinalist recognition again in VentureCat’s Life Sciences and Medical Innovations track, Zuri advanced to the 2022 competition’s finals as the wildcard pick. Pitching Zuri in VentureCat’s Public Showcase before students, alumni, and investors, Zuri earned the $25,000 third-place prize as well as the $2,000 Audience Favorite prize.

The non-dilutive capital gave Zaccardelli and Matthews the funding to build out Zuri’s minimum viable product. VentureCat also provided significant exposure. One of VentureCat’s judges invested in Zuri’s friends and family round and has subsequently helped Matthews and Zaccardelli expand their professional network.

The path to market 

Fueled by their experiences in NUvention: Medical and VentureCat, Zuri is continuing its march toward commercialization. In doing so, the company is following in the footsteps of other Northwestern student ventures that leveraged NUvention courses and VentureCat as a springboard to entrepreneurship.  

Like Zuri, Hubly Surgical came to life in NUvention: Medical and was a two-time VentureCat semifinalist (2019 and 2020). Led by Casey Grage (Weinberg ’19), Hubly recently brought its first product, the HUBLY DRILL, an innovative cranial access drill, to market after earning approval from the US Food and Drug Administration on May 4. 

NUvention: Energy, meanwhile, launched blip energy, winners of the Energy and Sustainability track at VentureCat 2020 behind Dennis Kontorovich (Kellogg ’20), Sophia Wennstedt (Kellogg/McCormick ’21), Chance Cobb (School of Communication ’20), and Thibaut Feremans (Kellogg ’21). Today, blip is preparing to introduce the world’s most accessible smart home battery, the blipOne, to the marketplace.  

Zaccardelli, Zuri’s CEO, and Matthews, the company’s COO, hope they become the next big Farley-ignited success. The current Zuri platform provides access to the latest reproductive health information and resources tailored to each patient, including education, at-home testing, and care coordination.

Zaccardelli and Matthews are now finalizing Zuri’s pre-seed funding round while building out the startup’s revenue-generating platform as participants in Techstars New York City powered by J.P. Morgan.

“We owe a lot to Farley and the Northwestern network, which has been invaluable as we’ve worked to grow Zuri into something special and sustainable,” Zaccardelli said.