A female-founded women’s wellness startup won Trinity University‘s finalist round of the Louis H. Stumberg Venture Competition Thursday evening. The duo also was voted as the audience favorite.
Senior Sofia Ortiz and sophomore Ashleigh Reese won the $25,000 grand prize in equity-free funding for scaling their startup. The team won an additional $2,500 donated by Helios Technologies senior vice president of innovation and Technology Doug Conyers, who was slated to judge the competition but could not attend.
Ortiz and Reese launched their software platform and app, Well and Worthy, to provide a personalized wellness and lifestyle plan for women via a menstrual cycle-based lifestyle approach. Using science-based approaches and leveraging the holistic practice of cycle syncing, women receive strategies, such as workouts, intimacy advice, and nutrition, that correlate with their individual hormone fluctuations.
“During your menstrual cycle, hormone changes can cause swings in your mood, energy, appetite, creativity, and social engagement,” Ortiz said. “Cycle syncing is a way to adapt your lifestyle to these changes for better balance and feeling your best.”
Since the Stumberg spring seed round, the students garnered a paid sponsorship with Spotify to help promote their wellness app. “We both have experienced chronic health conditions,” Reese said. “Our app essentially puts women’s health in your pocket.”
The remaining finalist teams have wide-ranging businesses.
Kevin Han ’26, Marcos Morales ’25, Mollee Priddy ’24 launched BFit, a mobile application that gives users an adaptable, customizable, and intimate experience of a personal trainer and nutritionist by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI). Providing users with carefully created workouts and meal recommendations, clients will enjoy specially curated exercises and meals that keep them on track with their objectives.
Cade Harger ’25 founded GlassBrain, an educational desktop application that takes a fresh approach to teaching users machine learning. It uses a playground-style building block interface, allowing individuals to experiment and design neural networks quickly and intuitively. Users will go through a module-based program, each with several mini-projects. Projects involve building AI models with real-world applications that get progressively more complex.
James Ogunrin ’24 and Obe Lewis competed with their company called The Beast Collection, a sports and fitness apparel company selling high-quality athletic wear. The company focuses on empowering young adults to become the best versions of themselves, providing customers with the tools and motivation needed to live a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle.
Jade Bondy ’23 and Julie Bondy ’23 decided not to compete with their company LiaisSun in the final round of the Stumberg Competition. These students want to transform artificial light sources to reduce energy use and contribute to global sustainability efforts. They are focused on preparing for their graduate studies after researching modern photovoltaic and battery technology and realizing the complex commercialization challenges.
The Stumberg New Venture Competition is named after the late San Antonio businessman and civic leader Louis H. Stumberg, a member of Trinity’s board of trustees for many years. Stumberg was a well-known entrepreneur in San Antonio who founded Patio Foods and its line of Tex-Mex frozen dinners in the 1940s at the end of the Great Depression in the U.S.
Since its launch in 2015, this two-part university-wide competition has encouraged Trinity student entrepreneur teams to compete for equity-free funding for their startups. In the spring, a panel of judges typically chooses five to six teams out of 10 to move onto the second and final round each fall.
Each of the finalist teams receives $5,000 in seed funding, a spot in Trinity’s summer accelerator, summer housing on campus, mentorship, a credit hour, three months of membership in the Geekdom startup co-working community, participation in Geekdom’s incubator program, and $5,000 credit for Amazon Web Services cloud computing. The winning team wins a full year of Geekdom membership.
The 2022 Stumberg venture competition yielded two winning teams. Personal finance app ReCap and shoulder physical therapy device company Range Rehab won first place.
Read more: Two Startups Tie for 1st Place in the Trinity University Stumberg Competition
“This year’s teams have worked hard since the spring seed round to set up their companies and develop viable products for the market,” said Carmen Aramanda, interim director of Trinity Entrepreneurship. “We look forward to their contributions as they complete their education and continue their journey as thoughtful entrepreneurs working to solve problems.”
The featured photo is of the Stumberg Venture Competition winning team, Well and Worthy. From left: Co-founder Ashleigh Reese, Herb Stumberg, co-founder Sofia Ortiz, and Trinity President Dr. Vanessa Beasley.
