Colby College students Dan Vogel (left) and Scott Lehman pitch their business, NorthEats, to a panel of judges at the 5th annual UMaine Business Challenge in 2016. (Photo/James Morin)

Five student entrepreneurs have been chosen as finalists for the seventh annual UMaine Business Challenge, the largest business-plan competition for college students in the state.

These college entrepreneurs have been paired with mentors and have two weeks to prepare for the live-pitch event on March 31 in Orono. Up for grabs is $20,000 in cash and in-kind support.

The startup ideas range from a company that’s developed a medical education device to one that’s deploying agricultural technology to help farmers better monitor their crop storage. Students who applied could be at any early stage of their business, from the idea phase to post-revenue, but those businesses must be headquartered—or plan to be headquartered—in Maine.

Despite its name, the UMaine Business Challenge is open to students enrolled in any Maine college or university. However, this year all the finalists are UMaine students.

The UMaine Business Challenge received 27 applications this year, which is down from 45 last year, according to Nicholas Aiken, chair of the competition’s planning committee.

“We had higher quality and more applications than ever before from University of Maine students,” Aiken said. “It seems, however, that the proliferation of college competitions at the other in-state schools has lowered the number of applicants [we received] from those institutions. This is a net positive thing for the UBC. We have always dreamed of having a ‘Super Bowl’ of the Maine college competitions.”

The 2018 UMaine Business Challenge finalists are:

  • Nicholas LaJoie, who grew up on a potato farm in Northern Maine, has developed a system of sensors and embedded electronics to help potato farmers remotely monitor their storage facilities. He calls the company IoTato, a play on the IoT acronym, which stands for internet-of-things.
  • Justin Gagnon, founder of 207 Backpacks, has developed a fully functional hiking backpack that also provides a safe and secure storage system for camera equipment.
  • Stanley Small is founder of EcoPal, a social network for environmentally conscious individuals.
  • Patrick Breeding is co-founder and CEO of Zephyrus Simulation, which has developed a mannequin with a diaphragm that mimics natural breathing patterns, as well as hyperventilation and obstructed breathing patterns, to help train medical professionals to diagnose and respond to critical respiratory situations. The product was first developed by a group of UMaine bioengineering students as part of a school project. In December, Zephyrus received a $5,000 grant from VentureWell, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that supports science and technology entrepreneurs, and before that it won a $500 prize at the Bangor region’s BigGig business pitch contest.
  • Zachary Dalrymple is founder of Dog Company Nutrition, which aims to provide nutritious and unique meal plans for dog owners.

The UMaine Business Challenge finalists will be competing for a first-place cash prize of $5,000 provided by the competition’s sponsor, Business Lending Solutions, which will also provide $5,000 of in-kind services. The Maine Business School will provide a second-place prize of $1,000. In addition, the Fournier Family Foundation will award a $5,000 prize for the best technology startup (with another $5,000 available if the winner hits certain milestones).

The panel of judges who will evaluate the students’ pitches will be James Page, chancellor of the University of Maine System and former CEO of the James W. Sewall Co. in Old Town; Betsy Peters, a consultant and former entrepreneur-in-residence at the Maine Technology Institute; Deb Neuman, CEO of the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce; Bruce Fournier, president of the Fournier Family Foundation and a Maine native and UMaine engineering alum; and Don Smith, assistant vice president and lending officer at Business Lending Solutions.