UC Venture Lab Accelerator Demo Day | Summer 2026
Join us for pitches, networking and refreshments at the 1819 Innovation Hub on August 13th from 4:30-6:30pm !
Agenda
4:30pm: Doors open, team tabling
5:00pm: Program begins
6:00pm: Program concludes, networking & team tabling
Meet the Cohort
CircuitMind AI, Shloka Shah (MS Electrical Engineering) & Luv Patel
CircuitMind AI is an AI-powered debugging assistant that helps embedded and hardware engineers dramatically reduce debugging time. It combines datasheet intelligence, structured reasoning, and vision analysis of oscilloscope captures to deliver accurate, register-level guidance and step-by-step troubleshooting plans grounded in actual component specifications. The team’s vision To become the indispensable “GitHub Copilot” for hardware engineers — transforming painful datasheet overload and sleepless debugging nights into fast, confident product shipping days.
Content Craze, Nick Ginex (BS Computer Science)
ContentCraze is a UGC (User Generated Content) engineering platform that turns brand briefs (long marketing docs) into self-optimizing creator campaigns. Brands upload a strategy, the platform generates structured scripts across multiple short form content visual styles, assigns them to creators, and A/B tests every format to scale the best format automatically. Content Craze has onboarded over 300 creators and 10 paying brands in the first 3 months since launch, with a goal of scaling to 50 paying brands in 2026.
DonorStream, Charles Bishop (BS Information Systems & MS Finance)
DonorStream is a real-time political intelligence platform that enables campaigns and consulting firms to act on publicly available campaign finance data as it becomes available. By automating the ingestion and structuring of fragmented data sources, the platform transforms raw filings into actionable insights, allowing campaign teams to make faster, more informed decisions. The team is looking for pilot partners to test their prototype and provide feedback on interface, features, etc.
Encore Arena, Natalie Harvey (BA Entrepreneurship), Varsha Govardhanam (MS Computer Science), Vivian Comer (MS Business Analytics)
Encore Arena is the first competitive digital trading card game for K-pop fans, turning a massive, physical-only collector market into a scalable, high-engagement mobile gaming ecosystem. The team has identified an opportunity that combines fandom, gameplay, and monetization into one platform designed for how fans already spend. Encore Arena is a mobile platform where users collect digital K-pop photocards and use them in competitive gameplay. Players build decks, battle in PvP matches, and engage through guilds, trading, and curated collections.
SentinelPatch, Samarth Saxena (BS Cybersecurity Engineering)
SentinelPatch is a magnetic sensor puck that attaches to legacy CNC machines and monitors vibration in real time to detect bearing failure before it causes a breakdown. The team is building the check-engine light for manufacturing equipment that has never had one to provide an affordable, zero-setup alternative to enterprise condition monitoring tools that cost tens of thousands of dollars and require dedicated IT infrastructure. SentinelPatch is looking for pilot customers to help them refine their solution and provide industry insights.
VHSmo, Dhruv Bilare (BS Computer Engineering), Aryan Metkar (BS Business Analytics), Teja Sree Aalla (BS Computer Science)
VHSmo is the world’s first pocket-sized digital camera with instant wireless photo transfer, blending nostalgia and convenience for Gen Z. The team is seeking manufacturing and marketing support for a patent pending compact camera that takes true retro images and sends them wirelessly to our companion app. On the app the user can share, save or delete images and view them in a photo book type gallery. VHSmo can transfer photos without internet or cloud services, making it offline, secure and instant.
Inlayer, James Lee & Dr Michael Jones
Inlayer is the Human Connection Platform, built at the intersection of two massive, converging problems: the explosion of AI-enabled fraud and the industry-wide shift to Zero Trust security. Its foundation, Phonism by Inlayer, already secures SIP phone deployments for 45+ voice service providers, with integrations built into every leading UCaaS platform, including Microsoft Teams, Zoom Phone, and Webex by Cisco, plus API customers such as Alianza, Nextiva, and Talkdesk who embed Phonism's device lifecycle management directly into their own applications. Inlayer is now building the trust layer for online communications: Verified Human Communications, patented technology that solves a problem no one else has cracked, proving a real human, not a bot or a deepfake, initiated a call, message, or transaction.
TissueVue Health, Mike Jackson & Jason Heym
TissueVue Health is enabling healthcare providers to document tissue condition in patients according to emergent Medicare and CMS requirements. Current documentation of patients’ tissue condition and pressure injuries in a care facility is not standardized, leading to challenges in the collection of evidence for injury cases and health records. The TissueVue team is developing a scanner device that will use a combination of inputs and a proprietary model to detect, record and chart pressure injuries or potential problem zones.