Finalists Prepare for MECSL Competition at UW

Finalists have been named in the Microbial Ecology Collaborative Startup Launchpad (MECSL), a competition focused on innovative Wyoming-based startups in the fields of microbial ecology, environmental sustainability, natural resource management or data science.

Pitch Day for MECSL will be Wednesday, May 19, where finalists will compete for a $25,000 award pool.

MECSL is administered by IMPACT 307, the University of Wyoming’s business incubator network, and funded by Wyoming’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). The launchpad has brought in a series of teams that have been working to create functioning businesses in areas concerning the relationships between microorganisms as well as their environments.

IMPACT 307 is a network of innovation-driven business incubators committed to growing and strengthening Wyoming’s entrepreneurial community by providing resources and support for founders to thrive.

The two finalists competing for funding are:

-- Frostyflake is a weather-monitoring service that works particularly with snowplow companies, allowing them to access cameras in 20,000 different locations that display weather in real time as opposed to making these firms rely on often inaccurate meteorology broadcasts. Frostyflake was founded and is currently run by CEO Marcus Curley.

-- LifeGlass is a company focused on revolutionizing the way pharmaceuticals are transported and stored, hoping to make the process easier and more efficient. LifeGlass was created by Ryan Bettcher, a UW Ph.D. student from Brighton, Colo., majoring in molecular biology, and Thomas Boothby, a UW assistant professor of molecular biology.

“I’m excited to meet the other competitors,” Curley says. “The way I look at it is, obviously, we are competing for a lot of money. But I think there is a ton of value in getting to network with the other teams and learning from how they run their businesses.” 

For information on how to view the presentations, RSVP to laramie@uwyo.edu.