Segal Design Institute Teams Win Big at VentureCat 2025
Graduate students and alumni from the MMM and EDI programs earned honors at the startup competition
Graduate students and an alum from the Segal Design Institute earned second- and third-place honors at VentureCat 2025, Northwestern’s annual university-wide startup competition, held May 28 Kellogg Global Hub’s White Auditorium.
Second place and a $50,000 prize went to MMM Program students Yutaro Nishiyama, Thery Badin, and Evan Lai (all MMM ’25) for InstaEnglish, a personal English-speaking coach designed to help users achieve conversational fluency in just 10 months.
Third place and the Audience Favorite Award, totaling $30,000, went to Angie Mercurio (EDI ’17, MBA ’26), cofounder and CEO of nLab. Her company combines the world’s smallest electronics lab with an interactive platform that teaches hands-on circuit-building — empowering learners with the skills needed for critical tech roles.
The first-place prize of $100,000 went to Ali Lee (WCAS ’24), founder and CEO at Swarm, an all-natural insect repellent lotion designed to reimagine bug spray with a more appealing aesthetic.
VentureCat is Northwestern’s annual University-wide pitch competition and collaborative program supported by the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Kellogg School of Management, the Donald Pritzker Entrepreneurship Law Center, and The Garage at Northwestern. Northwestern student-founded ventures compete across five industry tracks for a non-dilutive prize pool of more than $175,000.
The event was co-hosted by Izzy Mokotoff (’24), founder of SteadyScrib and a Farley entrepreneurship minor alum and Segal Design Institute certificate alum, who took home second place and the Audience Favorite Prize at last year’s VentureCat competition, as well as Scott Taangeos (MMM ’24), founder and CEO of Olympus, who took home third place last year.
View the full list of VentureCat winners at The Garage at Northwestern website.