This year’s winners are:
1st – Ascend Medtech
2nd – Augur
New Venture Prize – Micropoint
Read more about their projects, and the projects of the other finalists, below.
Welcome to the competition page for the 2025 Lowell Milken Institute-Sandler Prize for New Entrepreneurs Final Round which took place on Wednesday, April 16, 2025!
This is the space for you to:
- Read about the six finalist teams: Micropoint, Augur, Asearis, HYenergy Inc., MuralinkAI, Ascend Medtech
- View the program for the final round event
Finalists
Micropoint Therapeutics
Adi Shapira, UCLA Anderson 2025
Ruchit Trivedi, UCLA Anderson 2025
Cindy Pham, UCLA Anderson 2025
Christina Dang, UCLA School of Law, JD 2026
Micropoint Therapeutics is on a mission to break the hospitalization cycle Bipolar Disorder patients face with a groundbreaking microneedle patch that provides better health outcomes through improved compliance and accessibility. By combining the efficacy of an injection and the convenience of a pill, Micropoint’s technology is on track to meanifully solve both these problems and revolutionize the standard of care for patients with Bipolar Disorder.
Augur
Matthew Dumas, UCLA Anderson, MBA 2026
Marisa Eng, UCLA Anderson, MBA 2026
Tyler Luskin, UCLA School of Law, JD 2026
The healthcare industry faces significant challenges, with nearly 1 in 20 inpatients experiencing preventable harm from complications like acute kidney injury and hypoglycemia, costing over $9.3 billion annually. Augur, an AI-powered SaaS platform developed at Cedars-Sinai, leverages real-time EHR data to predict and prevent these complications. Powered by a proprietary self-supervised transformer model, Augur delivers precise, personalized alerts, integrated into hospital workflows. Trained on over 6 million patient records, it enables proactive risk prevention, reducing harm and costs while enhancing patient safety. Augur is working with Cedars-Siani to pilot its predictive alerts for acute kidney injury to validate its capabilities.
HYenergy Inc.
Fernando Lopez, UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry, PhD 2026
Patrick Begian, UCLA School of Law, JD 2025
Adrian Berger, UCLA Anderson, MBA 2026
George Isaac, UCLA Samueli Materials Science & Engineering, MS 2025
Zhuoying Lin, UCLA Chemistry & Bioechemistry, PhD 2025
Justin Saleh, UCLA Anderson, MBA 2026
HYengery provides an end-to-end process that generates, and utilizes green hydrogen at the point of demand in an alkaline electrolyzer and fuel-cell powered machines, respectively. Starting at the Port of Los Angeles, our mission is to scale hydrogen adoption in heavy machinery industries and become the most attractive energy provider at a global scale. Utilizing wastewater, curtailed renewable energy, and UCLA-powered research, HYenergy’s impact will start with our community in Southern California and expand to industries around the world.
Asearis
Erich Plersch, UCLA Anderson, EMBA 2026
Stephanie Kim, UCLA Anderson, EMBA 2026
Hala Al-Sadeg, UCLA School of Law, JD 2026
Gulzat Kurmankozhoeva, UCLA Anderson, EMBA 2026
Kiana Soleiman, UCLA School of Law, JD 2026
Agathiya Tharun, UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, MS 2025
Asearis is redefining cloud computing with ShareCloudTM, a decentralized, cost-effective, and sustainable alternative to traditional cloud computing. ShareCloudTM helps businesses transform the unused capacity they already own on devices like laptops, phones, and computers into cloud computing capacity. With ShareCloudTM, businesses can increase capacity, reduce cloud costs, cut energy consumption and reduce environmental impact, while maintaining seamless, enterprise-grade cloud functionality.
Muralink AI
Tushar Gopalka, UCLA College of Letters and Sciences, Physics PhD 2025
Ananya Guruprasad, UCLA School of Law, JD 2025
Neha Vadaprakash, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, Architecture and Urban Design MS 2025
Muralink is making interior design services affordable and accessible to everyone by creating a multisided marketplace for homeowners, interior designers, and home decor vendors. This is made possible by creating an intelligent marketplace with in-house developed GenAI visualization tools for a more personalized experience while simultaneously reducing costs.
Ascend MedTech
Amara Onyiah, David Geffen School of Medicine, MD 2027
Joseph Chang, UCLA School of Law, JD 2025
Doris Cheng, UCLA Anderson, MBA 2026
Adam Kobza, UCLA School of Law, JD 2026
Ascend MedTech (“Ascend”) is fundamentally changing the management of aortic stenosis caused by the buildup of calcium on heart valves. Akin to how Americans are advised to get two dental cleanings per year to reduce the buildup of plaque and tartar, Ascend envisions a world where people can stay heart healthy with regular valve cleanings. A pre-seed stage company out of the UCLA Biodesign program, Ascend is developing a noninvasive preventive procedure to break down accumulated calcium in native heart valves. Our solution saves lives, one crack at a time.
Thank you to those who made this competition possible!
UCLA School of Law and the Lowell Milken Institute offer their thanks to Lowell Milken, the Milken Family Foundation, Richard Sandler and the Richard Sandler Family Foundation for their vision and support.
Lowell Milken Institute thanks Dean Michael Waterstone for his leadership and support of the Business Law Program and this competition.
Final Round Judges:
Dan Wu (J.D. ’99)
Partner, O’Melveny & Myers
Carl Albert (J.D. ’07)
Chair of the Board of Directors, Fairchild Venture Capital; Chairman, SurfAir Mobility
Richard Sandler (J.D. ’73)
Executive Vice President, Milken Family Foundation; Partner, Maron & Sandler
First Round Judges:
|
George Abe Allan Marks |
Josh Green (J.D. ’80) Ken Firtel |
Mentors:
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Justin Brownstone, UCLA J.D. ’09 |
Mark Kapczynski, UCLA B.A. ’93 |