Startup Spotlight Semiconductor and Beauty Ventures Earn Pre-Seed Funding

Cofounded in 2022 by adjunct professor of entrepreneurship CJ Przybyl, MBA ’11, Reserv is a third-party administrator and property-and-casualty-insurance software provider. With more than 500 adjusters, the company harnesses artificial intelligence to handle claims for nearly 200 insurers, corporate captives, managing general agents, and brokers, enabling clients to reduce loss costs, streamline operations, and improve the customer experience. The company has doubled its claims-processing capacity every year while continuing to improve claims outcomes and provide data transparency. Reserv raised $125 million in its Series C round in May.

K1 Semiconductor is unlocking advanced semiconductor materials and applications through the commercialization of a semiconductor wafer-splitting process. It was launched by a UChicago team that includes Connor Horn, PhD ’25 (Quantum Science/Engineering); Joseph McDonald, MBA ’25; Xella Doi, PME PhD ’25 (Quantum Science/Engineering); and Muhammad Hashaam Asif, MBA/MPP ’26. The team connected with each other and started the company in adjunct assistant professor of entrepreneurship Samir Mayekar’s Building the New Venture course and subsequently took it through the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge. K1 was celebrated by Poets&Quants in 2025 as one of the ‘Most Disruptive Startups.’

staC12’s thin-film single-crystal diamond is bonded to materials such as silicon, sapphire, and fused silica, unlocking new possibilities for next-generation devices and enabling the practical adoption of diamond in semiconductor and quantum applications. Cofounded by Alex High, associate professor of molecular engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, the company is led by CEO Avery Linder, SB ’25. It received a $250,000 award from the George Shultz Innovation Fund in 2025 and is a tenant of the UChicago Science Incubator, housed in Hyde Park Labs.

An “antibeauty” beauty brand, Daybird was cofounded by Whitney McElwain, MBA ’21, and Veena Krishnan, MBA ’21, with the intention of helping customers “wear less and benefit more.” Daybird went through the New Venture Challenge in 2021 and was a Polsky Founders’ Fund Fellow. Designed to simplify customers’ morning routines, Daybird’s products—the first being its combined serum skin tint and suncreen—are functional makeup/skin care hybrids that help users save time, money, and energy. The cosmetics brand is available in more than 500 stores, including Sprouts Farmers Markets nationwide and Whole Foods Markets in Chicago and New York City.