Mike and Renée Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Kellan Hays, 2014 Big Bang! winner and UC Davis alumna, has been named one of Inc. Magazine’s top 100 female founders. Hays co-founded Good Nature Agro, a social enterprise that helps farmers transition to higher-value crops and connects them with buyers to move the farmers from poverty to the middle-class. Read the profile >

The Sacramento Bee spoke with UC Davis alumna Christy Serrato, CEO and founder of Pair Anything, a Davis-based customer engagement platform for next-generation wine consumers that is digitally transforming the $70 billion wine industry. Pair Anything is a 2019 Big Bang! Business Competition winner. This article is part of a series featuring AAPI businesswomen in Sacramento and the broader California region. Read the article >

UC Davis MBA student Samantha Contreras came to campus with one mission in mind: to transform industries. The Big Bang! Business Competition gave her the opportunity to help prepare PairAnything Inc. for success in the billion dollar wine industry. “As an aspiring entrepreneur, I put together a plan to strategically position myself for a key role in a growing startup”. Read the article >

UC Davis alumni and twins Tim and Tom Zheng co-founded their company, Vite Ramen, after being inspired to fulfill the need for a “nutritionally complete fast food product”. Read the article >

Founded by Christy Serrato, PairAnything is creating a platform that helps customers connect with wineries through guidance on wine and food pairings. PairAnything won the $10,000 Food + Ag Sector Award in the 2019 Big Bang! Business Competition. Read the article >

For Little Bang! Poster Competition alum Akshay Prabhu, nothing ties a meal together like community. His Davis-based startup, Foodnome, reflects that philosophy, turning homes into restaurants the way Uber turned regular cars into taxis. Read the article >

BioMilitus, which studies the use of insects in reducing agricultural waste and creating animal feed, will be using their $25K in UC Davis Big Bang! Business Competition prizes to build a pilot program this summer. Read the article >

Scrumpt, a startup that delivers low-cost, healthy lunches and nutritious snacks via mail to elementary school children, took the $10,000 first prize in the 2015 Big Bang! Business Competition during the Final Presentations and Awards Ceremony at the UC Davis Conference Center this evening.

Five finalists—out of more than 50 teams in this year’s competition—pitched their ventures to the audience before prizes were announced.

Many of the ventures focus on innovations in food delivery—the how, what and when we eat for optimal nutrition and minimal waste.

A team of our Business Development Fellows, UC Davis MBAs and their Zambian colleagues has built a company around simple technologies and practices that help farmers to avoid losses and grow more crops. Zasaka has taken off since winning both the People’s Choice award and the Ag and Food Innovation prize in last year’s Big Bang! Business Competition. Read the full article >

UC Davis is one of six recipients nationwide, and the only one in California, to receive a $1 million award in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration’s 2012 i6 Challenge Grant competition. Read the article >