Michael Guarraia of MG Customized Lighting LLC, an organization that makes handmade industrial-style lamps utilizing reclaimed industrial components and equipment, gained the first-place prize of $20,000 within the Group School of Baltimore County’s Middle for Enterprise Innovation’s tenth Annual Enterprise Plan Competitors.

The Feb. 6 occasion featured the highest 10 pitches from aspiring entrepreneurs, all of whom are CCBC college students or alumni. The winners shared a complete of $62,500 in seed cash for use as startup capital for his or her new or rising companies.

Prize cash was made potential by the Philip E. and Carole R. Ratcliffe Basis, which has awarded greater than $1 million in grant funding to broaden the Middle for Enterprise Innovation. Along with the startup capital to assist entrepreneurs, the grant offers educational assist to develop new programs and workshops to strengthen the enterprise acumen for these serious about beginning a brand new enterprise.

The second-place award of $15,000 went to Jon’ll and Matthew Boyd of Boyd Cru Wines in Silver Spring, a Black family-owned wine model. Third place and $10,000 went to Herschel Ruben of Compressent LLC, a Baltimore firm that designs ergonomic merchandise that accommodate the distinctive methods our brains work. Fourth place and $7,500 went to Rodney Winmond of VERO Safety Options, LLC, a safety firm in New Freedom, Pennsylvania that makes use of off-duty law enforcement officials as safety officers and offers firearms and security-related coaching.

Stacey Dennis of Parkville-based Whispers In My Ears LLC and Staci Newman of KiddieLane in Baltimore gained runner-up awards of $5,000. Whispers in My Ears is a sexual well being training program geared toward adolescents and younger adults. KiddieLane is a software-as-a-service firm that gives cloud-based on-line scheduling and enterprise administration software program functions for the underserved after-school exercise and enrichment program trade.

Since 2013, CCBC’s Annual Enterprise Plan Competitors has helped launch 47 new companies and distributed $329,980 in seed cash. Over the previous 10 years, greater than 4,200 folks have engaged with CBI’s enterprise applications and a couple of,772 folks have earned faculty and persevering with training credit in quite a lot of entrepreneurial programs and workshops.

The finalists on this yr’s competitors have been amongst 173 who participated in workshops main as much as the competitors with 28 submitting enterprise plans to compete. Out of the ten finalists, seven are ladies, 90% are age 30 or older, 70% are minorities, and 80% of the companies are owned by both ladies, minorities or veterans.