GR DeepTech - Grand Valley State University

GR DeepTech

Innovation Day 2026

Pitch your idea. We’ll help it grow.

Apply for five minutes on stage at the College of Computing Innovation Day to pitch your business idea, research innovation, or product. The College of Computing will put student teams, faculty, and mentors behind the winners. Open to students and faculty at GVSU and affiliated community colleges.

Tuesday, December 8, 2026 · Five pitches · Two awards

Apply by November 30, 2026

Matt Larson pitching Vanly — December 2025 winner.

Apply to Pitch

How it works

This is for you if…

You’ve built something and people keep asking about it

A tool, an app, a model, a method. If the questions have started, so has the company

Apply with your project

You have research that could be a product

A result that works in the lab and could work in the world. We help you find out which

Apply with your research

You have a company and want a university behind it

Student build teams, faculty expertise, and a room full of investors and operators.

Apply with your company

What Grand Valley puts behind you

You bring the idea. We bring the rest.

Student build teams

Capstone squads and the Applied Computing Institute, building alongside you for a semester

Faculty expertise

College of Computing researchers who know your hard problem and can help connect your venture to their labs and grants

Mentors from the West Michigan ecosystem

Operators and founders who have shipped, raised, and sold before

A coworking membership for the overall winner

A year of desk space downtown, in a room full of people building companies.

A path into SBIR/STTR federal funding

Non-dilutive federal research dollars, guidance through the application, and referral to I-Corps for promising teams

A stage in front of investors and operators

Fall 2025 judges: Jim Hackett, Grand Ventures, Rapids Ventures, Michigan Software Labs, BizStream, and Array of Engineers

Grand Valley wants its people to start companies that last. Everything here — the workshops, the build teams, the mentors, the stage — exists to get your idea there.

“‘Deep tech’ isn’t a requirement. Substance is. Show us a real problem, the technology that solves it, and why you’re the one to build it.”

Who can apply

GVSU students and faculty

Computing students (undergraduate or graduate) and computing faculty at the GVSU College of Computing and affiliated community colleges. Teams or individuals. No company required, no prototype required, no pitch experience needed.

Any stage counts:

a question you can't stop thinking about
a prototype that lives on your laptop
a product with its first users
a company ready for its next step

Apply to Pitch

From research to venture

Built on College of Computing research

Faculty labs, funded projects, and student research are a natural starting point. Promising teams may be referred to I-Corps and guided toward federal funding.

See the research-to-venture path