An IU club turned a business opportunity into a company that received $100,000 in funding. Winners of the 2015-16 Building Entrepreneurs in Software and Technology Competition, the Bee Corp. was one of the two companies IU invested $200,000.
Student-led projects are annually praised at IU’s School of Informatics and Computing and the Kelley School of Business through a competition for student entrepreneurs, called BEST.
These schools have marked $1 million invested in student-led projects throughout the past five years. The business leaders who fund the BEST competition are IU alumni and will receive a stake in the company. This competition is the largest award in the world offered just to students by a university, according to an IU press release.
The founders of the Bee Corp. are Ellie Symes, Lucas Moehle and Simon Kuntz. These students are studying in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the IU Kelley School of Business. The students began the Beekeeping Club on campus which grew into a business idea.
“We presented to the IU Foundation about the Beekeeping Club, and some board members pulled me aside and said that there were some possibilities in the pollination market and that we should dream big and think beyond a club,” Symes said in a press release. “I went back to my team and said I thought it was something we could do.”
The idea the students produced helps to develop technology that monitors internal hive conditions. The technology the Bee Corp. is making monitors the hive and its internal elements, according to an Indiana Public Media podcast,. Things like temperature, pesticide levels and pollen count are monitored.
Receiving data such as this helps identify struggling hives. Though the group struggled with what ideas it wanted to make a reality, members continued to brainstorm.
“We started spit balling ideas all over the place” Moehle said.
Aside from developing monitoring technology, the company is collaborating with retired beekeepers and farmers who need bees to pollinate crops.
The Bee Corp. plans to adopt 500 beehives from the retired beekeepers. Bees are important and the group believes the issue is underrepresented. Without bees pollinating flowering plants the ramifications could affect food production.
The company does anticipate to lose some of their beehives after.
However, the group is confident in the future of their business and club.
