Intralytix, which improves infrastructure monitoring, took home the first prize and $102,500 in cash Thursday night at the finals of breakthru, the main competition for new startups in New Brunswick.

The two runner-up awards in the competition hosted by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation went to Urai AI Corp. and Mulli Swing Solutions.

Breakthru was NBIF’s flagship event in the 2010s, helping to steer dozens of entrepreneurs through the early stages of setting up an innovative company and finding a market. The competition faded away during the pandemic and the innovation agency is now resurrecting it with the new competition, which attracted 140 participants spread across 80 companies this year.

“What matters most is the belief, the ambition, and the courage of founders who chose to build here. This is what momentum looks like. This is how you change a province,” said NBIF Chief Executive Jeff White in a statement. “What we saw on stage at breakthru live are companies with real potential to scale, and that’s where this starts.”

Intralytix is the brainchild of Dr. Ethan MacLeod, a postdoctoral fellow at University of New Brunswick who has been working with advanced bridge weigh-in-motion technology. It aims to improve infrastructure monitoring and overweight enforcement with minimal installation.

Intralytix uses data to help infrastructure owners make better decisions about roads and critical assets, bringing a faster, more modern approach to infrastructure management. As well as earning a $100,000 investment from NBIF for the first place in breakthru, Infralytix also took home the $2,500 Viewer’s Choice Award, receiving the most in-room votes following the five live pitches at the breakthru live event.

The $50,000 first runner-up prize went to Shanthi Shanmugam and Vagmi Mudumbai of Urai AI, who are building a programmable AI platform that makes AI agents simple, cost-effective and easy to interpret.

Mulli Swing Solutions, co-founded by Brycen Munroe, Alex Khoshbakhtian, and Ethan Belliveau, earned the $50,000 second runner-up prize for their technology designed to help athletes -- mainly golfers -- improve performance through real-time swing feedback and training insights.

Mulli Swing has won several awards in New Brunswick in the past year, and was named the top company at the demo day for the Masters of Technology, Management and Entrepreneurship program at UNB in July.