Zen Electric Bikes of Dartmouth and PragmaClin Research of St. John's took home a combined $13,000 at Ready2Launch’s pitchday event.

The three-month program for technology-based ventures was held virtually this year and wrapped up Sept. 22. It was open to undergraduate, graduate and PhD students, as well as postdoctoral fellows.

Ready2Launch teaches customer discovery skills and helps coach participants through the process of finding product-market fit. The 11 participating teams gained access to mentorship, personalized training and skill clinics.

The $6,000 first place prize went to Dartmouth-based Zen Electric Bikes, which works with prominent Dalhousie University battery scientist and Tesla researcher Jeff Dahn.

Founded last year by Ravi Kempaiah, Somu Kumar and Paul Daniel, Zen aims to improve the efficiency of electric bike batteries. The company’s research is overseen by Dahn, who previously presided over automotive giant Tesla’s Advanced Battery Research group. Zen Electric is also advised by Chris Burns, CEO of Australian battery unicorn Novonix, where Dahn also serves as Chief Scientific Advisor.

Both the $4,000 second prize and the $3,000 People’s Choice Award went to Newfoundland and Labrador's PragmaClin Research, which is building solutions to allow for remote medical assessments of people with movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease.

The company is developing PRIMS, the Parkinson's Remote Interactive Monitoring System. It allows patients to stand in front of a camera, a laptop or other device and do the movements the system asks for. The system records the motions and sends the data to a medical professional for assessment.

PragmaClin’s PitchDay success also comes on the heels of a $25,000 second place win in the Canadian edition of the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards.