College Contact Named Winner of the SXSW EDU 2025 Launch Startup Competition

SXSW EDU is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2025 Launch Startup Competition, presented by Walton Family Foundation. This year’s winners are leading the charge in innovation and tackling critical challenges in education.

College Contact, a platform that provides high school students with career tools, has been announced as this year’s 2025 Launch Startup Competition winner. Making Space, a talent acquisition and learning experience platform for companies to train, access, and retain pre-qualified Disabled talent, is this year's Impact Award winner. The Community Choice Award winner, Bili, brings culturally responsive learning to children.

College Contact
Austin, Texas, USA

College Contact offers scalable, 1:1 near-peer postsecondary mentorship, bridging the gap between overwhelmed school counselors and costly private advisors. Our platform matches high schoolers with up-skilled and vetted undergrad mentors via an advanced algorithm, providing virtual mentorship, 24/7 chat, video content, and career tools. Female-founded and based in Austin, College Contact was named the Career Pathways Product of the Year by StartEd and EdTech Product of the Year by InvestHer.

Making Space
Los Angeles, CA, USA

Making Space is a talent acquisition and learning experience platform for companies to train, access, and retain pre-qualified Disabled talent.

Bili
Houston, Texas

Bili by Bilingual Generation is a bilingual learning experience that is science – and abuelita – approved. Bili is a multi-platform app that brings culturally responsive learning to children, ages 3-8 years old, and seeks to address the digital tools gap in the market for the over 11 million young emergent multilingual students in the US.

The Launch Startup Competition allows companies seeking investment opportunities, market exposure, and strategic partnerships to showcase their innovative products. These seven early-stage startups were selected to compete as finalists:

• Ambessa (New York, NY)
• Bili (Houston, Texas)
• College Contact (Austin, Texas)
• Genius Academy (Los Angeles, California)
• Making Space (Los Angeles, California)
• Mathos AI (San Francisco, California)
• Polymath University (Chicago, Illinois)

The competition was emceed by Alix Guerrier, CEO of DonorsChoose. The competition was judged by Amelia Kelly, CTO of SoapBox Labs; John Gamba, Entrepreneur in Residence at University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education; Katie Fang, CEO of SchooLinks; and Missy Testerman, 2024 National Teacher of the Year, Council of Chief State School Officers. Finalists and semifinalists had access to coaching provided by StartEd.

Congrats to College Contact, Making Space, Bili!

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Photo by Caleb Pickens