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Of the six companies selected to participate in Catalyze CU over the summer, two are teams from the .

Catalyze CU is a highly selective, summer-long startup accelerator that combines world-class mentorship, funding and dedicated co-working space. The program helps the most promising ventures from across the CU Â鶹¹ÙÍø campus reach escape velocity–providing some funding without taking any equity. 

CHROMAPRAXIS, a tattoo ink innovation company with research developed in the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab and founded by Assistant Professor Carson Bruns and Jesse Butterfield, a mechanical engineering PhD student, has been accepted. The company has two product lines:

• Dermadaptive Ink enables tattoo artists to pioneer a new form of body art as dynamic as the body itself, with color-changing pigments that morph tattoos’ appearance in different lighting. 
• Invelanin Ink lowers skin aging and skin cancer risk by providing permanent, invisible sun protection. Unlike sunscreen, a one-time, minimally invasive Invelanin procedure provides years of protection without ever making the skin sticky, oily, or shiny. 

Also accepted is LoopSketch, a remote, real-time collaborative software platform for "sketching" musical ideas with friends using user-recorded loops, AI-recommended loops and AI-created loops.  With research developed by ATLAS PhD Student Darren Sholes in the ACME Lab, LoopSketch focuses on group flow and brainstorming, allowing for a remote experience that feels more like an in-person jam session. It makes it possible for musicians in different locations to collaborate and quickly build rich, multilayered recordings. Sholes pitched LoopSketch to judges during CU Â鶹¹ÙÍø’s New Venture Challenge 14 Prize Night on March 17, winning first place in the newcomer competition (event video ), which came with $5,000 in funding. 

Catalyze CU has helped founding teams go from idea to impact, and from prototype to production. Catalyze alumni have a strong track record of being accepted to top tier accelerators like Techstars, raising funding, winning grants and launching successful Kickstarters.  participants will be with a cohort of other highly performing teams.  

ATLAS Board of Advisors member Kyle Kuczun is one of the coaches for this cohort.