Rapid Analytix Division, a CEE student-led startup, won second place in the Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge. The team, whose product provides cement and concrete producers with a material reactivity test that can be completed in five minutes, presented their pitch at the challenge finals on Tuesday, Oct. 20, during the Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health 2026 — one of the city’s signature gatherings for emerging technology and entrepreneurship. Learn more>>
Written by
CEE student-let startup, Rapid Analytix Division wins 2nd place at the 2026 Grainger Engineering Startup Challenge in Chicago, Ill.
Rapid Analytix Division, a CEE student-led startup, wins second place in the Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge. The team, whose product provides cement and concrete producers with a material reactivity test that can be completed in five minutes, presented their pitch at the challenge finals on Tuesday, Oct. 20 during the Chicago Venture Summit: Future of Health 2026 — one of the city’s signature gatherings for emerging technology and entrepreneurship.
Launched last year, the Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge aims to foster the next generation of entrepreneurs, providing a platform for student startups to accelerate their growth and impact. The event comes as the Landuyt Center for Entrepreneurship expands to Chicago with a permanent presence at the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI), which anchors the Urbana-to-Chicago innovation corridor.
This year, the challenge received more than 100 applications from 35 universities nationwide and internationally. The finalists represent five universities in the U.S. and Canada and their technologies span sustainable materials, space systems, robotics, surgical imaging, construction materials and AI.