Texas State Team Wins Another Top Business Plan Competition

SioTex, a startup spun out of Texas State University in San Marcos, has won another business plan competition.

This time the team won the $10,000 Grand Prize at the 2014 American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute business plan competition.

The team snagged the prize at the 18th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference in Bethesda, Maryland on June 18th.

“This business plan competition was dedicated to green chemistry and engineering and focused on sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship,” according to a news release. “The teams received scores on their business plans and presentations in addition to a score for social media.”

The SioTex team also recently won the Texas Halo Fund Investment Prize at the 14th annual Rice Business Plan Competition.
The startup makes a product called Eco-Sil from rice hulls, an alternative to fumed silica. The product can be used in paints, plastics, and tires, a market which SioTex reports is worth $1.5 billion in annual sales.

Haoran Chen, a graduate student in the Ph.D. program at Texas State developed the technology. He formed the team in December of 2013 with Marcus Goss, Ash Kotwal, Lisa Taylor and Cesar Rivera. George Steinke, an experienced entrepreneur, serves as the company’s CEO.