NorCal AngelCon Winners Announced in Final Pitch Event at Aggie Square

More than 100 founders, investors, students, and ecosystem builders gathered at Aggie Square for the final event of NorCal AngelCon, Northern California’s premier program for training new angel investors and propelling high-potential startups toward investment readiness.

Now in its second year, the program has quickly become a catalytic force within the greater Sacramento innovation community, uniting fresh investor talent, ambitious founders, and regional partners under one powerful vision: accelerating inclusive, scalable startups across the region.

Far more than a pitch night, the event was a culmination of a rigorous, four-month journey designed to build confident angel investors and investment-ready founders simultaneously. Participants in the investor cohort learned the mechanics of early stage investing, including how to evaluate startup teams, understand deal terms, conduct due diligence, and shape personal investment theses.

Parallel to that, the selected startup founders embarked on their own investment-readiness training, diving into workshops and coaching sessions that helped them solidify business models, refine financials, and sharpen their pitch storytelling.

This dual-track structure—investor education paired with startup acceleration—sets the stage for a dynamic, well-aligned pitch event where founders and investors speak the same language and understand each other’s goals.

That synchronicity could be felt across the room as the finalist startups took the stage to pitch to the newly trained investor cohort and a highly engaged audience.

The four presenting finalists, selected from a group of more than 75 applicants, included:

• Xironetic, a UC Davis-affiliated startup with an extended-reality (XR) platform for surgery. Their FDA-cleared product, IntraOpVSP, turns CT and MRI data into interactive holograms that surgeons can manipulate via voice and gesture in the operating room, helping with surgical planning and real-time spatial orientation.
• Strived.io, an AI-driven edtech company that aggregates K-12 educational data (assessments, attendance, grades, curriculum) into a unified dashboard. Their platform uses large language models to synthesize data into actionable insights for teachers and administrators to support student learning more effectively.
• IntelliVasc (IntelVasc), a medtech company focused on remote vascular monitoring. Their solutions enable clinicians to track vascular health post-operatively or in high-risk populations, aiming to detect and prevent critical events such as strokes, heart attacks, and amputations through proactive care.
• Matrubials, a UC Davis-affiliated company developing milk-inspired therapeutics derived from naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides in human breast milk. Its lead indication is a topical treatment for bacterial vaginosis (BV), targeting recurrent infections by selectively killing harmful bacteria while preserving healthy microbiota.

And the winner is…

Following pitches from the four presenting companies and a lighting round of Q&A, the panel of angel investors huddled away to deliberate and make their final decision. Each presenter made a compelling business case for their innovation, but in the end one startup stood above the rest, and IntelliVasc was awarded the event’s top prize: $100,000 and six months of lab space at Aggie Square’s Connect Labs.

“To be chosen for the top prize at NorCal AngelCon is a tremendous honor,” said Andrew Ortega-Verdaguer CEO and co-founder of IntelliVasc. “This recognition validates the hard work me and my team have poured into our vision, and I’m excited to continue our efforts here in Connect Labs at Aggie Square.”

More wins for regional innovation

In addition to the grand prize awarded to IntelliVasc, Strived.io was selected to receive $50,000 in Accelerate CA non-dilutive funding, and Matrubials received the “Audience Favorite” award, which brought with it a $10,000 prize.

As attendees filtered out of Aggie Square at the end of the evening’s festivities, one thing was clear: the second annual NorCal AngelCon was a resounding success. From growing a network of highly capable angel investors to empowering the region’s next wave of venture-ready startups, the future of Sacramento’s innovation and entrepreneur community is looking bright.

“NorCal AngelCon is a tremendous program that is driving a lot of momentum,” said Monique Brown, Knowledge Community Director for Wexford Science & Technology and the event’s emcee. “Beyond the finalists, who were all amazing, the entire program is a great reminder that the Sacramento region is a growing hub for many talented innovators and investors.”

More about NorCal AngelCon

NorCal AngelCon is powered by a coalition committed to building an inclusive innovation economy: the Sacramento Entrepreneurial Growth Alliance, Carlsen Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Connect Labs by Wexford, and the Growth Factory, with support from CalOSBA’s Accelerate CA – iHub2 initiative. Together, they are cultivating more capable investors, more prepared founders, and more opportunities for startups to take root and scale in Northern California.