It's Gametime: Luna Lights Heads to Cupid's Cup

Many of today’s most successful startups begin with something simple: a problem. And, as we’ve heard from other entrepreneurial superstars at Family Dinner, founders must be committed to that problem. It was that connection and commitment to solve a problem that landed Luna Lights in the finals at Cupid’s Cup, the entrepreneurial pitch competition started by Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour, to be held at Northwestern on March 30! The Garage was lucky enough to welcome Luna Lights Co-Founder, Matthew Wilcox, to our weekly Resident Family Dinner just one day after Luna Lights competed in the semi-finals round, held in Baltimore. Northwestern engineering alumni Matthew Wilcox (‘14) and Donovan Morrison (‘14) aimed to develop a solution to a major problem--falls in assisted living facilities, as a project in their Design for America (DFA) course. This recurring problem has resulted in more than $30 billion dollars being spent annually in America for falls. Matt and Donovan saw an opportunity to develop an innovative solution to an expensive and dangerous problem and after exploring it in depth, founded Luna Lights. Luna Lights is a seamless bed sensor that illuminates a safe path to a bedroom or bathroom door, activated when the user gets out of bed. There is also an integrated system in which caregivers are contacted should a user not return to bed in a specific period of time. Matthew and Donovan have also recently developed a cloud-based platform that uses predictive analytics to track activity and help doctors to identify underlying conditions based on behaviors captured using Luna Lights, overall making the older adult population happier, healthier, and safer. The Luna Lights team isn’t new to pitch competitions--they competed in the 2015 Northwestern University Venture Challenge (NUVC) where they won the undergraduate and social enterprise tracks, but according to Matt, they are also experiencing lots of firsts these days. They’ve completed their first round of fundraising, hired their first team, and can’t wait to see how things progress in the future. Matt spent some time answering questions from students, and shared that the most successful pitches convey passion, energy, and the ability to draw people in. He also shared that being a superior storyteller will engage the audience and help them to understand the impact your idea has.