We applied to the College New Venture Challenge
Posted
Today we submitted ANNX to the College New Venture Challenge (CNVC), the University of Chicago's undergraduate startup program run by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Teams that are selected take a Winter-quarter course with mentors, and the program ends with a finals pitch.
Our application makes one claim: companies already publish which AI vendors handle their data, on sub-processor lists, trust-center updates and data-processing addenda. We read those pages, along with AI-terms pages, job posts and vendors' own case studies, and attach the source and date to every record.
What we tested first
Before applying, we checked whether the data exists in public. On 3 Nov 2026:
- 37 of 45 well-known SaaS companies named an AI vendor on their sub-processor page, and 12 named an inference platform.
- 54 of 124 less-known SaaS companies (44%) named an AI vendor, and 17 (14%) named something below the model layer.
- Of Pinecone's 25 showcased customers, we confirmed 5 from independent sources. Blogs and public code confirmed none.
It is a lead list with receipts, not a census.
What we committed to
| When | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Nov 2026 | A 500-company crawl. If the figures from our 124-company test move, we update them here. |
| Dec 2026 | Model, inference and hosting pipeline live; a 300-row hand-labelled audit set; our first precision rate; the free lookup with per-vendor counts. |
| Jan 2027 | Five to ten design partners; a recall rate measured on accounts they already know; the first AI Stack Index. |
| Feb 2027 | Monthly change digest; CSV and CRM export; paid exports open once precision reaches 90%. |
| Mar 2027 | At least five paying customers. |
We will post here as each one lands, or if one slips.
How you can help
If you run sales at an AI vendor with 30 to 300 people, we are looking for design partners: a free month of lists on your competitors' accounts in exchange for weekly feedback. Join the waitlist and tick the design-partner box, or email hello@annx.dev.