Sobotka Seed Prize for Sustainable Ventures: The 2025 Winners

The Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) is delighted to announce the winners of the 2025 Sobotka Seed Prize for Sustainable Ventures.

CBEY supports students in building sustainable businesses that address some of the planet’s most pressing challenges by providing strategic advice, feedback from experts, and connecting them to critical sources of early-stage funding. A cornerstone of this work is the Sobotka Seed Prize for Sustainable Ventures, which since 2011, has empowered Yale entrepreneurs to pursue solutions that serve both the market and the planet. Through the generosity of David Sobotka and his family, the prize awards two $10,000 grants each year to innovative student-led ventures with the potential for meaningful environmental and social impact. Learn more about the program here.

This year’s Sobotka Seed Prize for Sustainable Ventures focused on solutions in four key areas of urgent action:

●     Materials and waste

●     Protecting and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity

●     Food, agriculture and land use sustainability

●     Energy use, efficiency and access

After receiving and reviewing submissions from 13 teams from across Yale, three winners were selected for this year’s Sobotka Prize. 

BareFoote Metals Company

Quinn Zacharias (YSE), Shivnag Sista (YSAS), and Lindsey Weilminster (SOM) are working on BareFoote Metals providing a low-carbon, cost-effective remediation service that uses crushed basalt rock to stabilize heavy metals in contaminated brownfields, enabling municipalities to safely redevelop idle land into parks, trails, and housing without costly excavation.

Uroplug

Henry Ritter (YSE/SOM), David Hesse (Yale School of Medicine Faculty), and Barry Nalebuff (Yale SOM Faculty) are working on Uroplug developing an affordable, FDA-regulated medical device for urinary incontinence that replaces adult diapers with a tiny urethral insert, improving quality of life while dramatically cutting landfill waste and methane emissions from disposable incontinence products.

Helix

Maya Caine (YSE), Mica Caine, and Vir Bedi are building Helix, a circular fashion marketplace that blends digital discovery with local exchanges and repair services to keep clothing in use longer, cut textile waste and shipping emissions, and build community stewardship through garment storytelling.

Thank you to our judges

The CBEY team is very grateful for the team of judges that participated in this process to help select teams and give feedback to all participants.

Nate Salpeter Nate is a general partner at SNØCAP, an emerging climate innovation fund focused on investing in companies driving change in the alternative protein, agriculture technology, and sustainability sectors, where he leverages his expertise as an active advisor and investor in these fields. 

Eric Rubenstein (YC ’04) is Founding Manager Partner at New Climate Ventures, focused on carbon reduction and avoidance which includes but is not limited to food/ag tech, climate tech, and circular economy.

Jessamine Fitzpatrick is a co-founder of Alder Point Capital Management, focused on acquiring and actively managing U.S. real properties to deliver value-add returns while advancing regenerative land management, decarbonization, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity, improved water quality, and rural community prosperity.

Jessica Singh is an investor at Ecosystem Integrity Fund, where she brings years of experience identifying and supporting high-impact ventures across the climate and sustainability space, with a focus on scalable solutions that drive environmental integrity and long-term value creation.