Nyck AI awarded a $250,000 Investment from Honors Fund

Nyck AI, last year’s Jumpstart Demo Day winner, has secured $250,000 in investment funding after taking first place in an Honors Fund pitch competition. 

Co-founded by graduating Kellogg student Marc Davis, Nyck AI streamlines procurement for midsize manufacturers and distributors. The startup allows procurement teams to focus on strategy and direction rather than rote tasks such as forecasting demand, tracking orders, and calculating the purchase order. 

After months of preparation and slow developments, Davis secured his largest client and the Honors Fund victory on the same day. 

"Sometimes you'll have 60 days straight where there's nothing, and then boom, you have a one-hour window where you get a new customer and a huge investment,” Davis said. “That's what all the work is for.”

Honors Fund, backed by CEAS investments, offered the team an additional $100,000 beyond the competition’s $150,000 in order to help Nyck AI scale revenue, hire engineers, and simplify the product’s onboarding.

Davis worked as a consultant at Bain & Company before realizing that he wanted to pivot to entrepreneurship and attend Kellogg to study business and design innovation. Davis said that building Nyck AI required 150 interviews with potential customers, over 200 pitch decks, and feedback from 50 venture capital firms.

“We talked to everybody from the Department of Defense and PepsiCo down to bookstores in Evanston,” Davis said. “The main pain point we found was mid-size manufacturers and distributors.”

The Nyck AI team even visited the headquarters of Midwest staple Colectivo Coffee to speak with a procurement specialist, who showed them his 237th spreadsheet used for copying data. Davis said that the specialist was supposed to be improving the quality of the coffee ingredients, but instead, his hours were spent making manual purchases and ensuring their arrivals. 

Through the connections he built on his search for feedback and clients, Davis was also able to assist another Northwestern startup. Davis introduced Kellogg student startup ChickyDough to a manufacturer who is now producing the team’s chickpea cookie mixes.

“Soon, Nyck will be buying all of the raw ingredients to make their cookie mix every day, which I think is a fun crossover,” Davis said.

Davis advises student founders to engage with potential customers to discover real pain points rather than operating based on assumptions.

“I think The Garage and Kellogg both encourage you to get out of the building,” Davis said. “Don't just do research on your laptop. Don't just talk to people on Zoom. Go see the problem – go be where the people are.”