UCI Startup Wins OC Pitch Competition
Founded by Students, for Students: UC Irvine Student Startup Takes 1st Place in OC’s Biggest Pitch Competition
IRVINE, CA / June 1, 2026 / A team of UC Irvine students won $30,000 at the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition on May 21st.
They built a platform specifically to solve the transfer problem for community college students.
Just 1 in 5 community college students transfer to a university within 4 years, mainly due to confusion and lack of direction. Pipeline gives community college students an exact schedule that leads them to their university of choice.
“Every student deserves access to a clear path,” says Tyler Maher. Tyler and his co-founder, Cem, were California community college students themselves who created the platform they wished they had when they were trying to transfer to university.
Tyler personally watched his closest friends at community college get left behind after he was the only one who transferred to university. Now, as a UC Irvine student, he has spent the past year perfecting a platform that community college students can trust to do just that: help them transfer to university.
Building Pipeline as a full-time UC Irvine student wasn’t easy. The student founders squeeze product development between lectures, take pitch meetings in the gaps between midterms, and pull late nights working on Pipeline after their homework is done. Most days, the line between "student" and "founder" doesn't really exist, the two just blur together. It's that grind, balanced against the urgency of helping fellow students, that has fueled Pipeline's growth to over 5,000 users this year.
Pipeline won first place in their track and first place overall for a total of $30,000 in cash. They plan to use the funds to reach more local community college students and make a positive impact on student lives.
Advised by the former dean of Irvine Valley College, Pipeline’s goal is to build something novel and impactful on the higher education ecosystem.
Pipeline is at an early stage but has already generated $10,000 in student subscription revenue and raised $40,000 in capital.
“We are investing in the future,” says Stella Zhang, a prominent Orange County investor, major supporter of the UC Irvine startup ecosystem, and COO of the American Lending Center.
Pipeline is solving the decades-old community college-to-university transfer issue. The platform uses an advanced algorithm to make accurate transfer plans for students. To-date, Pipeline has told community college students how to transfer to UCI, UCLA, or even Stanford, just to name a few. Today, Pipeline serves thousands of students across California. Tomorrow, Tyler and Cem plan to be in the hands of every community college student in the country.
SOURCE: Pipeline