The Pioneer Venture Group (PVG), a Daniels College of Business venture capital fund entirely run and managed by a team of DU students, hears roughly 20 pitches from founders around the Rocky Mountain region each year. But a pitch earlier this year got the group especially excited: Wave Bye, a startup that offers a line of supplements aimed at promoting period cycle regularity and ovulation, as well as curbing period pain and symptoms such as bleeding and cramps.
“What drew us to Wave Bye was the strength of its founder, Margo Harrison, and the company’s mission to make a real difference in women’s health,” said Christopher Weirick, one of PVG’s managing partners and an MBA candidate at Daniels. “They are tackling a huge issue—menstrual pain—that takes away time and freedom from millions of women, and they’re doing it in a way that focuses on prevention rather than just reacting to symptoms.”
PVG invested $25,000 into the company in March of this year. The group’s investment in Wave Bye—which was founded in 2023 and officially launched earlier this year—came at a “crucial time in Wave’s history, just before its launch, and was important to support our marketing efforts,” said Margo Harrison, the company’s founder and CEO.
“Our relationship with the Pioneer Venture Group continues through support provided by the team in getting in front of DU students who might be interested in using our products,” she said.
PVG is made up of an interdisciplinary group of about 20 DU students, who study in the Daniels College of Business, Sturm College of Law, College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science.
The organization gets its funding from donations from DU alumni and others in the DU community. (Donations can be made to PVG’s fund through its website.) PVG writes $10,000-$25,000 equity checks, summing to an annual investment of $20,000-$40,000, Welrick explained.
“PVG is such an essential program at DU because it gives students real, hands-on experience in something you can’t just learn from a textbook,” Weirick said. “Students get the chance to analyze companies, decide whether they’re worth investing in, and then work alongside those founders to help them grow. It teaches critical skills like financial analysis and decision-making, but it also prepares students to think about impact and responsibility as future leaders.”
Perhaps just as importantly, Weirick said, PVG connects students to investors, alumni and entrepreneurs—like Harrison—in a way that opens doors for their careers. “It’s one of the rare opportunities where students can practice real investing while still in school, and that kind of experience is invaluable when they graduate,” Weirick said.
‘A meaningful mission and a big growth opportunity’
Wave Bye’s focus on providing products for the menstrual cycle is unique and overdue, said Harrison, a Denver-based OB/GYN who started Wave Bye because she wanted to “give women back the seven years of time they lose over the course of their lives to period pain and bleeding.”
Although menstrual pain is a significant problem—some 80% of women report having pain during or around their period, according to the Women’s Health Concern—there aren’t many drugs or products to help. For instance, Midol, the over-the-counter drug, has been around since the early 1900s, and there haven’t been many advancements since, Harrison said.
Wave Bye focuses on premenstrual health and sells a regulatory supplement and a pain supplement. The former helps make the menstrual cycle more regular so that the pain supplement can be timed appropriately. Harrison explained its important to take the pain supplement two days before bleeding in order to reduce period pain and bleeding.
“Wave Bye is currently focused on bringing a novel pharmaceutical to market to disrupt Midol,” she said. “Our pharmaceutical is an improvement over Midol in its active ingredients, which specifically target the prostaglandin pathway that causes period pain and bleeding, which is not targeted as effectively by acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Midol.”
Harrison is bullish on the company’s prospects. PVG is, too.
“From an investment standpoint, the company is valued at about $6.25 million, but what excites us is the potential for growth. The women’s health market is expected to reach over a billion dollars in the next decade, and companies like Wave Bye have the chance to become leaders in that space,” Weirick said. “It also matches our target return profile, which makes it both a mission-driven and financially sound investment for us. It’s the combination of a meaningful mission and a big growth opportunity that makes us excited.”