Startups. Dev teams. Live investment. Music. The kind of chaos that only happens when founders step into a room full of believers. The 2025 CodeLaunch season closed out inside Gilley’s Dallas with a crowd that showed up loud, passionate, and ready to watch founders put everything on the line.
Catch the recap video below!
This year’s World Champion: Well Water Finders, built alongside their PCL Improving partners OH/IO.
Here’s how the night unfolded.
A RECORD-BREAKING 2025 SEASON
2025 marked the most ambitious year in CodeLaunch history, professional hackathon teams powered by Improving, hundreds of founders across North America and LATAM, and one explosive finale where venture meets entertainment.
On Championship night, 763 attendees checked in and filled Gilley’s Dallas with steady, focused energy. Founders pitched alongside the very developers who helped build their product features, while investors and community supporters looked on. The night carried the feeling of a milestone — a season coming full circle.
VENTURETAINMENT TAKES OVER GILLEY’S
Before the pitches began, the atmosphere was pure adrenaline. The day opened with ChorderCon founder Riley Keen featuring new CharaChorder reveals. We are proud to share CharaChorder is a 2018 product of CodeLaunch.
When RajNATION took the stage for his performance, he tapped into founder life, product-building struggles, and the highs and lows of startup momentum. The room settled in, and the crowd was ready to transition into the pitch matchups for the night.
Pitch order for the evening:
Each team shared their mission and demonstrated what had been built with their Improving partners during the Hackathon phase: new features, refined workflows, tightened UX, and key product components brought to life specifically for the World Championship stage.
The Lightning Round raised the stakes. Abrazo Seguro, Lifespark Labs, and Well Water Finders returned for an extra 30 seconds of rapid-fire persuasion before the audience locked in their final votes through Launch Kings.
HALF-TIME SHOW: THE OFFICIAL CODELAUNCH THEME SONG
Mid-show, Jason W. Taylor took the stage to perform the official CodeLaunch theme song. The crowd moved in for a closer look as commemorative World Championship tees launched out into the audience, an energizing reset before the final rounds of voting.
JUDGES, CHAMPIONS, AND A LIVE INVESTMENT MOMENT
This year’s judges table brought together founders, operators, and community leaders with real-world traction and industry experience:
ESTHER CHO — FOUNDER AND INVESTOR SUPERLUCKEEE
“It was incredible to see so much brilliance in one place. The energy, the ideas, the passion — you could feel how much these founders believe in what they’re building.”
RAHEEL S. MALIK —FOUNDER OF FIRSTGEN AGENCY
“The best CodeLaunch ever. What a ride. The evolution of this show is wild. This format is the future of entertainment.”
MARK CLAYTON — FOUNDER LIVV AUDIO
A hardware founder and former NFL wide receiver, Mark evaluated the pitches through the lens of product execution and founder clarity.
After deliberation, the judges announced:
- Judges Champion: Well Water Finders — $10,000 from Improving’s Fuel Fund
- Investors Champion: Well Water Finders — $15,000 from Improving’s Fuel Fund
- Launch Kings Audience World Champion: Well Water Finders — $25,000 from Improving’s Fuel Fund
Texas AI Investor Table committed $50,000 to Abrazo Seguro (Mexico) — the first time an investor delivered an immediate investment decision in front of the audience. A moment we hope becomes a new tradition.
Derian Jimenez Founder of Abrazo Seguro and Shouvik Bhattacharyya from Texas.AI close the historic deal at Improving the next day.
THE 2025 WORLD CHAMPION: WELL WATER FINDERS
A family-run team solving water accessibility challenges earned the 2025 CodeLaunch World Championship title after sweeping every category of the competition.
Founders: Andrew Vandekop
Region: Meridian, Texas, USA
Industry: AgriTech
Improving Dev Team Partner: OH/IO (Improving Columbus)
What They Do: Well Water Finders provides highly accurate groundwater surveys using patented electromagnetic technology, helping landowners and developers avoid costly dry holes. Beyond individual surveys, the company is building a proprietary water-intelligence platform that aggregates real-time groundwater data to guide smarter resource management and policy decisions. This evolving platform positions Well Water Finders at the forefront of sustainable water technology and global aquifer intelligence.
They took home:
- The 2025 CodeLaunch Championship Belt
- $50,000 Investment from Improving’s Fuel Fund
Founder Andrew Vandekop shared:
“We’re ready to build more boxes and bring water to more people. CodeLaunch is helping us make that happen. We built real features, showed them live, and opened new investor relationships tonight. We couldn’t be more grateful.”
PCL Captain Joe Brinkman added:
“We chose this startup because the impact is real. Helping build something that can change lives felt meaningful, and tonight showed how far a team can go when the idea matters.”
MOMENTS THAT DEFINED THE NIGHT
Launch Kings, the in-house audience engagement and voting gamification voting app built by Improving, returned for its third and final competition of the 2025 season. Across all voting rounds, the crowd deployed $19.8M fantasy angel investor “LaunchBucks”, shaping the final outcomes in real time.
Between RajNATION’s opener, the packed main hall, the finalist pitches, the live investment moment, the 2025 World Championship captured the full spirit of CodeLaunch: collaboration, creativity, and a community committed to pushing early-stage innovation forward.
RajNATION shared additional praise for all teams — noting the performance quality and the way each founder leaned into their story and product work.
David O’Hara, President of Improving Dallas:
“It was fantastic. I love the new format. You can see the impact we’re making in the community.”
THE PCL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Before the main program, CodeLaunch recognized the technical talent behind the startups, the Improving software engineers who spent the season building alongside founders.
The PCL Hackathon is a defining piece of CodeLaunch. Every finalist startup is matched with an Improving dev team to accelerate their product roadmap and ship meaningful features ahead of competition day.
This year, Improving deployed 16 Hackathon teams across Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. The top eight advanced to the PCL World Championship, evaluated across four core areas:
- Teamwork and Process
- Innovation and Creativity
- Enterprise Architecture
- Functionality and Execution
The 2025 PCL World Championship Award went to OH/IO (Improving Columbus): Joe Brinkman (Captain), Keith Wedinger, and Naresh Sriramoju. This was prescient, given that it happened two hours before the main event, when Joe’s OH/IO team went on to win the World Championship with Well Water Finders.
Their architecture, problem-solving, and consistent delivery earned them the top honor. Congratulations to the OH/IO team!
THANK YOU TO THE CODELAUNCH COMMUNITY
This season would not be possible without Improving, our dev teams, founders, sponsors, judges, partners, and everyone who walked into Gilley’s ready to support early-stage innovation.
Jason W. Taylor:
“Each season we see more founders, more innovation, and more heart. This year’s energy was unreal, and this is only the beginning.”
