"I am just overjoyed and overwhelmed with gratitude," Turner said. "This is just a perfect, right-on-time blessing for Mommy Scrubs."
The competition, hosted by the eosera® Foundation, invites women founders with businesses fewer than three years old to apply. This year, three finalists were selected from more than 250 applicants nationwide. This is the first year the competition was opened to women outside the state of Texas, where eosera® is based.
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker kicked off the event, welcoming guests to the competition and citing some important statistics. She mentioned a recent Wells Fargo report which states Dallas-Fort Worth is now No. 2 in the nation for growth of women-owned businesses.
"So we are on the right track here in Fort Worth," she said.
Parker said Fort Worth is now the tenth largest city in the country, which calls for it to act like a world class city.
"You cannot be a world class city without pouring into the next generation of leaders, and it does start with the bedrock of the US economy, which is small businesses and entrepreneurs," Parker said, before encouraging everyone in the audience to cheer loudly for the finalists, as it takes "tremendous guts and bravery to build a business from scratch."
CEO of eosera®, Elyse Stoltz Dickerson, knows this first-hand. She won a pitch competition a decade ago when she was starting her now multi-million-dollar ear care business. This experience inspired her to give back to other women founders by providing them with valuable seed funding through the eosera® Foundation.
"Each year the pitch competition just tops the year before in energy and excitement," Stoltz Dickerson said. "I always walk away feeling so inspired by the finalists and energized by the audience who came to support them. It's truly my favorite night of the year."
Stoltz Dickerson said she feels Turner — and Mommy Scrubs — has what it takes to be a successful business.
Turner first dreamed up Mommy Scrubs after her maternity leave ended and she returned to work as an occupational therapist in 2018. She discovered that pumping breastmilk at work often meant fully undressing, her back against a cold chair. It was inconvenient and uncomfortable, but it sparked an idea — scrubs designed specifically for breastfeeding and pumping healthcare moms.
Turner got to work testing and designing new scrubs that snap down in the front for easy pumping access, while maintaining the standard function of scrubs in a healthcare setting. Her patent-pending design has been rolled out to a smaller audience, but now it's ready for the next step — paid marketing.
"We will be able to put Mommy Scrubs in front of the faces who need it, so we're really excited to start our paid marketing efforts and more people will know about Mommy Scrubs," she said.
In second place was Annika Lundstrom, CEO of ReMinded, a company that is commercializing the first clinical-grade, rapid saliva test that tracks cortisol, the body's stress hormone. Lundstrom, whose company is based in New York City, won $5,000.
"It was a much larger event than I expected," Lundstrom said. "And it's just great to see this type of traction that the [women entrepreneur] community is gaining now. I felt that this event just gave us that extra push of powering through the last months of 2025 and going into a strong 2026."
In third place, winning $2,500 — was Melissa Wood, CEO of Formus, an AI tool for home design professionals that saves time and money.
Wood said it was an honor to be a part of an organization that supports women founders.
"As they say, 2% of women get venture capital funding, so opportunities like this mean the world, and I just appreciate having the stage to share my company," she said.
This year's competition was sponsored by iHeartImpact, Simmons Bank, Higginbotham, and Satori Capitol — along with many other Fort Worth businesses who pitched in for a drawing valued at over $2,000.
"We are so proud to be a part of this event supporting women's entrepreneurship, and we're looking forward to being a part of it in future years," said Brad Geminder, Senior Account Direct at iHeartMedia.
"I'm in awe of these finalists, taking their businesses from idea to execution," said Tamara Wren, iHeartMedia Account Development Manager.
Lori Baldock, Forth Worth Market President for Simmons Bank, said the bank has sponsored the competition since its first year.
"We see this not as an expense, but as an investment — an investment in the eosera® Foundation and these women entrepreneurs," she said. "As a female executive myself, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing our dollars spent and invested in the growth of women-owned businesses."
For more information about the eosera® Foundation Pitch Competition, contact [email protected].
SOURCE Eosera
Share this article