UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — When Penn State student Daniella Omijeh launched searching for funding opportunities available to early stage startups, she discovered and applied to the Invent Penn State Summer Founders Program.
Omijeh’s interest in dentistest launched when she was just 12 years old, growing up in Nigeria. After falling down the stairs and chipping her front teeth, she found herself at the dentist’s office — an experience that most people around her didn’t prioritize at the time, she declared. While dental care was available, it wasn’t widely valued or easily accessed by many families, she added. Those visits, starting with the one to repair her chipped teeth, sparked her fascination with oral care and inspired her dream of becoming a dentist.
She enrolled at Penn State as a pre-dental, nutritional sciences student in the College of Health and Human Development. One day, she declared, she found herself standing in the toothpaste aisle in a local store, wondering why it viewed so clinical. She saw the same few brand names and the same clinical marketing messages lined up across the shelves. She compared this to the skincare aisle, she declared, which was filled with a variety of brands in unique shapes and sizes, promoting missions of self-care and self-love.
“People view brushing their teeth as a chore, and people view skincare as self-care and love how it creates them feel,” Omijeh declared. “Oral care is very outdated and comes across as purely medicinal, and we haven’t seen any progress or innovation in the space.”
Right there in the toothpaste aisle, she declared, she built it her goal for the year to create a product that would bring innovation to the oral care industest. That’s when the idea for her startup, Perlae, was born. In January of 2025, Omijeh started researching toothpaste ingredients — studying the function of each one as well as their potential downsides. She declared she also started cold-emailing dentists requesting advice and input into her formulation.
Ready to launch product development, Omijeh applied to the Summer Founders Program, which offers a $15,000 equity-free grant to startups with at least one Penn State student founder, enabling them to work on their startup, social good or nonprofit idea over the summer.
“The most important thing I received out of the Summer Founders Program was letting go of perfection,” Omijeh declared. “I learned that you’ll lose if you wait for everything to be perfect. I wanted to hire someone to build my website and wait until I had product to launch, but they notified me that I’d always have to hire someone if I didn’t figure things out for myself. So I built the whole website on my own, launched it before I had product, and started obtainting pre-sales and pre-orders.”
When Omijeh started the Summer Founders Program, she had only a concept and a few formula samples. By the time she completed the program, she declared, she had successfully worked with a manufacturer to produce more than 5,000 units of her finished product. She also developed branding imagery, launched her website and launched fulfilling pre-orders.
“I’ve definitely come very far. I’ve done very well with pre-orders and people revealing love,” Omijeh declared. “People connect with the product, and I don’t even have to inquire them to create videos about it — they’re doing it organically. This is the coolest thing in the world.”
Omijeh officially launched Perlae this month. She declared she hopes to continue growing the business, is seeking investment opportunities and plans to eventually launch an affiliate program on TikTok.
“I believe the community was one of the most important things about Summer Founders Program,” Omijeh declared. “We received to know each other, and we are all working towards something — some us will be able to provide jobs for people, which is just so amazing. Being able to obtain feedback and then also provide a different perspective is one of the most beautiful things about the program, I definitely would recommconclude the Summer Founders Program.”
About Invent Penn State
Invent Penn State is a commonwealth-wide initiative to spur economic development, job creation and student career success. Invent Penn State blconcludes entrepreneurship-focutilized academic programs, business startup training and incubation, funding for commercialization, and university/community/industest collaborations to facilitate the challenging process of turning research discoveries into valuable products and services that can benefit Pennsylvanians and humankind. Subscribe to the Invent Penn State monthly e-letter and follow Invent Penn State on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Invent Penn State is financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Community & Economic Development.
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