Why is it so much easier to flock to Candy Crush than head to the gym? The answer is what won DC-based Nexercise co-founder Boomie Odumade a cool $25k this weekend in the PowerMovesNOLA pitch festival for minority-led companies. The startup's app makes fitness a game that results in prizes. Users (250K last month) log what type of exercise they’ve done from a list of 200 and get small instant rewards like gift cards to bigger prizes like Kindle Fires that require collecting points. Corporate partners provide the prizes in exchange for access to users.

The native Nigerian launched the company with two Wharton School executive MBA classmates after they realized the challenge of staying healthy while commuting a few times a month to Philadelphia from DC. Nexercise was developed after trying different approaches to maintaining fitness. The free app has had over 3M downloads and now the DC company is working on integrating it with wearable fitness tracking products and selling it for corporate wellness plans. Boomie says she loved taking things apart as a kid, eventually pursuing a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a master’s in computer science.