TAMPA — For young adults, a night on the town requires a rulebook.
Don’t leave your drink unattended. Cover your glass. Watch every pour. Trust your gut — and hope it’s right.
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According to Alcohol.org, 56% of women report having unknowingly consumed a drink or food that was spiked with a mind-altering drug. A joint study by LADbible and Stamp Out Spiking found that 70% of young adults have experienced or witnessed drink spiking firsthand.
A USF graduate student is joining forces with an old Division I beach volleyball teammate to help zero the stats.
Addison Bounds, 22, and Kiara Robichaud, 25, played together at Cal Poly and are the co-founders of Elora. Bounds is from Jupiter in South Florida and played at the Benjamin School in north Palm Beach County.
Their startup is developing a chemical sensor embedded in jewelry that can discreetly detect date rape drugs in drinks.
Using a straw or finger, the consumer transfers a drop of their beverage onto the jewelry’s detection zone. Within seconds, an alert is sent to their phone indicating whether the drink is safe. If it isn’t, their live location will be sent to the users’ designated network of contacts.
Since Elora’s start in September 2024, the pair is still in the thick of development. Over the past year, Bounds has been in Tampa, playing in USF’s inaugural beach volleyball season while pursuing her MBA. Robichaud has stayed in California, completing her master’s degree in biomedical engineering.
Despite the distance, they say their friendship drives the work.
“We did get a lot of concerns from our advisers, both of us being so far apart from each other,” Robichaud said. “But it really helps that Addie and I have grown so close as friends in the years prior to even starting this business.”
The two remain in constant contact — even across a three-hour time difference — blending bonding and business into the same phone calls. It’s no different from the early days of their friendship. Robichaud had agreed to tutor Bounds, then a sophomore, in math. More often than not, conversations drifted away from the numbers.
That’s when Bounds, now a USF graduate student and Elora’s CEO, first pitched the startup. After hearing friends’ experiences and recognizing her own lingering fear, Bounds began envisioning a prevention product with herself — and women like her — in mind.
“Kiara and I are living the experience that we are trying to prevent,” Bounds said. “(Elora) is also, selfishly, for myself, my friends, my future kids. I want them to feel comfortable and empowered using a product that keeps them safe.”
Robichaud leads the technical development of Elora’s detection sensor. Bounds draws on her entrepreneurial mindset to steer fundraising and investor relations. For the team, student-athlete-entrepreneur all fall into the same breath.
When the USF beach volleyball team traveled to North Carolina for a match, Bounds’ day stretched from the sandy courts to a hotel conference room. While her teammates got ready for bed, she filmed her application for the Hult Prize competition — a global contest that draws more than 18,000 startups from more than 130 countries. Bounds announced in June that Elora made it to the top 90 and entered the Digital Incubator phase.
Elora has secured $65,000 through grants and competitions, Bounds said. The company has raised a total of $125,000 in its pre-seed round.
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“For collegiate athletics, there is no quit option. It teaches you insane mental toughness,” Bounds said. “There is no amount of defeat that is going to outweigh the conviction that we have around this issue. I think that’s the superpower for us.”
“I think just the difficulty and commitment that we had to make as D-I athletes really prepared us to make a similar commitment and endure those storms that you face as an entrepreneur,” Robichaud said.
Elora is in what Bounds describes as “Phase Zero,” focusing on lab testing. The technology has detected diphenhydramine — the active ingredient in Benadryl — in spirits and soda water with 100% accuracy. Now, they’re expanding to benzodiazepines, one of the most common classes of date rape drugs.
“We’re developing an entirely innovative, commercial use of this technology,” Bounds said. “That comes with so many roadblocks.”
Much of the work centers on miniaturizing the detection zone. For the co-founders, integrating the technology into wearable jewelry is essential. They have seen other products on the market — like test strips and cup covers — go unused in real-world settings. They hope the aesthetics of their design will empower women with a safety tool that feels natural, not restrictive.
Elora is targeting an early winter 2028 launch. Buyers can expect two pilot products: a bracelet and a pendant. The company’s website lists the bracelet to retail for $220.
As the vision moves toward commercialization, the co-founders emphasize that profitability comes second to purpose.
“Right now, our primary concern is keeping these women safe through a prevention product, because that’s what we can deliver,” Bounds said.
”But (what) we really want to develop is the primary prevention environment and a foundation that actually stops drinks spiking from happening.”
For Bounds, that means challenging a long-accepted belief: that avoiding drink spiking is the responsibility of the person holding the glass. She envisions Elora as the company that can shift that mindset.
“The entire purpose of what we’re doing is not to just create another tool for young women,” Bounds said, “but to stop the issue in and of itself.”
And if that happens, she says, the company will have done its job.
“I would be head over heels with joy if we went out of business because people stopped spiking drinks. That would be a dream come true.”
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