Å·ÃÀ¿Ú±¬ÊÓƵ

The two former University of Å·ÃÀ¿Ú±¬ÊÓƵ students who created SnowGate, have sold to a national locker firm.

Christian Nitu and Cory Finney sold their company to Best Lockers, a 46-year-old Maryland firm with personal electronic lockers in water parks, amusement parks and ski resorts across the country.

They aren't talking about the details of the deal, but Nitu called it "a moral victory."

"We built an awesome product that continues to get used every day at Winter Park," Nitu said. "For us, it was a validation that we could build a product while we were in school that means something in the real world. We see this as validation for all students in business school."

Nitu and Finney were part of a group working on a business plan for an entrepreneurial class at Å·ÃÀ¿Ú±¬ÊÓƵ's Leeds School of Business a few years ago when a classmate showed up bummed that thieves had stolen his skis at a ski area. Another classmate lamented the theft of two bikes in Boulder.

The thievery sparked the pair on an idea for an outdoor locker system. They crafted a high-tech kiosk that networked with an Uber-style app for mobile phones.

With a $375,000 investment from family and business-contest prizes, the entrepreneurs debuted 71 lockers at Winter Park ski area in February 2013 and were ramping up installations in more resorts this winter. The pair's business plan did not cost resorts, which provided only space and a wireless Internet connection. SnowGate handled the rest, sharing revenue with the resorts and offering 24-hour customer service. The kiosks are built by Louisville's Kiosk Information Systems — the same outfit that manufactures Denver's B-cycle stations.

The first full season at Winter Park returned a profit to SnowGate and to the resort, Finney said.

Finney and Nitu won a regional Miller Lite Tap the Future business contest last spring that carried a $20,000 prize. But they didn't win the contest's $200,000 grand prize in August, so they were scrambling to fund expansion of SnowGate.

"We were strapped for cash," Finney said.

Enter Best Lockers, which is owned by Safemark Systems, a Florida company that installs electronic safes in hotels rooms across the U.S. The new owner is keeping the SnowGate name as it expands from interior lockers at ski resorts to outdoor storage for skis and snowboards.

"We were looking to maybe design our own outdoor unit, and this opportunity presented itself," Best Lockers president Daryle Bobb said. "So instead of reinventing the wheel, we ended up doing a deal with those guys."

Best Lockers is a national leader in storage and lockers at water parks and is growing its ski resort presence, said Bobb, noting the company's indoor lockers at Vail, Breckenridge, Winter Park and many more resorts in the northeast.

"SnowGate really complements our interior storage at ski resorts," he said. "They did a nice job, and it was nice for them to be able to cash out. Hopefully we can take it to the next level."

Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com