We at the Founder Institute have been blown away by the volume and quality of video pitch submissions entered into the Pitch For Purpose competition. And we want to take a moment to say THANK YOU to each and every social and environmental impact startup Founder who took the time create a video pitch and submit their entry!
Founders from 30+ countries around the world submitted video entries into the Pitch For Purpose competition!
We launched the Pitch For Purpose competition earlier this spring as a new FI for Good initiative, to help elevate the important work being done worldwide by the Founders of impactful companies - these are entrepreneurs who understand that building a business can be about more than just making money: that entrepreneurship can also be a vehicle for building new systems and incentives to create lasting positive social and environmental effects on our physical world and global communities. And you, the Founder Institute global network, certainly did not disappoint!
In fact, we ended up having to extend the Pitch For Purpose competition submission deadline by an extra week, in order to accommodate the large volume of submissions still flooding in before the final. While we had candidly hoped internally to receive around 100 individual pitch video submissions, we ended up with twice that number!
In total, more than 3200 votes were cast by the public to help us select the 10 impactful startups advancing to the semifinalist round of the competition!
We are truly humbled by the tremendous video pitches that the Founder Institute received throughout the free and open competition submission round. The huge diversity of business ideas, the level of passion exhibited, and the areas of impact targeted by these Pitch For Purpose social impact Founders each demonstrate an optimism for the future that we find deeply inspiring.
If you’re interested in startups with social + environmental impact, signup to join our June 27th Pitch For Purpose Demo Day, where the 3 Finalist Impact Startups will pitch to a panel of investors in a live globally broadcast event.
Among the video pitch entries submitted that closely adhered to one of the predefined FI for Good impact categories (based largely upon the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals), above is the percentage breakdown of industries or impact areas, as measured from across all qualifying Pitch For Purpose 2019 startups.
The Founder Institute HQ team put many hours of effort into helping these Founders shape and improve their pitches, as well as into the unenviable task of whittling the 200 video pitch submissions down to what we feel are the strongest 10 pitches to advance forward into the semifinals.
Thank you again to each and every Founder who submitted a Pitch For Purpose competition entry – the task of narrowing down the volume of entries was a difficult one, and we certainly had to make some hard decisions. The Founder Institute is proud to support the work being done by each and every one of these Founders creating positive impact in the world through purpose-driven entrepreneurship.
Click to join our Global Online Demo Day broadcast live on June 27th (9:30am PDT), where we will celebrate the achievements of these Founders, and our investor panelist of judges will crown the impact startup Pitch for Purpose Champion!
Graduates of the Founder Institute are creating some of the world's fastest growing startups, having raised over $1.75BN in funding, and building products people love across over 200 cities worldwide.
See the most recent news from our Grads at FI.co/news, or learn more about their stories at FI.co/journey.
