Last Thursday, over 300 people gathered in Silicon Valley for the 9th Founder Showcase, hosted by TheFunded.com and the Founder Institute.
At the event, 8 companies competed on stage in a free pitch competition, and taking the Grand Prize was Michael Mayernick and Spinnakr - a service for displaying targeted messaging on your website based on the specific audience segments. Spinnakr graduated from the Washington D.C. Founder Institute, and is also in the current 500 Startups class. Here is the video of their winning pitch;
Coming in an extremely close second place was Kloudless, a service for managing all of your stuff across the cloud and devices. Their pitch can be seen below;
All in all, it was a very impressive slate of contenders. Others who presented include:
- Appsperse - Appsperse is a cross promotion platform for mobile applications.
- Gickup - An easy to use video chat gaming platform
- IndustryGraph - A local sales & support channel for B2B cloud services
- JetJaw - The proactive way to protect & promote your brand
- PetHub - Award-winning technology to keep pets safe
- Zoko - Kickstarter for parties
- Demo Table Competition Winner 1: ClientMagnet
- Demo Table Competition WInner 2: TagSeats
- Demo Table Competition Winner 3: Breezy
Scott Hartley, Venture Investor, Mohr Davidow Ventures
Scott is a venture capitalist at MDV focused on mobile and consumer Internet. He has worked at Google, Facebook, and Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He is interested in disruptive platforms that can address issues he has observed working on five continents, and at the White House and United Nations.
Bruce Taragin, Managing Director, Blumberg Capital
Bruce has 20 yrs experience as a VC, entrepreneur, banker and attorney. Prior to Blumberg, he co-founded and held management positions within many companies, including Charles River Computers. Past investments include ZipZapPlay, eVoice, PureSight, IP Infusion, GO Networks, and Siperian - all of which were acquired.
Matthew B. McCall, Partner, New World Ventures
Matthew McCall is a Partner at NWV and co-founder of DFJ Portage Venture Partners. His investments include Apptera, BrightTag, Cognitive Concepts, Facebook, Feedburner, Performics, Playdom, Siimpel and TicketsNow. He was an AlwaysOn Top 100 VC in the US, and writes the popular blog, VCConfidential.
George Zachary, General Partner, Charles River Ventures
George joined CRV in 2004, bringing more than 17 rs of operating and investing experience in computing and consumer technology. He focuses on building services and software technology companies, and he's led CRV's investments in Twitter, Yammer, Millennial Media, Cloudshare, Geni, SocialMedia, Metaplace, and Scribd.
Dave McClure, Founding Partner, 500 Startups
Dave McClure is a greedy venture capitalist & founding partner at 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund and incubator program in Mountain View, CA. Dave has worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O'Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft.
Thanks to everyone who attended! The next event will take place on April 24th in San Francisco, and tickets will go on sale shortly.
