The 12th Founder Showcase, which took place last Wednesday November 7th in San Francisco, featured yet another great Pitch Competition featuring eight promising seed-stage companies.
In the end, Spikes took home the Grand Prize. The company creates security software for large corporations that virtualizes the browser in the cloud – making getting hacked by browsing the web impossible. After receiving a 23/25 score from the judging panel, Spikes won the popular vote from the crowd, and was the clear judging panel winner as well. Watch the video of Founder Branden Spikes’ pitch below.
Coming in a close second place was Sortbox, which was represented on-stage by Co-Founder Justin Sherratt. SortBox is developing an intuitive, cloud based software platform to help small businesses collect, screen and organize job applicants. Here is their pitch video;
The other finalists who competed on stage at the event included SeatAssignmate, HugeFan, Writer.ly, iGenApps, HackerHires, and OnContracting, and winning the Demo Table Competition and CrowdPitch Competitions were;
- jobFig – jobFig is developing the eharmony for jobs to help candidates and companies find the best matches with each other using behavioral analytics developed on top of 30 years of peer-reviewed research.
- Explorence – Explorence creates outdoor video games through an innovative game platform that utilizes smartphone sensors, location, and more.
- Citybot – Citybot is your own personal travel guide, designed to ease the lives of travellers everywhere. It generates custom, personalized itineraries for you, based on your preferences and desires.
- ZenCash – ZenCash is an elegant SaaS solution that helps SMB’s manage receivables. The service automates your entire receivables management process. from the moment the invoice is sent, to the day you get paid.
And, as usual, we had an amazing lineup of judges from the top venture firms in Silicon Valley;
David Hornik, General Partner, August Capital
David is a General Partner with August Capital and the creator and Executive Producer of The Lobby Conference. He invests broadly in information technology companies, with a focus on consumer facing software and services, enterprise applications and infrastructure software. He is also the author of the first Venture Capital blog, VentureBlog, and teaches business and law at Harvard Law School, Stanford GSB and Stanford Law.
Jed M. Katz, Managing Director, Javelin Venture Partners
One of the pioneers of Internet commerce, Jed has spent his 18-year career developing, advising and investing in early stage tech ventures. Jed also served on the Technology, Telecom & Media advisory group for President Barack Obama’s campaign. Prior to Javelin, Jed was a MD of DFJ Gotham Ventures, where he was selected in the “Silicon Alley 100.”
James Cham, Principal, Trinity Ventures
James joined Trinity in 2010, with over 5 years of investing experience in consumer services, enterprise software and digital media companies as a VP at Bessemer Venture Partners. While at Bessemer, James was a board member at CrowdFlower and Open Candy, and observer at LifeLock, ReputationDefender, and BillShrink.
Katherine Barr, General Partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
Katherine is a Partner with Mohr Davidow Ventures where she focuses on digital media, consumer internet, and mobile sectors. She has also worked as a Negotiation at Vantage Partner for IBM, Cisco, HP, and more. Katherine also teaches a yearly Professional Education Negotiation seminar for the School of Engineering at Stanford University.
Jon Soberg, Managing Director, Blumberg Capital
Jon is a Managing Director at Blumberg Capital and has over 17 years of experience as an early-stage investor, entrepreneur, and operational executive specializing in transactional business. Prior to joining Blumberg, Jon held CEO, COO, and CFO positions at a number of startups. Jon has also consulted for top companies including Toyota, HSBC, and Accenture.
Thanks to everyone who attended! The next Founder Showcase will take place in early 2013, and will be announced shortly.
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