Pitch events can be incredibly stressful for entrepreneurs. After all, it’s never easy trying to boil your company’s message into a neatly packaged one-minute or 5-minute elevator pitch. It gets even more intense when the room is filled with venture capitalists and angel investors, the folks who provide the much-needed fuel for emerging businesses.
But that was the scene today at the Arctic Hotel in downtown Seattle as 12 startup companies pitched their wares at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network’s First Look Forum.
For many of the companies, it was their first time in the spotlight.
Bill McAleer of Voyager Capital and Bill Bryant of Draper Fisher Jurvetson served as judges, choosing the top presentation among the five finalists. Here’s videos of the top five short pitches, along with descriptions of each of the companies.
Pitch 1: GridMobility’s platform lets businesses and industry for the first time to choose electricity sources based on their business preference to save money, lower their carbon footprint and increase enterprise value. Founder James Holbery.
Pitch 2: Lacuna Systems has developed an early warning system that makes it incredibly easy for companies to prevent Web site disasters. CEO Tom Spoonemore. (Runner up)
Pitch 3: Mountain Logic halves heating and cooling costs for 100 million homeowners with central forced air by only conditioning occupied rooms. CEO Scott Elliott. (Winner)
Pitch 4: Phytelligence provides better plantlets (seedlings) for commercial growers with superior viability, vitality, size, yield, consistency and robustness, fostering horticultural success that is sustainable, lower cost and more productive. CEO Chris Leyerle.
Pitch 5: Relaborate is a content development SaaS solution that inexpensively lets businesses produce a stream of relevant content for their blog. Founder Colin Lamont.
