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The Koru team celebrates after winning Startup of the Year.

What a night!

We had a fantastic time celebrating the region’s top tech startups and entrepreneurs with nearly 1,000 of you at the EMP in Seattle on Thursday evening at the 2015 GeekWire Awards, where we ate, drank, mingled, partied, and named winners in 13 geeky categories representing the pillars of the tech community here in the Pacific Northwest.

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The winning entrepreneurs made sure to give credit to their hard-working teams and many offered kudos to the region’s vibrant startup scene.

GeekWire Awards 2015 (21)“Seattle the single best tech community in the country,” said 27-year-old Utrip CEO Gilad Berenstein, who won “Young Entrepreneur of the Year.”

“Seattle is absolutely the best place to run a business,” noted Avalara’s Scott McFarlane, who took home honors for “CEO of the Year.”

Many winners also took time on stage to explain why they are so passionate about their work.

“This is really for our daughters, and also for all your daughters,” Jennifer Muhm, co-founder of buddingSTEM, told the crowd while accepting the award for Geek of the Year. “We want them to know that if they want to be astronauts, if they want to be scientists, if they want to be coders, that they can. If they want to be Princess Lea, they can.”

You can see a rundown of all the winners here, or watch video of the entire program here. We’ve also included some tweets, a photo gallery —a big thanks to Eric Tra for helping us out with photography — and some fun shots from the Usnaps booth below. Thanks again to everyone for coming out.

https://twitter.com/brimcampion/status/596497631246884864

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