Brian Bosché and Dan Bloom of Slope pitch during GeekWire Startup Day.
Brian Bosché and Dan Bloom of Slope pitch during GeekWire Startup Day.

“I definitely would take a second meeting” may be the highest praise a startup could expect from Greg Gottesman, partner at Madrona Venture Group and co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs, after a three-minute pitch.

That was Gottesman’s feedback for Brian Bosché and Dan Bloom of Seattle-based startup Slope during today’s GeekWire Startup Day pitch competition.

Slope’s marketing collaboration platform impressed the venture capital and angel panel enough to win the top prize. Joining Gottesman on the panel were former Microsoft executive and Andreessen Horowitz board partner Steven Sinofsky; angel investor and co-founder of BuddyTV Andy Liu, and Indix executive/angel investor Heather Redman.

Former Microsoft executive and Andreessen Horowitz board partner Steven Sinofsky; Madrona Venture Group Partner Greg Gottesman; angel investor and co-founder of BuddyTV Andy Liu; and Indix executive/angel investor Heather Redman.
Former Microsoft executive and Andreessen Horowitz board partner Steven Sinofsky; Madrona Venture Group Partner Greg Gottesman; angel investor and co-founder of BuddyTV Andy Liu; and Indix executive/angel investor Heather Redman with the Startup Day pitch-off winners.

Three years ago, Bosché and Bloom founded Slope as a creative agency in Detroit. Frustrated by inefficiencies in creative marketing collaboration, they decided to create a platform that streamlined the process.

“Businesses are producing more media content than they ever have before because it really drives their business forward,” Bosché said during his pitch. “But every single project we worked on was total chaos.”

Last year, Slope moved to Seattle to participate in the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator. Bosché won favor with the judges by touting the company’s successful traction in beta. Last March, Slope raised a $420,000 angel round and has 2,000 customers signed up in advance of next month’s launch. The startup is currently raising a seed round.

Leantime, a Lean project management system, and Viewsay, an in-video commenting tool, were the other two finalists that pitched the VC panel.

Update: Online real estate startup Faira won the popular vote for the People’s Choice Award, presented by Atlas.

The three finalists were selected by Seattle area investors — including Bill Bryant of DFJ, Rob Shurtleff of Divergent Ventures, Cole Brodman of Trilogy, angel investor Gary Rubens, Kristina Bergman of Ignition, S. “Soma” Somasegar of Madrona — who interviewed the 20 companies in the Demo Zone at the GeekWire Startup event.

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Leantime’s Gloria Folaron pitches the VC/Angel panel at GeekWire Startup Day.
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Juan Zegarra and Michael Durand pitch Viewsay’s in-video commenting technology.

In addition to the opportunity to pitch investors at Startup Day, Slope won four tickets to the upcoming GeekWire Bash on March 24.

Correction: This post initially did not properly describe how the three Demo Zone finalists were chosen to present on-stage at GeekWire Startup Day. 

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