Cliff Kushler, left, and Mike McSherry of Swype

Seattle’s startup community partied Thursday night at the annual Seattle 2.0 Awards, a celebration of the region’s top tinkerers, geeks, designers and investors.

Team GeekWire was there in full force, recording a special podcast from the red carpet and shooting some video of geek fashion (Check out Estately CEO Galen Ward’s pink shirt, SEOMoz founder Rand Fishkin’s yellow Pumas and Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh’s white glasses).

Who said the Valley has a leg up on Seattle? We had everything from Giant Thinkwell’s dancing squid to DealSpringer’s Blue Man. Heck, Craig Sherman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati even broke his two-year curse, erasing fears that he’d forever be branded the “Susan Lucci of Seattle 2.0.”

Here’s a look at the winners in each of the 10 categories, with video of their acceptance speeches.

Best Consumer Startup: Cheezburger Network, Ben Huh

Acceptance speech nugget: “You are nothing without your employees.”


Best B2B Startup: SEOMoz, Rand Fishkin

Acceptance speech nugget: “Wow. Thanks everyone here. God, I was totally sure we would not win this. It is quite an honor.”


Best Startup CEO: Sunny Gupta, Apptio

Acceptance speech nugget: “Our vision is to really build the next-generation enterprise software company in the Pacific Northwest.”


Best Mobile Startup: Swype, Mike McSherry

Acceptance speech nugget: “Seattle is truly an amazing place to start a company.”


Best Service Provider: Craig Sherman, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (Editor’s note: WSGR is GeekWire’s law firm).

Acceptance speech nugget: “I don’t know why this category exists. This is really all about entrepreneurs. And, for us as service providers, it is all about the vicarious thrill of us not taking any real risk and you, the entrepreneur, taking all the real risk. So, thank you for inviting us along for the ride.”


Best Startup Technologist: Cliff Kushler, Swype

Acceptance speech nugget: “I am grateful to have been confronted with two worthy opponents in the form of problems to be solved — how do you communicate effectively on a little cell phone with 12 keys on it, and how do you communicate effectively on a little cellphone with a touchscreen.”


Best Startup Designer: Kyle Kesterson, Giant Thinkwell

Acceptance speech nugget: “My design professor who told me not to quit my job as a janitor is going to be thrilled.”


Best Non-Profit: Vittana, Kushal Chakrabarti

Acceptance speech nugget: “We are reaching about 1,000 people. But there is so much more to be done…. When you think about the need in this world for education, it is not 1,000, it is 100,000, it is a million. And that’s what we really want to do.”


Best Angel Investor or VC: Andy Sack, Founder’s Co-op

Acceptance speech nugget: “What Mark (Suster’s) post (on TechCrunch) is about — and I encourage you all to read it and not because it is about me — but because it is all about you. I am serious….It is about Seattle.”


Best Startup Acquisition: Picnik sells to Google, Jonathan Sposato (Editor’s note: Jonathan Sposato is an investor in GeekWire).

Acceptance speech nugget: “We are every bit as smart and clever and creative and hard working as any of the startup folks in the Bay Area or in New York, and I am very bullish on that.”


It was a fun night. Thanks to Seattle 2.0 founder Marcelo Calbucci for hosting, and for including GeekWire as a media sponsor.

Previously: “Video: Live (Sorta) from the Seattle 2.0 Awards Red Carpet”

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