Amid a shaky venture capital market last year, there were still plenty of startups that gained momentum and reached new heights.
That’s true for the five finalists up for the Startup of the Year category at the GeekWire Awards: Kevala, Overland AI, Pictory, Shipium, and SingleFile.
To be eligible for consideration in this category, startups need to be no more than five years old in 2024.
Last year’s winner was Arrived Homes, a Seattle startup that uses crowdfunding to help people purchase shares of rental properties.
Submit your vote here or below and keep scrolling for descriptions of each finalist for Startup of the Year, presented by Silicon Valley Bank.
The GeekWire Awards recognize the top innovators and companies in Pacific Northwest technology. Finalists in this category and others were selected based on community nominations, along with input from GeekWire Awards judges. Community voting across all categories will continue until April 12, combined with feedback from judges to determine the winner in each category.
We’ll announce the winners live on stage at Showbox SoDo in Seattle on May 9. There are a limited number of table sponsorships available to attend the event. Learn more and sign up to attend on the GeekWire Awards event site.
If interested in sponsoring a category or purchasing a table sponsorship for the event, contact us at events@geekwire.com.
Special thanks to Astound Business Solutions, the presenting sponsor of the 2024 GeekWire Awards.
The pitch: The Seattle startup helps senior living and healthcare organizations manage scheduling for internal and external staff.
The founder: Todd Owens previously led staffing company TalentWise, which was acquired by Sterling Talent Solutions. Owens was also CEO at Appuri (acquired by DocuSign) and Azuqua (acquired by Okta).
Related coverage: Kevala lands $12.1M to address worker shortages for healthcare companies
The pitch: The University of Washington spinout is developing technology for off-road autonomous vehicles.
The founders: CEO Byron Boots is a longtime robotics leader who is a professor at the UW and former principal research scientist at NVIDIA. CTO Jonathan Fink worked as a researcher for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory for more than a decade. The company’s president, Stephanie Bonk, was the director of strategic initiatives at the UW Robot Learning Laboratory.
Related coverage: Secretive new startup focuses on off-road autonomous vehicles, led by UW robotics experts
The pitch: The Seattle startup uses AI to help content creators and marketers turn long-form content into short-form videos.
The founders: Vikram Chalana, Abid Ali, and Vishal Chalana started the company in 2019. Vikram and Vishal Chalana previously co-founded Winshuttle, a Seattle-area data management company acquired in 2021. Ali is a former marketing leader at CoreStack.
Related coverage: Seattle investors back new startup Pictory that aims to automate short-form video production
The pitch: The Seattle startup helps companies and their legal teams file compliance reports with states.
The founders: The company was founded by former ProQuest exec Sean Flynn, who is currently chief legal officer. Aaron Finn, the founder and former CEO of AdReady, joined as CEO in 2021.
Related coverage: SingleFile, a legal tech startup that helps companies manage state filings, lands $3.2M
The pitch: The Seattle logistics startup helps e-commerce companies improve their supply chain capabilities by reducing cost and speeding up deliveries.
Founders: CEO Jason Murray spent nearly two decades at Amazon, where he ran supply chain teams. CTO Mac Brown was also an early Amazon employee and later joined Zulily, where he was vice president of supply chain and fulfillment software.
Related coverage: Solving the ‘Prime problem’: Shipium lands $27M to help online retailers compete with Amazon
