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HATCH Pitch Startup Competition Announces SXSW Finalists

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Houston, TX (PRWEB) February 14, 2014

A handful of startups now have four minutes to win it. HATCH pitch, the revolutionary startup pitch competition, announced today the finalists for its upcoming March 10 event at SXSW Interactive Startup Village.

Applications were received from early stage tech startups in 14 countries and 17 US states. Finalists were selected based on a range of criteria including how revolutionary the idea is, how the company is making life better, what’s great about the startup founders and team, and how scalable and sustainable their product is. Each participant will present their business plan to a panel of corporate, angel, and venture investor judges in front of a well-connected audience at SXSW Interactive on March 10, 2014.

“We are overwhelmed by the quality and diversity of the startups who applied,” said Greg Wright, HATCH pitch founder. “I am excited to see the impact these young companies will have on their respective industries.”

The 2014 HATCH pitch SXSW finalists are:

Bit6 – With just a few lines of code, Bit6 lets developers add communication capabilities to any app.

bop.fm – Creates a home for every song on the internet and lets you easily share it with anyone.

BRCK – It’s the easiest, most reliable way to connect to the Internet, for people and things.

ePatientFinder – Empowers physicians to connect patients with tomorrow’s treatments today.

idealAsset – The match.com for innovation and intellectual property.

Neural Analytics – Simplifying brain injury diagnosis using healthcare informatics.

Ranku – Search engine for 100% online degrees from traditional universities. Kayak 4 degrees.

Seratis – Makes team transparency and healthcare coordination easy. Find out who else is looking after your patient and send secure messages.

SmartestK12 – Make your classwork and homework assignments smarter with SmartestK12.

SupaPass – Musician’s subscription fanclub: SupaFans fund new music for special access to favorite bands.

Virtuix – Virtuix Omni Fully Immersive Gaming Platform.

YouEarnedIt – A simple, fun, and flexible way to recognize your people and foster happiness at work.

The selected companies will each have four minutes to pitch their revolutionary startup before fielding questions from the judges, including Nicole Glaros (Managing Director Techstars NY), Rahul Sood (General Manager, Microsoft Ventures), John Frankel (Partner, ff Venture Capital), Kerry Rupp (CEO, DreamIt Ventures), Blair Garrou (Co-founder and Managing Director, Mercury Fund), Balaji Gopinath (VP of Emerging Technology, Turner Broadcasting/Media Camp), Rick Pleczko (Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Austin Ventures), Unity Stoakes (President and co-founder, StartUp Health), Neal Murthy (Managing Director, Indalo Solutions), Rami Essaid (CEO and Co-Founder, Distil Networks and HATCH pitch 2012 winner), and MC Missy Krasner (Exec in Residence at Canvas Venture Fund).

For those who did not make it to the finals, HATCH pitch and Qukku have partnered to host the “Are you HATCH-worthy?” crowd-voted video contest. Winning videos will be played at the HATCH pitch event. In a one-minute video, contestants should present their company and vision in a fun and entertaining way. This contest is open to any early-stage startups. For more details and to apply, visit Qukku (http://qukku.com/contests/AreyouHATCH-worthy93). Contest submissions and voting end on March 3.

HATCH pitch is open to all SXSW Interactive, Gold, or Platinum badgeholders.

About HATCH pitch

HATCH pitch is the revolutionary pitch competition for tech startup companies making life better. Playing to capacity audiences at SXSW in Austin the past two years, HATCH pitch returns to SXSW Interactive on March 10, 2014. Previous winners Distil Networks, RideScout, and Realty Mogul have garnered phenomenal attention from the press and investment communities. Distil received a $ 1.8 million seed investment from a HATCH pitch judge after winning HATCH pitch 2012. To learn more go to http://www.hatchpitch.com or connect with us on twitter @HATCHPITCH and Facebook at facebook.com/HatchPitch.







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Stephanie Leffler and Ryan Noble, Co-founders of CrowdSource, Named Finalists in Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Program

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Swansea, Illinois (PRWEB) May 08, 2013

Ernst & Young annually recognizes business leaders whose contributions inspire people with their leadership, vision and achievement. Each finalist from the Central Midwest region in this year’s Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards program grew their individual company’s employment numbers by over 12% in 2012 and revenues by 24% between 2010 and 2012.

“The Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards program has a longstanding history of honoring the best of the best in the business world. We are honored to be recognized alongside so many outstanding entrepreneurs,” noted Leffler, co-founder of Juggle.com.

Juggle’s co-founders Stephanie Leffler and Ryan Noble fit the bill for a leadership tandem that successfully develops long-term strategy and seizes growth opportunities. Leffler and Noble founded Juggle.com in the spring of 2008. As opportunities were recognized, they quickly grew Juggle.com from a reference resource website employing 10 team members to an umbrella company housing three successful tech companies: CrowdSource, ROIMedia and ClickableNames.

Noble and Leffler have since built a talented, creative internal team of 50+ members who are dedicated to building websites, software and services to help businesses save time and money. “We are continually motivated to find ways to leverage speed and scale to solve internal business problems,” noted Noble, co-founder of Juggle. “The ability to remain forward-thinking and strive to make process improvements is a daily goal within our company.”

Leffler has been previously honored as one of the Saint Louis Business Journal’s Most Influential Business Women and was a nominee in the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2012. In 2004, Noble was profiled as one of the St. Louis Business Journal’s “30 under 30” young entrepreneurs.

About Juggle

Based in Swansea, Illinois, Juggle is a technology company composed of 50 team members who build successful businesses by leveraging speed, scale and data. Juggle’s portfolio companies include crowdsourcing company CrowdSource.com, domain name aftermarket sales company ClickableNames.com and online publishing and search engine optimization group ROIMedia. For more information on Juggle and its businesses, visit Juggle.com.