Rokk3r Labs and Uber South Florida teamed up to bring UberPITCH to Miami during Miami Tech Week – delivering potential investors on-demand to participating entrepreneurs through the Uber app. From the pitches that were heard, five finalists were selected to compete in a final pitch round before a panel of judges for the grand prize – either $5,000 cash or an invitation to participate in Rokk3r Labs' Think Phase program for startups ($25,000 value).
The winning pitch was Cindy Diffenderfer, founder of MiaVina; the four finalist pitch companies were Pim de Witte, WhiteSpell; Jason Hendeles, Care Angel; Brandon Timisky, GasNinjas; and Randall Escalona, iLiQ. Dozens of entrepreneurs were connected with access to local investors, many of whom expressed interest is supporting some of the individual pitches they heard.
“Pitching an investor in a car seemed awkward, but the environment was comfortable and the experience was incredible. I’m thrilled Uber brought this to Miami, and it contributes to putting Miami’s startup community on the global map,” said Cindy Diffenderfer, founder of MiaVina. She said Miavina is the world’s first IOT connected consumer wine machine. Think Nespresso, but for wine.
Techweek announced RawShorts as the LAUNCH Competition Miami Winner. RawShorts was represented by Antonio Otalvaro who compete in the 1st National LAUNCH Competition Thursday night. RawShorts' platform allows businesses to create explainer videos from professionally designed templates using a simple drag and drop interface. Runner up was Referrizer, who had Andre Cvijovic pitching for them.
The five other regional winners competing at Venture Hive were as follows: Find Mine (New York City), Slope (Detroit), Video Fizz (Kansas City), Apollo Medical Devices (Chicago) and Pick My Solar (Los Angeles). The pitches covered company overview, target market and size, industry trends, financial model, competitive advantage, customer pipeline and whats next for the company. The national winner was Pick My Solar.
- Information submitted by Uber, Techweek