Tag: Pitch Slam

Austin-based PenPal Schools Wins the Dell World 2014 Pitch Slam Competition

November 6, 2014 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

Seven startups pitched before Michael Dell and a panel of judges at Dell World and Austin-based PenPal Schools won the Pitch Days 2014 competition.

“We were incredibly impressed,” with all of the startups, Dell said. “Ultimately we liked PenPal Schools as the winner.”

PenPal Schools, a Capital Factory incubator company which moved to Austin three months ago, connects more than 50,000 students from more than 40 countries worldwide, said Joe Troyen, its founder. PenPal Schools participated in the New York-based ed tech accelerator Socratic Labs.

PenPal Schools allows students to practice their language skills through one on one PenPal interactions and by learning through news and current events, he said. It also lets them learn about new cultures and countries, he said.

PenPal Schools is growing quickly through word of mouth marketing among the teachers and schools, Troyen said.

PenPal schools also offers PenPal Lingo curriculum which connects students to native speakers to learn about life in their PenPal’s country.

Dell judged the competition with Heidi Messer, co-founder of Collective[i] and Chris Valentine, producer of the annual SXSW Accelerator competition.

Dell for Entrepreneurs presented the Pitch Slam event at Dell World. During 2014, Dell held more than 10 pitch slam competitions nationwide with the top companies in Healthcare, Education and the Internet of Things winning a spot in the competition at Dell World. Each company gave a five minute pitch followed by questions and answers.

Guavas, Neverware and Fantoo Win Dell’s Pitch Slam

December 14, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 2 Comments

By LAURA LOREK
Founder of Silicon Hills News

Guavus, Neverware and Fantoo won the votes of the judges at the first Pitch Slam event at Dell World.
Michael Dell cast his vote for Guavus, based in San Mateo, which has raised $48 million in three series of funding since 2006. The company has created analytics applications that pull data from companies and give them a competitive edge by uncovering new insights to help them make better decisions.
The United Nations Foundation’s Resident Entrepreneur Elizabeth Gore voted for Neverware, which has created software to extend the lifetime of computers in schools and to allow them to run the latest software applications.
The New York-based startup, founded in 2011, has raised $1 million in seed-stage funding. It’s software and hardware, called a Juicebox, is currently in more than 100 schools in the New York area and it plans to expand nationwide next year, said Neverware’s CEO Jonathan Hefter.
And Shark Tank star and FUBU Founder Daymond John voted for Fantoo, based in London, has created a personal intelligence engine for email and messaging. The company can tell through data analysis which emails are priorities and send them to the top of the inbox, said Jordan Fantaay, its founder. This year, the company raised $788,000 in crowdfunding.
Ingrid Vanderveldt, Dell’s Entrepreneur in Residence, moderated the event.
The seven startups had five minutes to deliver their pitch and three minutes for Q&A from the judges at the Social Media Theater at the Dell World Expo before a packed crowd. People filled every seat and several sat on the floor while others stood along the perimeter to watch the event.

Ihiji co-founder and CEO Stuart Rench pitching at Dell’s Pitch Slam event at Dell World.

The only Austin-based team ihiji received a warm reception from the crowd. The company has created software combined with a palm-sized device that lets IT workers easily detect, diagnose and resolve network problems, said Stuart Rench, its co-founder and CEO.
It was seeking a partnership with Dell.
The other teams included Nebula, an integrated hardware and software appliance to provide cloud services, SimpleRelevance, an email marketing company, and Bottlenose, an enterprise trend intelligence company.

Video from Dell:

Seven Companies to Pitch to Michael Dell at DellWorld

December 12, 2013 / LauraLorek@gmail.com / 1 Comment

Dell’s first Pitch Slam takes place Thursday afternoon at Dell World in downtown Austin.
Dell chose six companies from regional pitch events and a final company via an online pitch contest to pitch their businesses to Michael Dell, Shark Tank’s Daymond John and the UN Foundation’s Resident Entrepreneur Elizabeth Gore.
The event is being livestreamed by Dell starting at 2 p.m. Central time.
The companies include:

Guavus, won Dell’s online contest for the final spot in the contest. It is a Silicon Valley-based big data analytics company.

Neverware based in New York, creates a box loaded with special software that connect to a school’s network to allow old computers to run the latest applications. It is in 100 schools in the New York area right now.

Nebula, based in Silicon Valley, creates cloud computing solutions that allow companies to “easily, securely and inexpensively deploy scale-out private cloud computing infrastructures from racks of industry‐standard servers.”

SimpleRelevance, based in Chicago, has created social media software for companies that can distinguish sentiment in online posts.

ihiji, based in Austin, offers a “zero maintenance cloud-based remote network management solution for IT professionals and technology integrators.”

Bottlenose, based in Los Angeles, has created social media monitoring software for companies.

Fantoo based in London, has developed “software that turns mundane, cluttered inboxes into an interactive, pleasant environment.”