Over the last 10 months, we’ve examined thousands of startup applications where hundreds were selected to participate at their local Tech Cocktail Mixer. Tech Cocktail readers and event attendees selected their favorites at each event, accounting for the 45 companies who comprise the Startup Pavilion. Tech Cocktail then narrowed this group down to 24 startups be a part of yesterday’s on stage Pitch competition, where judges would then select the top five.
The judges have spoken.
The top 5 Startups of Tech Cocktail Celebrate are…
- CPUsage (Portland, OR) – CPUsage makes it easy to consume massive amounts of compute power in the cloud. A Platform-as-a-Service for scientists, researchers, and software developers performing high throughput and high performance compute applications at scale.
- Maxwell Health (Cambridge, MA / New York City, NY) – Maxwell Health has redefined health care for businesses with a SaaS platform and service experience that dramatically simplifies employee benefits, reduces insurance costs, and improves employee health by eliminating the headache of confusing paperwork that comes with insurance and care.
- Partender (Gainsville, FL) – Partender reduces the time it takes managers to do bar inventory – from 6 hours to 15 minutes or less. By digitizing archaic paper-pen processes into a few taps and swipes on iOS, we enable clients to inventory more often. Our clients doing full inventory 3-4 times per week have cut theft and wastage, increasing their bottom lines by 6% in 3 months.
- Speek (Washington, D.C.) – Speek is super simple conference that uses a personal or business link (i.e., speek.com/YourName) instead of a phone number and PIN for conference calls. Participants click the Speek link to start or join a call from their phone, web or mobile browser. Callers can see who’s joined, who’s talking, share files, use call controls and more.
- Tender Caring (New York City, NY) – TenderCaring’s online platform and mobile experience empowers families to select, manage, and stay informed about their loved one’s care.
PRIZES
Today these startups will be competing for the Tech Cocktail Chalice, the title of the “Hottest Showcasing Startup in the Nation”, along with the following prizes:
- A $10,000 Grand Prize
- A life-time membership to CLEAR
- SOLO Eyewear frames
- Zappos gift cards
- A Sphero Robotic Gaming System
- $500 Zappos Gift Card
- CLEAR lifetime membership
- Ministry of Supply combo pack
- Desk.com Credits
- One press release for the winner from MarketWired
- 10 Free Books form O’Reilly
- American Airlines: 10,000 Business Extra points
Congratulations to the startups. They will compete this afternoon in the final round Pitch competition for the Tech Cocktail Chalice, and with it, the $10,000 grand prize. Follow the Tech Cocktail Celebrate play-by-play on Twitter.