OVERVIEW: TiE-Pittsburgh’s mission is to foster entrepreneurship through mentoring to positively affect the growth and prosperity of our region. For early stage entrepreneurs, getting a new company off the ground and into the market is an exciting but often daunting challenge. TiE Pittsburgh is presenting its second annual innovative competition for entrepreneurs. Ten finalists will be selected by our committee to participate at our event. Each finalist will present a three minute pitch to the audience and panel of judges. The judges may ask questions for two additional minutes. The top three companies will be measured on their presentation content & style, responses to questioning, and the showcase of their product. The top three companies will receive awards to promote and cultivate their start-ups. Our judges and mentor panel will be comprised of TiE-Pittsburgh Charter Members and prominent business leaders. 

COMPANY APPLICANT CRITERIA:

• Accomplished start-up company leaders with passion
• Great Idea  (must have a compelling value proposition)
• Big Market (some level of validation)
• Not looking for proven product or service; it is understood that many applicants will be early-stage companies with (as yet unresolved) technology risk
• May have identified trial customers or confirmed trial customers 
• Pre-Series A (may have raised modest amounts of capital from angels or other sources)

Date: December 11th, 2018 

Time:  5:30 PM – 8:30 PM 

Location: PITT | University Club – Ballroom A | 123 University Place | Pittsburgh 15260

Agenda:

 5:30: Check-in; Networking open (Demo / Show & Tell) 6:00: Welcome and Introductory Remarks

• Ravi Madhavan - Professor of Business Administration & Alcoa Foundation; International Faculty Fellow Director, International Business Center

6:15: Ten company pitches (3 minutes + 2-minute Q&A) 

7:00: Demo / Show & Tell (judges and audience walk around) 

7:40: Tabulate votes from judges 

7:50: Awards presentation 

8:00: More networking 

8:30: Adjourn 

Thank You to our Judges: 

Lindsay Cost: Senior SBA Specialist & Vice President, Huntington Bank 

David Jaffe: Attorney-at-Law, Metz, Lewis, Brodman, Must, O'Keefe, LLC. 

Jeff Kovacs: Audit and Assurance Partner, Cohen & Company 

Congratulations to our Top Ten Finalists!

• AKM Productions
• Ariel Precision Medicine
• Blast Point
• EKTO VR
• Hibersense
• Impact Proteomics
• Panacea AG
• Qlicket
• Renerva
• TalkMeUp