Since January I have been devoting a good chunk of time leading the preliminary judging of the TAG/GRA Business Launch Competition.
This year 76 companies submitted preliminary applications and 47 full
business plans were presented. After the 47 plans were received
entrants were invited to provide an overview of their companies in a
three minute unaided presentation. Today TAG notified the companies of
their status. In alphabetical order the selected semifinalists are as
follows.
AccelerEyes: simple software for powerful visual computing.
BandMetrics: tracks, analyzes, and scores the overall popularity of
musical artists by aggregating and interpreting online content.
Balaya: Internet collaboration tools.
Cobot Health: an intelligent agent solution for personalized health conversations and recommendations within peer communities.
Fans Want More: a telemetry data collection service provider providing
new media visualization solutions to the sports industry.
Fizzbee: an online social networking product that lets users create an interactive story from a digital photo.
MedsFile: your medical records anytime, anywhere.
Millionaire Moms: a platform designed to help entrepreneurial Moms find and achieve their own vision of success.
ReinventEd: creates immersive game based learning experiences for middle and high school students.
TalentSoup: an Internet service that provides a highly efficient matching engine to connect talent with advertising projects.
VOC Systems: a speech based customer feedback method to service organizations that can benefit from on-site service recoveries.
VQLink:
provides headend and network products for video service providers that
enable them to add more HD channels and improve video quality while
lowering expenses.
WebIvy: enables marketing organizations to quickly and inexpensively optimize concept to market for online initiatives.
The
semifinalists are being offered an opportunity to practice their 20
minute pitches next Monday and will present and defend their plans
privately to an esteemed panel of judges
on May 6, 7 & 8. The selected finalists will present to a
panel of judges and the public on June 3 at IBM.
Regardless of
how far a company gets in the competition to win the $100k in cash and
$200k in prizes the aim of the contest is to move all of the companies
forward in their development. And from this perspective it is my hope
that all of the companies that entered believe that they are winners.