Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) December 06, 2013
Today, 1776, an incubator platform located a few blocks from the White House, in partnership with Cross Campus, a Los Angeles-based shared space designed to help entrepreneurs, freelancers and digital nomads achieve peak productivity and meaningful collaboration, announced the winners of the Challenge Cup for the Los Angeles region.
Challenge Cup is a startup competition spanning 16 cities around the world and culminating in Washington, D.C. to find the world’s most promising startups tackling education, healthcare, energy, and city challenges.
Twenty-three startups competed during the evening of the December 4th event. The competitors also participated in an accelerator program for the two days preceding the competition, where they received one-on-one pitch coaching, participated in industry roundtables and discussions on capital raising, and were interviewed by the media.
“The Los Angeles region is most often associated with the film industry, but the Challenge Cup was proof positive of the region’s stronghold in entrepreneurship and technology – especially in impactful industries like education, healthcare, energy, and transportation,” said Donna Harris, co-founder of 1776. “As we near the halfway point of the competition we continue to be impressed by the fresh ideas that each of the startups brings to the table.”
The regional winners include:
- Education: SmartestK12 – A tablet-based platform that manages assignments and assessments online, and provides immediate, actionable results on every student.
- Energy: Enervee - Shows consumers energy efficient products, provides real-time analysis of the best prices, provides insight on how expensive the products are to operate over the useful life, and enables consumers to make smart purchase decisions.
- Healthcare: Neural Analytics – Intracranial pressure (ICP), the pressure inside the skull, is a key physiologic metric that is used to diagnose numerous neurologic conditions, including those stemming from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Neural Analytics is dedicated to developing and bringing to market RapidICP, a noninvasive method for measuring ICP using a portable ultrasounds technology.
- Smart Cities: Bishop Peak Technology – A platform that enables private organizations and municipal transit agencies to rapidly deploy real-time vehicle tracking information, route schedules, and dispatch services to their users via mobile apps.
The next Challenge Cup competition will be held in New York at the Center for Social Innovation on December 11th. Boston, Austin and Denver will follow through the end of the year and into 2014. Challenge Cup Global Partners include: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, District of Columbia, Pearson, TechCocktail, iStrategyLabs, Microsoft, and The Aspen Institute.
To be accepted, companies must be less than three years old, have less than $3M USD in revenue to date, have a scalable product or service already in the market, evidence some level of traction (active users, enterprise customers, or revenue), and have raised less than $1.5M USD in capital. Companies can apply on http://challengecup.1776dc.com/apply.
About 1776
1776 is a major initiative focused on helping entrepreneurs seeking to reinvent our lives as citizens. Located just blocks from the White House, 1776 convenes and accelerates startups from around the world by connecting them to the political, intellectual, social and financial capital that make Washington, D.C. unique. Visit http://www.1776dc.com or @1776dc on Twitter for more information.