EDURain took top prize of $1500 in a live ‘Shark Tank’ style pitch competition at OPO Startups Demo Day, The competition is part of St. Louis Startup Week, and took place at the St. Charles, Mo. collocated workspace Tuesday evening.
“Pitch competitions like this encourage early stage tech startups to keep doing what they do,” OPO Startups owner, and serial entrepreneur, Randy Schilling told the 4thEst8. “Startups, especially tech startups, drive economic growth and job growth in the region.”
- First Prize: $1500 EDURain, a platform for college student finances, including bridge loans for housing.
- Second Prize: $1000, Pronto, and RFID monitoring system and self-checkout app for retail.
- People’s Choice: $500 Todue, a task management platform for remote teams.
- Also ran: Veeper, a Shopify app that applies discounts during checkout.
“It’s going to go into technical development for software engineers,” EDURain CEO Bryon Pierson told the 4thEst8. “We have a small marketing budget so I go to a lot of these to connect with collaborators, partners and investors.. or talent.”
Judges asked presenters questions following their presentation, and handed out cash based on their responses.
The judges are:
- Jim Eberlin, serial entrepreneur
- Scott Drachnik, CEO of EDC of St. Charles County
- Mark Bartig, Chief Revenue Officer Rezilion
- Jeanine Cotter, Lindenwood University
“This is about awareness and letting the community know about the innovation that’s happening right here,” said Quentin Ortega, Executive Director of ITEN, where Pronto and EDURain are members.
Links:
How to manage the media when you’re not ready — a Todue board by Paul Riat
On the 4thEst8:
