On June 14, 2016, the Women Startup Challenge showcased 10 amazing, women-led tech startups in a pitch competition held at LinkedIn in San Francisco.
The $50,000 top prize was awarded to SIRUM, the “match.com” for unused, unexpired medicine, matching it with people in need. The event was co-produced by Women Who Tech and Craig Newmark’s craigconnects, and awarded more than $400,000 in cash and cloud services.
Grand Prize:
SIRUM
Pitching Founder: Kiah Williams
The top prize of $50,000 went to SIRUM (Supporting Initiatives to Redistribute Unused Medicine) the “match.com” for unused, unexpired medicine which matches it with people in need.
Audience Choice Awards:
The Audience Choice Award and $120,000 in cloud services from IBM went to three women-led startups:
Blendoor
Pitching Founder: Stephanie Lampkin
Blendoor of San Francisco, a blind recruiting app for job recruiters that hides the candidate’s name and photo to circumvent unconscious bias and facilitate diversity. Its goal is to highlight the information that’s most relevant to a candidate being a “good fit,” independent of race, gender, (dis)ability, military history, or sexual orientation.
ClearVest Advisers
Pitching Founder: Sara Malak
ClearVest, of New York, a fintech alternative investment platform, providing access to established and emerging managers with lower investment minimums.
Entry Point VR
Pitching Founder: Carissa Flocken
Entry Point VR of San Francisco, provides cross-platform distribution and analytics for virtual reality content.
$10,000 Investment:
bluDiagnostics
Pitching Founder: Katie Brenner
A $10,000 investment from Backstage Capital was awarded to bluDiagnostics of Madison, Wisconsin, one of the first apps to enable women to understand their body through revolutionary saliva-based measurement technology that provides immediate, quantitative data about hormone levels.
