A week ago, we held Hawaii’s first #UberPITCH event to promote and support our Startup Paradise ecosystem. Sultan Ventures was honored to partner with Uber on this great initiative and bring it to Oahu and Maui.
The event took place over the course of 4 hours where roughly a dozen investors heard dozens of pitches. Given the pitches took place one-on-one we did our best to standardize the evaluation process, utilizing the same scoring rubric listed here.
After reviewing the scores and investors’ feedback, there was one common theme: The Aloha is Real! A number of investors shared heartwarming stories about Hawaii entrepreneurs trying to help others in the world – whether it was providing mementos for when a loved one passes to developing social platforms to promote volunteer work – it was clear that Hawaii’s entrepreneurs care about the quadruple bottom line.
So without further adieu, the winners of #UberPITCH are:
First Place: Dusty Loffarelli with his B2B platform connecting “travelers with the local community to create a positive impact”;
Second Place: Gregory Hadley with an idea to create a “community driven, co-creative makers space for artists”; and tied for third was
Third Place (tie): Mark Bell with a proposed solution addressing “flushable” wipes that are clogging pipes and city sewer systems; and
Third Place (tie): Leschon Serrano with an app to create a network for people doing humanitarian work.
Dusty, Greg, Mark, and Leschon have won mentorship and access to coworking space from Sultan Ventures, and if eligible, have their applications fast tracked for Cohort 5 of XLR8UH, the University of Hawaii’s venture accelerator program. For a full breakdown of prizes, click here.
While the event was a great success, being an island state presented some unique challenges for our Maui participants. As such, Sultan Ventures is coordinating with Uber and reaching out to 10 Maui entrepreneurs that requested UberPITCH last week to hear their pitches via Skype and selecting 2 pitches to receive the same prizes as our top 2 winners from Oahu.
Mahalo once again to Uber for collaborating on this event and to the investors of Startup Paradise for donating their time to these Hawaii entrepreneurs.
Aloha!