Recap: Seed Spot Kick-Off Event Last Night Brought In Over 550 Attendees

Hosted in the historic Levine Machine Building in downtown Phoenix, the Seed Spot Kick-Off Event last night was jam packed with serious local entrepreneurs. It promised big news, great speakers, and some fun and entertainment – it certainly didn’t disappoint!
Background on Seed Spot: Courtney Klein Johnson and Chris Petroff are two budding entrepreneurs and regional champions of the Startup Arizona mission that shared a common dream. They desperately wanted to provide resources for local entrepreneurs looking to develop and innovate new products and ideas. Well, the dream came alive this January, and the newest startup incubator was born: Seed Spot – Locally Grown Innovation.
So to “kick-off” the kick-off event last night, both Chris and Courtney were pleased to announce to everyone that Seed Spot has now partnered with Startup America! With this establishment, Arizona joins the 28 other states represented with a Startup America chapter. For more information about the Startup America Partnership, check out www.s.co, and look at www.startupaz.com for everything Arizona.
Back in July, Seed Spot sent out a request for applications to join their new incubator program. The application window was left up for one month, and in that time period, they received 191 submissions. They paired it down to the top 35, then brought all those teams in for interviews. After that, the final 16 were chosen, and were officially inducted into the Seed Spot Incubation Program. Moving into the offices this past Monday, all 16 companies just got settled before this event. They now have 8 months of training and guidance ahead of them, and then a follow-up “launch” event will be held next year.
So, let me introduce you to the 2012 ventures:
1. Paper Clouds Apparel
2. SaucyPants
3. Invictus Nourishment
4. Elevated Athletics
5. HearBudz
6. My Bookalicious
7. eMoneyPool
8. Boogud Bicycles
9. Eleventh Monk3y
10. GardenFly
11. Brett Approved
12. The Peace Frame
13. Loyal to the Soil
14. PoppyPocket
15. Stuttering King Bakery
16. Sit Green Eco Friendly Furniture
Both Greg Stanton (Mayor of Phoenix), and Scott Case (Co-founder of Priceline.com) were at the event and spoke to the crowd on the greatness of entrepreneurship. Some take-away points were, “we need to step up our startup game”, and “the most successful businesses create vibrant networking communities”!
Best of luck to all participants from AZ Tech Beat, and we will see you all again in 8 months for the Seed Spot Launch event!