The first Innovation Arizona Summit, took place last night at the Tempe Center for the Arts. This summit was a joint effort between MIT Enterprise Forum Phoenix and Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA). The ACA announced the winners of the Arizona Innovation Challenge-where each company took home a share of the $1.5 million pot to further their growth-awards ranged from $100,000 to 250,000 per company. The challenge involves an application process, in-person pitches and a rigorous review from experts in the field.
Winners included: appsFreedom, Gingerbread Shed, Nasseo, ReplyBuy.com, Strongwatch, and Viomics.
Of those winners, three were from the software sector. AZTB had a chance to talk with appsFreedom and Gingerbread Shed immediately after to get their reaction. Read more about these companies over the coming weeks.
Winners:
ReplyBuy.com, based in Scottsdale, developed a new form of mobile commerce by leveraging something you already use: text messages. Their software makes it easy to purchase products simply via text message. www.replybuy.com
appsFreedom, based in Chandler, has an enterprise mobility platform with a number of pre-integrated and ready-to-use mobile applications for business management. appsFreedom uses a cloud-based system focused on delivering Software-as-a-Service solutions for businesses to be organized and free to control their business from anywhere.
Their patent-pending “Freedom Platform” is a mobile development and management platform that “simplifies company’s ability to design, build, deploy, manage, and analyze in-house developed apps.” www.appsfreedom.com
What was appsFreedom’s COO/CFO Tim Allen’s reaction to winning? Watch it here on our VINE.
Gingerbread Shed Corporation (the Shed), based in Tempe, develops specialized ticketing software and services for some of the largest music festivals in the U.S. and Canada. You might recognize some of these annual destination festivals: Country Thunder, The Voodoo Experience, Cavendish Beach, and Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Over the last 6 years, the Shed developed festival-centric products and services that enabled their clients to take advantage of multiple ways to engage festival consumers before, during and after events. www.gingerbreadshed.com
AZTB asked the Shed team to say one word that described what this win means to their company. Watch it here on our VINE.
Learn more about the ACA Challenge here.
Learn more about MIT Enterprise Forum here.