Pear Deck nabs first place in Pappajohn Business Plan Competition

DES MOINES—Last week Iowa City-based startup Pear Deck added another title to its list of recent accolades. On Thursday, the education tech company took home first place at the John Pappajohn Iowa Business Plan Competition and was awarded $25,000 during a luncheon held at Drake University in Des Moines.

Pear Deck + Pappajohn
The Pear Deck team poses with John Pappajohn (second from right).

DES MOINES—Last week Iowa City-based startup Pear Deck added another title to its list of recent accolades.

On Thursday, the education tech company took home first place at the John Pappajohn Iowa Business Plan Competition and was awarded $25,000 during a luncheon at Drake University in Des Moines. The annual competition is organized by the five John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Centers at universities across the state and awarded a total of $50,000 to the top three business plans.

Judges determined the winner based on the businesses’ clear understanding of their fit in the market, how they will execute on the fit and having a balanced team that collectively provide the needed skills.

Pear Deck officially launched earlier this month after operating in beta since March. Pear Deck is a Google Drive app for schools utilizing a one-to-one student to Chromebook ratio in the classroom.

The startup also recently won the Silicon Prairie Awards’ 2014 New Startup of the Year, and received a $100,000 loan from the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s Iowa Innovation Acceleration Fund in order to help expand their team.

Second place, and $15,000, was awarded to Green Start LLC, which has created a new system for the treatment of water and waste water. Iowa Adaptive Technologies, a company that addresses the needs of people with communication barriers caused by physical impairments, took third place and was awarded $10,000.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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One response to “Pear Deck nabs first place in Pappajohn Business Plan Competition”

  1. MidwestKris Avatar
    MidwestKris

    Congratulations, Michal and Riley 🙂