After some three hours of business-plan pitches and an entire day’s worth of events, SEIN Analytics and Asset Management emerged from a field of 16 finalists to earn the grand prize at the Gigabit Challenge finale today in Kansas City, Mo.*
A global business plan competition sponsored by Kansas City’s Think Big Partners and focused on unique applications enabled by Google’s one-gigabit fiber network that’s coming to Kansas City this year, the Gigabit Challenge started with 113 entrants and was whittled down to 39 semi-finalists before 19 finalists were eventually chosen for today’s event.
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SEIN is a web-based cloud computing platform for the analysis and portfolio management of structured finance securities. The New York-based team takes home a prize package that includes a reported $100,000 in consulting, services and other benefits, plus a monetary prize of $20,000.
“The Gigabit Challenge grand prize award was based on multiple factors that the judges evaluated,” Herb Sih, managing partner of Think Big Partners, said in a preface to the announcement of the grand-prize winner. “It could be everything from the viability of the business concept, the ability to commercialize it quickly and profitably, the ability for the team to execute … and the belief that they have the right DNA to be able to make a really successful go at it.”
“A lot of things go into it,” Sih continued, “but at the end of the day, it’s all about execution.”
Paruzia Technologies (Kansas City) won the challenge’s People’s Choice Award, determined by an online vote of people that attended today’s event and viewed it via an internet feed. For that distinction, Paruzia earned the same prize package as SEIN, sans the $20,000.
Kauzu (Chicago) earned the Gramercy Born Global Prize. The prize, chosen by representatives of Gramercy Private Equity, carries with it a $250,000 convertible note from Gramercy.
Plenty more than those three winners emerged from today’s event. Stay tuned for more news on other Gigabit Challenge- and Think Big-related developments here on Silicon Prairie News in the coming days.
*Update Jan. 19, 9:45 a.m. – The story was updated to indicate 16 teams pitched business plans. A previous version of the story incorrectly said 19 teams gave pitches.
