From left to right: Bonnie Snyder, Co-Founder of VoiceXP; Brian Handrigen, Co-Founder of Advocado; Andrew Glantz, Founder of GiftAMeal; Michael Kramer, Founder of Regavi; Matthew Hansard, Founder of Final Thoughts.[/caption]

St. Louis-based GiftAMeal nabbed first place at the Midwest Digital Marketing Conference (MDMC) Pitch Competition hosted by the University of Missouri – St. Louis (UMSL) at Union Station in downtown St. Louis April 15-18.

The startup helps provide a meal to someone in need each time a patron at a participating restaurant snaps a photo of their meal on the GiftAMeal mobile app. The event hosted over 120 speakers during 80 event sessions, and included representatives from Facebook, Google, Buzzfeed, and Pandora. Nearly 1,700 people attended the week’s events. GiftAMeal has met a significant milestone by reaching 250,000 meals provided to date. The company has also recently hired a its first CTO, Brian Strobach. “I couldn’t be more excited about joining GiftAMeal. They’re proving that doing good and profitability aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s rare to find such a talented team doing so much for a worthwhile cause,” Strobach said in a press release. SPN has followed GiftAMeal’s ongoing success since its launch and as it’s claimed other notable prizes at various competitions, such as the Startup Connection Showcase in St. Louis last November. [caption id="attachment_29792" align="alignright" width="227"] Andrew Glantz, Founder of GiftAMeal (left) and Douglas Davison[/caption] MDMC is the largest digital marketing conference in the Midwest. The conference offered sessions across nine tracks: Data, Digital, Social Media, Creative, E-commerce, Innovation, academic, Tech and Entrepreneurship, and included nine workshops about specific digital marketing topics. MDMC partnered with EC@UMSL, one of UMSL’s largest student-run organizations on campus, to facilitate the pitch competition, which featured five startups competing for $3,000 in prizes: Advocado, GiftAMeal, Regavi, Final Thoughts, and VoiceXP. GiftAMeal was awarded $2,500 for their first-place finish and Regavi, a smart contacts app, was awarded $500. Following the event, GiftAMeal CEO Andrew Glantz said, “We were honored to take home first place and truly appreciate the support and kind words we received at MDMC. We had a great time and can’t wait to come back again next year.” Check out www.giftameal.com for more information. Facebook: facebook.com/giftameal Instagram: instagram.com/giftameal Twitter: twitter.com/giftameal]]>