Arizona’s longest-running pitch competition, Venture Madness features early stage and emerging growth companies and offers participants exclusive access to the region’s most active, accredited angel investors and venture capital firms. At the event, held on March 3, companies competed in head-to-head pitches based on four industry categories.
This year’s competition featured 16 finalists drawn from 95 company applications. Following presentations, judges selected four winners, with each winning $10,000.
The winners are:
- Consumer/Business category: Frites Street, a Scottsdale company that makes pomme frites or french fries, and gourmet potato products for restaurants nationwide.
- Medical category: TapRoot Interventions & Solutions, a Phoenix digital healthcare company that collects a monthly subscription fee based on per resident per month. TapRoot’s Ella is the first AI care management platform for persons with Alzheimer’s and mental illness.
- Software as a Service (SaaS) category: Botco.ai, a Scottsdale company that offers customers a HIPAA-compliant conversational marketing and chat platform powered by AI.
- Tech category: PWR Lab in Flagstaff helps active consumers and businesses leverage Lived Experience (LX) data, sourced by wearable technologies.
In addition to these four category winners, Neon was selected as the 2022 People’s Choice award winner by Venture Madness attendees, also taking home $10,000. Neon is a digital signage software company based in Tempe that provides simple display solutions for businesses. Neon offers flexibility to transform TV screens into marketing experiences for customers.
In 2022, Venture Madness also featured a new, dedicated Expo area where Presenting Company Finalists, along with a host of other emerging growth companies, had the opportunity to showcase their products and services to attending accredited investors from across the country.
In 2022, Invest Southwest celebrates its 30th year; the event has helped raise more than $1 billion in capital funding since 1992.
