Three up-and-coming businesses were named winners of the inaugural Startup Pitch competition at the recent 2020 Utah Economic & Energy Summit, held in Salt Lake City. The winners took home $10,000 in prizes, including three judge prizes and a people’s choice prize after a live audience vote.
“The competition was added to the summit this year to highlight the state’s thriving entrepreneurship community, all it does to help drive the economy, and add some fun and audience engagement to the state’s leading economic conference,” organizers said. The Startup Pitch was sponsored by Clarke Capital Partners and managed by the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business.
Parq won the first-place judging prize, $3,000, six months of free office space at The Shop Workplace and an iPad from Now CFO. Parq offers an app that connects people who want to rent parking spaces with businesses and individuals with extra spaces in their driveways and parking lots. It’s now available for download on the Android and Apple app stores.
Uncle Bob’s Country Butter won the people’s choice prize and $4,000, the largest cash prize in the competition. It also won the second-place judges’ award and $2,000. The company sells a line of buttermilk syrups for pancakes and other purposes. The syrups are available in local grocery stories, online and the company is launching a new partnership to distribute at Costco.
Medforums won the third-place judges’ prize and $1,000. It provides a peer-reviewed network of medical education resources.
The three finalists in the Startup Pitch advanced from 40 startups that applied to the competition. Each finalist had five minutes to pitch to a panel of expert judges and a live audience during the summit. The judges for the event included Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox; Taylor Randall, dean of the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business; Cydni Tetro, founder of ForgeDX and co-founder of Women’s Tech Council; Tara Spaulding, president and founder of Hen House Ventures; and Sid Krommenhoek, founder and general partner at Album VC.