Months of preparation and pitching by hundreds of entrepreneurs around
the world came down to 12 finalists at the Startup
World Cup Grand Finale event on Friday, May 17, at The Masonic in
San Francisco. The judges awarded the Grand Prize, a $1 million
investment, to Abivin,
an AI logistics platform that won the regional competition in Vietnam.
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General Partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, and Chairman of Startup World Cup, Anis Uzzaman (left), moderating a fireside chat with Marcelo Claure (right), COO of SoftBank Group, and Chairman of Sprint (Photo: Business Wire)
Second place went to Klue, from Vancouver, Canada, which provides
competitive intelligence software for enterprise sales teams. Klue won
the regional competition in Toronto. Third place went to Sonavi Labs,
from Baltimore, which has developed a smart stethoscope. Sonavi Labs won
the regional competition in Boston.
Contestants and attendees at the Startup World Cup Grand Finale were
greeted with an extra surprise during Friday’s event when SoftBank
Group’s COO, and Chairman of Sprint, Marcelo Claure, paid a visit to
speak to the audience about the SoftBank Vision Fund and its global
investment strategy. Claure expressed interest in collaborating with the
Startup World Cup to support innovation and entrepreneurship around the
world, and he hinted that he might help some of the participating
startups.
The winning startups from nearly 40 regional competitions around the
world came to San Francisco to vie for a $1 million investment prize,
which was awarded by the all-female judging panel from IBM Ventures, M12
(formerly Microsoft Ventures), NEA, Foundation Capital, and 500Startups.
This year’s Startup World Cup, organized by Pegasus
Tech Ventures, brought together over 2,000 registered entrepreneurs,
investors, corporate executives and other supporters of high tech
innovation, along with major media representatives from The New York
Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, Wired, and TechCrunch, who moderated many of
the fireside chats with notable tech leaders.
The event included fireside chats with Tim Westergren, Founder and
former CEO of Pandora; Ray Lane, former President of Oracle; Neil Hunt,
former CPO of Netflix; Window Snyder, former CSSO of Intel; Terry Jones,
Founding Chairman of Kayak.com; Stacy Feld, VP of External Innovation at
Johnson & Johnson; Shekar Ayyar, EVP of Strategy and Corporate
Development of VMware; Jay Fulcher, CEO of Zenefits; and Steve Schoch,
CFO of 23andMe. Keynote speakers included Curt Carlson, the former
President and CEO of SRI International, and Josh Constine,
Editor-At-Large of TechCrunch.
The 12 finalists also included Tag Sensors (Norway), Aeraccess
(Mauritius), Jeplan (Japan), Startsat60 (Australia), Finnos (Finland),
Noul (South Korea), Mira (U.S.), Biosolvit (Brazil) and Mimbly (Sweden).
“We congratulate the Abivin team for their tremendous success at the
Startup World Cup 2019 event. The results this year proved one more time
that innovation has no boundary,” said Anis Uzzaman, General Partner at
Pegasus Tech Ventures, and Chairman of Startup World Cup. “A successful
startup can come from anywhere in the world and still compete at the
global level. This sets the right example for all startups from every
corner of the world and encourages them to take the highest challenges.”
For photos of the event, visit: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JYrDsRJTpucVvxSS8
About Pegasus Tech Ventures
Pegasus Tech Ventures is a global venture capital firm based in Silicon
Valley. Pegasus works with emerging technology companies across the
world and specializes in helping entrepreneurs connect with corporate
partners to achieve global expansion in North America, Asia, and Europe.
The 90+ person Pegasus team, which brings together a wide range of
domain expertise and investment skill, operates out of offices in seven
different countries. For more information about Pegasus Tech Ventures,
please visit https://www.pegasustechventures.com.
About Startup World Cup
Startup World Cup is a global series of conferences and competitions
that bring together the top startups, investors, entrepreneurs and tech
CEOs around the world. Starting with regional competitions in nearly 40
countries across six continents, hundreds of selected top technology
startups compete for the chance to move onto the Grand Finale event in
San Francisco to win a $1 million investment grand prize. Startup World
Cup is organized by Pegasus Tech Ventures in partnership with investors
and local sponsors. For more information on the Startup World Cup,
please visit https://www.startupworldcup.io.
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