Miami Herald’s Startup Pitch Competition set, with community track powered by Endeavor and FIU entries
.png)
Attention #MiamiTech: If you’ve got an early-stage, South Florida-based startup, it’s time to enter the 23rd annual Miami Herald Startup Pitch Competition, the region’s oldest entrepreneurship challenge.
This year’s competition will feature one community track for general entries and a separate category for students, faculty and alumni from Florida International University, the Herald’s longtime partner in the pitch contest.
“FIU Business is proud to continue the partnership with the Miami Herald for the 2022 Startup Pitch Competition,” said Brian Van Hook, Regional Director, Florida Small Business Development Center at FIU Business.
“2021 raised the bar with a record 59 applications for the competition from FIU students, alumni, and faculty. We are excited for the 2022 competition to again showcase FIU’s world-class entrepreneurs and innovation.”
Winners from both tracks will be featured in an article in the Miami Herald’s Business section in May.
“We at the Herald are excited to be able to showcase the ingenuity and innovation of young companies in South Florida and the diverse entrepreneurs that lead them,” Business Editor Paul Bomberger said. “We look forward to receiving many startup submissions, representing a wide range of industries, in this year’s competition. You’re all winners for your business risk-taking and serving your customers and communities.”
This year, the community track will be managed by Endeavor, the startup support and networking group with 20 years of experience scaling companies around the world. Endeavor officials will review the field of candidates and select finalists to go before a panel of judges.
“We’ve been doing this for a long time, and we’re going to be bringing all these years of expertise, that eye we have to identify entrepreneurs through interviews,” Endeavor Miami Managing Director Claudia Duran said.
Endeavor also will prepare the contest’s finalists for their pitches before the expert judges, giving feedback and telling them what they should incorporate in their virtual presentations to the panel.
Winning startups in the pitch competition will be fast-tracked into a slot in Endeavor’s E-Lab Accelerator program. They’ll thus be on the radar of Endeavor’s global network, Duran said.
“Once they start a relationship with us, we will monitor them to see if and when they’re ready to pull them into our main program,” she said.
The deadline to submit entries for both tracks is 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, March 1. Apply here to compete in the community track. For the FIU track, the submission process is here. The Herald will announce virtually the winners and runners-up in May.
Here are the rules for the competition:
COMMUNITY TRACK:
Founder(s) must be South Florida resident(s) living in Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe or Palm Beach counties.
The company must be making at least $50,000 in annual revenue.
All industries are welcome to apply as long as the solution is tech-enabled and not service-based.
An entry consists of a pitch deck of 10 to 20 slides that explains your product, growth strategy, marketing plan, team members, and financials.
The business must have started no earlier than Jan. 1, 2019.
Applicants can’t enter the community track and the FIU track with the same idea.
Finalists will be required to present their pitch to the judging panelists. Judges will consider the pitch in their final ranking. If a finalist is unable to attend the judging session, the next highest ranked business plan will be deemed a finalist and be awarded the opportunity to compete in the pitch competition.
The winners will be profiled in Miami Herald’s Business section this spring, and have the opportunity to participate in a virtual event highlighting the winners and the competition.
In addition to Miami Herald technology reporter Rob Wile, this year’s community track judges include:
Julia Figueirido, LatAm director for Silicon Valley Bank
Shu Nyatta, managing partner at SoftBank International Group
Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, co-founder of Gilt Groupe and GlamSquad
FIU TRACK:
Open to all FIU students, alumni and faculty.
For-profit business ideas only.
If competing as a team, at least one member must be a current FIU student, alum or faculty member.
The founder(s) must be a South Florida resident(s) living in Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe or Palm Beach counties.
If you are entering an existing business, it must be based in South Florida.
An entry consists of a pitch deck of 10 to 20 slides that explains your product, growth strategy, marketing plan, team members, and financials.
Your business must have started no earlier than Jan. 1, 2019.
Applicants can’t enter the community track and the FIU track with the same idea.
Finalists will be required to present their pitch to the judges. Judges will consider the pitch in their final ranking. If a finalist is unable to attend the judging session, the next highest ranked plan will be deemed a finalist and be awarded the opportunity to compete in the pitch competition.
The winner will be profiled in Miami Herald’s Business section this spring and have the opportunity to participate in a virtual event highlighting the winners and the competition.
The FIU track judges include:
Karlene Cousins, FIU Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics chair
Orlando Espinosa, co-founder, Emineo Media
Anna Pietraszek, member of executive board and faculty fellow in entrepreneurship and innovation at Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center at FIU
Seema Pissaris, clinical professor of management at FIU
Ricardo Weisz, founder and administrator, Interim HealthCare
This story was originally published January 30, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Miami Herald’s Startup Pitch Competition set, with community track powered by Endeavor and FIU entries."
