Unprecedented Award Announcement for 2020’s 1ST50K Startup Competition
August 13, 2020
Codefi’s 1ST50K1 startup competition awards $50,000 to help launch and grow tech startups and innovative companies from Cape Girardeau. Since inception in 2015, typically one or two awards are given each year. We decided to not be typical for 2020…
This year, we’re going to award $50,000 to all four finalists that were invited to Pitch Day. We were that impressed. And they couldn’t be more deserving. This will be a shot in the arm to our community. Here’s quick info if you missed out on who the finalists were:
SportsTrace3
Founders: Max Montrey, Alex Gardner
SportsTrace provides athletes with information about their most important asset - their bodies - through video automation that delivers actionable recommendations for performance improvement.
SwipeSum4
Founders: Michael Seaman, Stephen Seaman
A software-enabled payments consultant, SwipeSum helps businesses find the best payments solution at the lowest rates. The proprietary software, Staitment, is also used by financial institutions to audit merchant services statements and create sales proposals.
Upswot5
Founders: Dmytro Norenko, Andrii Davydchuk, Dmytro Syvolap, Yaroslav Yaroslavskiy
This white-label platform, that is an add-on to online banking and onboarding, offers API-enabled, opt-in, continuous access to SMB data that helps provide risk, marketing, and business insights for SMB’s and banks, with integrations into over 120 applications.
Venku6
Founders: Murielle Gaither, John Wyman
Venku helps people list, discover and book unique outdoor experiences including: guided, self-guided and all-inclusive hunting adventures, fishing trips, eco-tours, wilderness camping and curated nature getaways.
So how can we make sure these talented teams and innovative companies stick around and keep growing their companies from Cape for years to come? Community support. We need the community to rally behind them and help push them to success, showing them that Cape Girardeau truly is a great place to live, work, and play. Here is how you can help now:
For SportsTrace
The team is currently focused on collegiate baseball teams. Do you have a connection to a coach, admin, or player of a college baseball team? Let us know so we can connect them to this team.
For SwipeSum
If you are a business and accept payments, you have to check this company out. They can help you lower processing fees significantly. If you are a bank that sells merchant services, they have a very unique set of tools to help set you apart.
For UpSwot
Are you or do you know someone that is an executive for a bank, telecommunications, or insurance company? Their white-label platform provides their customers ridiculous value, and it provides their customers’ customers even more value. Win-win.
For Venku
Do you or do you know someone that offers guided outdoor experiences? This could be fishing, hunting, horseback, etc. Are you or do you know someone that likes to experience the outdoors? Send them to Venku.com.
Cape Girardeau won’t look the same a year from now. We hope you will help us welcome this very talented group and innovative companies to our region. Now let’s get to work.
Relevant Links
11ST50K
2Codefi 1ST50K Announcement
3SportsTrace
4SwipeSum
5Upswot
6Venku