Ski Lift Pitch, the annual startup pitch competition hosted by CNM Ingenuity at Northern New Mexico's Taos Ski Valley, picked nine startups in the state to network with prominent regional investors and compete for $10,000.
The pitch competition, which CNM Ingenuity has put on since 2015, has named previous winners that include the likes of Los Alamos-based UbiQD, Santa Fe's Parting Stone and, last year, Washington, D.C.-based Rhea Space Activity.
The nine startups that'll compete on Feb. 6 to follow Rhea Space Activity include:
- Bee Clean Spot, an Albuquerque-based startup with a beeswax-based formula used in hand sanitizer products;
- Both&, an Albuquerque-based apparel company and brand that makes clothing designed for transmasculine people;
- Cheshir Industries, a startup based in Los Lunas that's developing an advanced gradient index antenna technology;
- Flow Aluminum, an Albuquerque-based startup commercializing an aluminum CO2 battery design;
- Hoonify Technologies, a startup based in Albuquerque with a hardware-agnostic high-performance computing software;
- Integrated OffGrid, an Albuquerque-based startup building sustainability hardware like water producing solar energy units and solar-powered home kits;
- Senior.One, an Albuquerque-based senior care management startup;
- Space Kinetic, a startup based in Albuquerque that's developing a mechanical system to propel space assets; and,
- Undesert, a Los Alamos-based startup with a technology for purifying different sorts of brackish and produced water using solar energy.
Ski Lift Pitch includes an initial set of three pitch opportunities, with one catch — those pitching must be able to ski or snowboard down the Taos slopes.
Then, three finalists are chosen for a final 5-minute pitch, this time indoors on the main presentation stage.
One winner will be selected for a $10,000 check. Judges for the competition include investors, economic developers and entrepreneurs from firms like Santa Fe-based Dangerous Ventures, Las Cruces-based Arrowhead Innovation Fund and Albuquerque's Tramway Ventures.
Pitch judging criteria, according to Ski Lift Pitch's website, include a startup's team, its product, the size of its market, traction in the previous year and its competitive advantage or differentiation.
The New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Division is the competition's presenting sponsor, and other sponsors include Roadrunner Ventures Studios, NewSpace Nexus and Q Station, alongside larger companies like Silicon Valley Bank and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
