For more than a decade, South by Southwest has been a place for startups to be seen and heard by fellow innovators, future customers and potential investors.
And no place does the startup spotlight shine brighter during the festival than at SXSW Pitch. Hometown startups have often appeared at the annual pitch competition, and this year Austin startups have another strong showing with five companies spread across five categories in the SXSW Pitch finals.
Among the local finalists are customized makeup box startup Renzoe Box; plant-based plastic alternatives company Applied Bioplastics; B2B logistics and drone delivery startup Flugauto; skin cell transplant company TruPigment, which is made by TeVido BioDevices; and a cinematic AI board game called St. Noire, which is made by Virsix Games.
Perhaps the most surprising detail we spotted was that Austin's Virsix Games was co-founded by Nolan Bushnell, who founded Atari, and Zai Ortiz, the creative director behind J.A.R.V.I.S in the "Iron Man" movies.
A few other Texas startups made the 2020 alternates list, who might be pitching if another company doesn't make the trip. Those include Conroe-based 3Space Makers; Austin chatbot startup UneeQ; Austin-based meeting feedback startup Marlo; Houston-based eyesight technology startup Reveal Technologies; and Austin LIDAR data startup NUBIGON.
The startups will pitch their ideas to a live audience and a panel of investors and influencers from venture capital firms and tech companies on March 14 and 15. A winner for each category will be selected.
The exposure provided by SXSW is the main reason hundreds of startups apply for the competition. But prizes include platinum badges for SXSW, sponsor gifts and additional prizes that will be announced later. Last year, for example, 10 winners got $4,000 each in prize money in addition to the other goodies.
Last year, five Austin startups also made the finalists list. And Austin video game content startup Tankee won the Entertainment & Content category.
Here's a look at all 50 of the finalists this year, broken down by category:
Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Voice: Artisense; Deepblocks; Intvo; Sonavi Labs; Wunder
Augmented & Virtual Reality: echoAR; Eyedaptic; holoride; Looxid Labs; Praxis Labs
Blockchain: AgUnity Pty Ltd; DrumG; Quantstamp; Votem; Winding Tree
Consumer Technology & CPG: AVA Technologies Inc; EasyKale Labs; FAVES; Renzoe Box; Trust & Will
Enterprise & Smart Data: LexSet; Passbase; StrongSalt; Syndio; Virtualitics
Entertainment & Content: Citefull; Filmchain; Quicc; St. Noire by Virsix Games; Wriveted
Health, Wearables & Wellbeing: Milis Bio; Radiobotics; Safe Health; Sisu Global; TruPigment
Innovative World Technologies: Betmarkets; Lofty AI; MolyWorks; NeelAgil Technologies Private Limited; Plantible Foods
Smart Cities, Transportation & Logistics: cove.tool; Flugauto; Sapient Industries; Trella; Waycare
Social & Culture: Agrona; Applied Bioplastics; Arist; Collective Liberty; Skilllab
