A Madison startup building quantum sensors to help the mining industry accurately locate rare-earth metals like copper, nickel and cobalt won the Wisconsin Technology Council's recent Elevator Pitch Olympics.
The startup, Dirac Labs, was among 15 companies that gave 90-second pitches to a panel of investor judges at the council's Early Stage Symposium in Madison Nov. 9. Dirac Labs co-founder Aishwarya Das Praveen gave the pitch.
The pitch event, which had no cash prize, is designed to expose local startups to investors from Wisconsin and the greater Midwest. More than two dozen investor groups were set to attend the Early Stage Symposium, according to the Tech Council.
The second-place winner was Sygmatic Inc., a company from Fort Atkinson that's building a language-learning app. Sygmatic co-founder Kyle Schneider gave the company's pitch. The event's People’s Choice winner was a Madison startup called Spectacle Health pitched by Erika Poole.
The other young companies selected to participate in the Elevator Pitch Olympics were Cold Water Technologies, Micronics, Morel Energy, Navigationis, Neurosetta, Okkanti, Oui Technologies, Parsley Solutions, Provoco AI, RevMethods, Saros Therapeutics and Tosslet.
The event's judges were Greg Barnes of Chicago's Hyde Park Venture Partners, Mary Hannes of Milwaukee's Golden Angels Investors, Nassir Criss of Sixty8 Capital in Indianapolis, David Kerr of Allos Ventures in Indianapolis and Cincinnati, and Mike Thorson of Madison's Inventure Capital.
