Some of Arizona's most innovative and creative startups and their founders were honored at the 2024 AZ Inno Fire Awards held in Phoenix on Thursday.
The third-annual Fire Awards event, held at Papago Golf Course, recognized startups and founders in four award categories: Female Founders, Software, Biotech/Health Care and Inno Picks, a category chosen by AZ Inno writers and editors.
The Fire Awards are the premier awards program for AZ Inno, the statewide online publication that is the go-to source for information about fast-track startups and the state's innovation economy.
The finalists were selected from nominations submitted to the Business Journal, along with some finalists chosen by the AZ Inno writers and editors for the high profile they have achieved within the past 12 months. Factors that were considered to determine this year's finalists included financial performance, employee growth and recent funding rounds.
The event's biggest honor, the 2024 Blazer Award, was presented to Jenny Poon by Diana Vowels, a longtime Valley entrepreneur who was the 2023 Blazer Award winner.
Poon is the founder of HUUB, an entrepreneur support platform that has helped deploy more than $3 million in funding and support for small businesses. She previously founded Co+Hoots, a well-known Valley coworking center, which currently serves hundreds of entrepreneurs and small businesses.
She was recently was named to the National Women's Business Council, a bipartisan group that provides policy recommendations to the president, Congress and the Small Business Administration on issues of importance to female business owners and entrepreneurs.
Valley startup founder Susan Sly, the former co-CEO of RadiusAI who has recently launched her newest startup, The Pause Technologies Inc., was the featured speaker at the event.
Click on each of the headlines below to read more about this year's award winners:
