Westerly-based Retail MarketPoint took home the top prize of $50,000, which includes $25,000 in cash, at Cox Business’ seventh annual #GetStartedRI pitch competition last night.
Uproot also brought home a prize: $5,000, for winning the Audience Choice award.
Founder John Rafferty said the prize winnings will go toward sales and marketing.
His retail real estate technology startup is focused on site location analytics. It uses a proprietary BrandScore-System that "evaluates any commercial location in the U.S. for any retail brand or concept."
Uproot was launched by two recent college grads who wanted to do something simple: “Make plant-based dairy alternatives more sustainable and more accessible.” They created, as a result, Uproot, which has already had multiple flavors and existing demos in two of Johnson & Wales University dining halls. Kevin Eve, a 2018 Brown alumnus and co-founder of Uproot, was one winner of the second-annual Brown Venture Founders award, and Uproot was also named one of Rhode Island Inno's 50 on Fire awards in 2019.
The two winners were joined on the stage by four other finalists: Biotica Bio, Furrfighters, NeQter and Tank Vision. Read more about these startups here.
All seven finalists had a chance to present for five minutes in front of a panel of judges: moderator Ken Kraft, senior vice president of marketing and sales operations for Cox Business; Karl Wadensten, president/CEO of VIBCO Vibrators; Shannon Shallcross, co-founder and CEO of BetaXAnalytics; Arnell Milhouse, co-founder and CEO of CareerDevs Computer Science University; and Patrice Milos, co-founder, president and CEO of Medley Genomics (as well as last year's winner).
"Entrepreneurship really takes guts, you have to be willing to follow what you love and I love science. You have no idea if you will be successful but you're driven to try," Milos said.
"Having a strong team is incredibly important and the next thing is the scale of the problem you're solving," Shallcross said. "Every entrepreneur has to know the addressable market and plan for execution."
The night included opening remarks from these thought leaders, food and drink, networking and insights, and drew entrepreneurs from all walks of life. 76-year-old Rita Gendolfe, an accessory designer and founder of Keyfinder+ attended the event with her cofounder and husband Russell Gendolfe.
"I know what networking is, and I think this event will give us useful tips for our business," said Russell.
Now all that's left to do for pitch participants is to listen to judge Milhouse's words: "Get out there and get to market."
Disclosure: Cox Business is a founding partner of Rhode Island Inno.
