Sacramento has landed a spot in the Startup World Cup global technology pitch competition circuit, where the final winner gets a $1 million investment.
Startup World Cup is a San Jose-based event that runs dozens of local events around the globe. This year's finalists will compete in September at an event in San Francisco.
“This is a great coup for Sacramento,” said Rich Foreman, founding director of Startup Grind Sacramento.
Foreman said he attended the finals in 2018 and 2019, where speakers included CEOs of major technology companies and venture capital investors.
“It’s not just a pitch competition. They have top-notch speakers and next-level startups,” Foreman said.
Applications are due Aug. 15 for the local pitch event, which will be live at the concert hall at Rock & Brews Restaurant at Cal Expo on Aug. 30.
The Startup World Cup is sponsored by San Jose-based venture capital firm Pegasus Tech Ventures. Pegasus portfolio companies include SpaceX, Airbnb Inc. (Nasdaq: ABNB), SoFi Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: SOFI) and DoorDash Inc. (NYSE: DASH).
The Sacramento event is being sponsored by the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Association, the Greater Sacramento Economic Council and StartupSac.
Organizers hope to get about 100 applicants from companies in the greater Sacramento region, and that group will be whittled down to 10 finalists to pitch in front of Bay Area venture capitalists in Sacramento, said Laura Good, co-founder of StartupSac.
Winners of the local pitch competition move on to the global finals the following month.
Unique ideas solving real-world issues have a better chance of moving forward, Good said.
There have been competitions already this year in Dubai, Hungary, Romania and Taiwan, and competitions are upcoming in Tokyo, Seattle and Los Angeles.
“It’s a pretty serious competition,” Foreman said. “It’s got to be more than an idea or a concept. It has got to be a company that is pretty far along.”
The Sacramento event was quick to evolve, with organizers just beginning to talk about it in the past two weeks, Foreman said.
The Sacramento application is available on Startup World Cup’s website. The application form includes brief descriptions of the applicant, and it has a place to load pitch decks and videos.
