St. Louis has been chosen to participate in the 2024 Startup World Cup, a global contest awarding $1 million to its winner.
St. Louis’ inclusion in the Startup World Cup, staged by San Jose, California-based Pegasus Tech Ventures, will give one local firm a chance to pitch their company for the contest’s $1 million prize at an event in October in San Francisco. St. Louis’ representative in the finals will be chosen through local pitch contests staged by technology group TechSTL.
Startup World Cup is a global startup contest that sources the companies participating in its final round through regional contests staged worldwide. Regional events will be held in several U.S. cities, including St. Louis, along with locations in South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Startup World Cup launched in 2017, with this being the first year St. Louis has participated.
TechSTL said it will launch the St. Louis region’s competition for Startup World Cup Friday at its closing ceremony for STL TechWeek, which is taking place this week and organized by TechSTL. TechSTL said it plans to share details Friday about 10 semifinal pitch events it plans to host and that will feature 100 local companies.
“When we were presented with the chance to bring the Startup World Cup to St. Louis, it was a no-brainer. Our community is home to some incredible startups who are primed for the global stage,” said Emily Hemingway, executive director of TechSTL. “We are rallying partners, judges, mentors and industry leaders to support the 100 startups along this multi-month journey to find our winning team.”
The 100 companies selected for the 10 semifinal pitch events will be chosen from 1-minute video pitches companies can submit between April 12-26 and that will be voted on by the local community, TechSTL said. Those companies will then compete across 10 different pitch events, which will be centered around the following fields:
- Advanced Manufacturing
- Agriculture technology
- Artificial intelligence/machine learning
- Biotechnology
- Consumer packaged goods
- Cybersecurity
- E-Commerce
- Health technology
- Financial technology
- Technology as a service/software
Each winner from the 10 semifinal contests will compete Sept. 9 in St. Louis’ final competition at the Pageant in the Delmar Loop. The winner from the Sept. 9 event will compete in the Startup World Cup in San Francisco, with a chance to win a $1 million event. TechSTL said all 10 companies competing in the local finals will receive a cash prize and a ticket to the Startup World Cup in San Francisco.
