D.C. tech incubator 1776 announced the details of its second annual Challenge Cup on Thursday. The global competition gives an opportunity to startups to pitch their companies for a chance at some big prizes. The competition covers education, energy, health and smart city startups, with a winner in each category from each of the 16 cities coming to D.C. next May for the final round.
The initial round spans 16 cities in 11 countries, starting in D.C. on October 21. The 16 regional sites, include Washington D.C., Chicago, Sydney, New York City, Tel Aviv, Amman, Santiago, Nairobi, Mumbai, Austin, Toronto, Boston, Berlin, Dublin, San Francisco, and an as yet unannounced city in China.
"Good ideas can happen anywhere, and the Challenge Cup has proven that," said 1776 cofounder Donna Harris in a statement. "This competition not only helps the world’s most promising startups succeed, but it’s also quickly building a global movement of innovators interested in solving big problems."
It's a huge event, in time, space and money. This year's success though clearly gave 1776 the confidence to go for it again. It has plenty of partners helping it along this time. NEA, the Case Foundation, Capital Factory, Rocketspace and others are all taking some role, presumably at least somewhat financial to make it all happen.
This year, the overall winner of the event was Handup, a California startup that provides an online platform for donations to the homeless and others in need. It beat out a lot of stiff competition to take home the grand prize. The 5,000 applications and 480 startups initially competing got whittled down to 64 for the final rounds in D.C.
"1776 and the Challenge Cup was an incredible opportunity to make global connections with investors and policy makers that can make or break a startup, said HandUp cofounder Rose Broome. "Because of the Challenge Cup and 1776, HandUp raised additional funding, increased exposure, and gained valuable insight into how a startup like ours can work with local governments and existing infrastructure to deliver new services to homeless Americans."
Other winners last year included electric vehicle charge station finder PlugSurfing, online learning platform eduCanon, and local success story, transportation option aggregator RideScout.
Along with the Challenge Cup, 1776 is adding to the competition with a chance for other incubators worldwide to host their own events that will feed into the regional competition called ChallengeX. Detroit, New Orleans and Buenos Aires are the first cities to host feeder competitions before the regional events.
"“The Challenge Cup is the best platform out there for sharing innovative, world-changing ideas with the investors and mentors you need to be successful," said 1776 cofounder Evan Burfield. "This year, the launch of ChallengeX, a new feeder competition, allows us to cast our net even wider, and give more startups the opportunity to present their ideas in front of mentors, judges and investors around the world."
