D.C. tech incubator 1776 picked the winning D.C.-area startups for its second annual Challenge Cup Tuesday night. The four winners will compete next May against the winners from cities around the world. It's a chance for the startups to pitch their companies for $650,000 in prizes. A startup was chosen from the realms of education, energy, health and smart cities.
"Washington, DC, has always attracted the kind of people who are creative problem solvers and tonight’s competition was just further proof that Washington can create meaningful change, but that change just might be taking place outside of government," said Donna Harris, co-founder of 1776. "We’re proud of the depth and breadth of startups featured tonight, proving that great ideas aren't exclusive to Silicon Valley, and that Washington is becoming one of the world’s most important startup cities."
The local winners certainly seem to live up to that expectation. In the energy category, BaseTrace, which takes the unusual approach of monitoring the environment using DNA. It basically biologically tags industrial liquids to keep an eye on them at a very low cost. The education startup winner was EdBacker, a way of crowdsourcing ideas and money for schools and PTAs, a more sophisticated system than an appeal in a PTA newsletter. In health, 1EQ, creator of BabyScripts (formerly BabySteps), a prescription-only app to help pregnant women keep doctors appraised of their health – even at home. For the smart cities category, Local Roots Farms, a startup that has developed an indoor farming system for cities that uses hydroponics. It's sort of an extension of the eating local trend taken to its logical conclusion.
Now 1776 will go on tour to 16 cities in 11 countries to pick the other winners. 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," Harris said. "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.
