The Berkeley business plan competition finals were last Thursday (you can see our coverage of the event here). Kebima didn’t win any prize, but we’re still quite pleased about finishing in the top 8 of over 100 entrants. We also gained some extremely valuable feedback, and are definitely incorporating it into our plans to grow and improve the site.
The event coverage was the highlight for us. We had roughly 10 contributors, and the level of interaction was the best we’ve had for any event so far. We also had a few people watching from outside the actual venue, and they were quite happy with the level of coverage they got. This was the strongest validation of our idea we’ve had to date, and we’re looking to build on this momentum going forward. We also performed a live demo as part of our presentation, which was very well received by the several hundred people in the audience.
Seven other teams also presented as part of the finals. Reporterist gave an interview-style presentation, and showed a video with some strong user validation of their platform. Titan Medical (drug delivery system), Omniox (oxygen delivery system) and Glycometrix (glycan-based cancer screening) are bio companies, and quite honestly their presentations were over my head. They all won a prize of some sort, so I suppose they are onto something. LReady and Carsala were much more understandable, but unfortunately, like us, did not place. The final winner was Implicit Interfaces, which had some very impressive software IP. From the results it appears the judges placed a high value on defensible IP vs. businesses like ours with lower barriers to entry.
Overall it was a great experience for us. We came out of it with a polished business plan, a much crisper pitch, and a solid plan going forward. Congratulations to the winners, and many thanks to the Lester Center for organizing the event!
