Ritu Jha-
With more applications coming in from startups, TiE50 – the signature program at TiEcon, TiE Silicon Valley’s annual flagship event – has increased the number of finalists, so that these winners can apply not just at Drapers but also to Dell Startups Competition.
TiE Silicon Valley is a non-profit that fosters entrepreneurship globally through TiE’s five pillars: mentoring, networking and education, funding, and incubation.
TiE50 Showcase, starts Thursday, going from 9:00 a.m. PST May 5 to 9:30 a.m. PST May 7.
Kumar Sripadam, the TiE50 Awards program chair for TiE2022, told indica of Dell’s new role.
“Dell is one of our sponsors and is holding a pitch competition for select winners,” he said. “The winners, however, have to be US-based.”
He said all the winners would get Dell merchandise as prizes, with a select few being picked for that company’s national pitch competition.
In 2020, TiEcon and TiE50 partnered with legendary venture capitalist Tim Draper, who offers winners at TiE50 to pitch on his TV show, “Meet the Drapers.”
According to TiE Silicon Valley, since the inception of the TiE50 program, 84 percent of the winning startups have earned over a billion dollars in funding, with many of them going on to get acquired or get initial public offerings.
At least 29 of the exits were worth over $100 million, examples being FireEye (IPO), Mulesoft (IPO), Pearl Therapeutics (acquired by Astra Zeneca), and Velocloud (acquired by VMware).
While not revealing the number of applications received, Sripadam, a co-convener along with Anand Jagannathan and Sandeep Kishore, said they came from several firms at different stages of development. He described the applications as being of high quality, many of them have come up with innovative solutions.
Sripadam said that the majority of applications were from the US and Canada.
“We also had applications from India, South Africa, UK, Far East, and the Middle East,” he said, adding that many of the applying startups were from the healthcare and related sectors and that a majority were seed-stage companies.
There are nine companies selected to pitch at the Dell for Startup Pitch Competition and 10 at the Meet the Drapers Casting.
The Dell for Startup Pitch Competition: Tagfi, Remmie, Revert, Thimble, Buoy, Hermis, Sempera Organics Inc., Zemplee and Veriskin, Inc.
Meet the Drapers Casting: Moment Energy, CoreMobile, Marlow,Buoy, Diesel Labs, Hacware,Tada Now, Ambrosia, Cloud Eagle, MatchBook AI and Sempera Organics.