Want to know what companies really stood out at South by Southwest? Scroll down.
Just like every year, SXSW was a big, crazy cluster of startups jostling for attention. But this year, we decided to turn the social media noise into an asset. Our #WinSXSW contest, powered by our friends at Fandrop, asked would-be SXSW champions to give us their 30-second pitches on video, and to answer two quick questions about the high and low points of their entrepreneurial journeys (also in 30 seconds or less).
Then, we asked those startups and their friends to share their video pitches via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or Pinterest. Every share counted as a vote.
At the end of the contest, we've awarded winners in several categories, based on who got the most "votes" via social media.
The editorial team of VentureBeat also picked our favorite. And the illustrious panel of investors we recruited as judges have their own picks (a tie, in that case).
The winners get a ton of cool prizes, and we'll be following up with every company below so they can pitch their ideas to the team at VentureBeat. We'll also help them with introductions to a few key VCs.
Investors who helped out in various ways on this contest included Dan Scholnick (Trinity Ventures), Josh Elman (Greylock), Arif Janmohamed (Lightspeed Venture), Ajay Agarwal (Bain Capital Venture), Salil Deshpande (Bay Partners), Scott Raney (Redpoint Ventures), Brian Ascher (Venrock).
Check out the winners below.
Best Overall: Citybot
Citybot is a mobile application that acts as an intelligent city planning guide.
and