Jun 29, 2017

For its fifth edition, the nationwide pitch competition featured 450 pitch applications across 10 Canadian cities. The competition was fierce; only 12 startups out of the 150 selected pitching startups moved onto the final round. The finalists were graded based on market potential, solution, team, pitch and investment readiness for the $1,000,000 FSVP Investment Award. The two winners are Quote Kong , a quoting process automation for contractors, and Vini , SaaS software that modernizes wine selling and buying. Nathan Seiling from Quote Kong earned his way into the Finale by claiming the trophy at the Toronto Fundica Roadshow on May 24. “When I pitched at the Fundica Roadshow one year and a half ago, it was a failure and that’s okay,” Seiling said of overcoming failure on the pitching stage. “It’s never about the success or failure at that time, it’s about what you do with that information next time. Repeat the successes, fix the failures.” Alan Serpa from Vini was the Calgary Wildcard invited to the Finale. “This funding allows us to really dig into the production and launch to get our client to market in the fall,” said Serpa. “What that does is it accelerates us into exactly where we need to be, which is in refining, finishing, development, into processes and onboarding the systems that we’re going to implement with our client.”