Plano-based traveling startup accelerator competition CodeLaunch held its 2024 World Championship pitch competition Wednesday at Gilley’s Dallas, the culmination of four previous CodeLaunch competitions held earlier this year across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The night’s big winner: Materia Bioworks, a biomaterials startup based in Toronto, Canada.
Materia—which took home the grand prize of $25,000 in allocated capital—is building a platform that allows material scientists, product developers, suppliers, and converters to improve and accelerate their development of biomaterial applications. Founded only last year, The CodeLaunch Canada winner, Materia partnered with Farmers Branch-based IT consulting company Contollo during the professional hackathon.
During Wednesday’s splashy event at Gilley’s, eight startup finalists from three countries each had 3 and a half minutes to pitch and were able to show a 45-second pre-recorded product demo.
Four finalists advanced to the championship round: Materia from Canada, Endora from Houston, VSOD from Minnesota, and Fizi from Mexico. Each finalist had just 30 seconds to convince the audience to give them their vote, with judges offering them a final challenging question.
A ‘surreal’ win
In the end, Materia claimed the world CodeLaunch title, with the trophy presented in the form of a boxing champion-like belt.
“Winning the world championship is exhilarating,” Materia Bioworks Founder Hasitha de Alwis said in a statement. “It’s our first time in Texas, and we didn’t expect to win. All these startups are very, very strong. For us to come here and compete against them and get the world championship title—it’s surreal!”
Houston’s Endora wins judges and investors awards
Houston’s Endora won the investors and judges awards and $25K. From left: L to R: Jason W. Taylor, founder and CEO of CodeLaunch; Endora Co-Founder Kitty Bogle Sherman; Endora Co-Founder Coco Harmon; and CodeLaunch Emcee and FirstGen Agency Founder Raheel Malik. [Photo: CodeLaunch]
Also notching a victory Wednesday was Houston-based Endora, which has created an app that combines wellness and gaming by turning personal memories into interactive, nostalgia-driven games. Their app transforms users’ photos into games like solitaire and trivia, promoting optimism and well-being, CodeLaunch said.
Endora walked off with both the judges and investors awards, plus total funding of $25,000.
Endora came in as an underdog, since it had only been a finalist at CodeLaunch Houston 2024, not the winner. The Endora team worked with the professional hackathon team from Dallas-based Improving.
“It feels absolutely amazing and surreal to have won two awards tonight, and I really wasn’t expecting to hear our name,” Endora Co-Founder Kitty Bogle Sherman said in a statement. “We’ve done so many of these things, so it feels really good. And it feels like validation that we are, in fact, on the cusp of what we think we’re on.”
Endora Co-Founder Coco Harmon added, “It’s been a long four years of pivoting, iterating, coming to CodeLaunches, and testing ideas. Now we finally made it to the stage and will come home a champion!”
Not your usual pitch competition
Founded in 2013, CodeLaunch has been at the forefront of fostering startup growth by merging seed accelerator competition with a unique approach called “venturetainment,” which features a blend of live music, comedy, panels, and networking.
“It’s not a boring corporate event,”rapper Rajiv ‘RajNATION’ Nathan said in a statement. “People have fun and the very real stakes are felt throughout the room. The room is dark, the stage is bright, there’s confetti, loud music, inspiring speeches, and even a rapper that does a set after the show.”
The CodeLaunch world championship featured more than 50 booths that people went to before and after the show, with a “rowdy after-party” held afterward to give all the participating startups a way to celebrate.
Improving also held watch parties throughout North America at CodeLaunch’s enterprises, giving people from across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico the chance to vote on the winner.
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