Camden Catalyst – $25,000 Pitch Competition Recap

Camden Catalyst was a $25,000 pitch competition hosted in Camden NJ with the goal of attracting Tech Startups to the city of Camden. The first annual Camden Catalyst was hosted on October 20th 2017 featuring a judging panel consisting of leads, innovators, and people that are shaping Camden.

Camden has been an active community within the last several years due to nearly $2.5 Billion (that’s with a capital B) in tax credits given to Fortune 500 companies to move to Camden. The incentive drew many companies to the city including Holtec, Subaru, 76ers Innovation Lab, and American Water to name a few. The last several years Camden has been busy with many of its major construction along the Camden Waterfront done by Liberty Property Trust and also development of Knights Crossing overseen by Brandywine Realty Trust. The process has garnered attention from businesses and startups from the surrounding region.

Waterfront Ventures

In 2016, Waterfront Ventures, an economic development organization, joined Camden with a mission – to bring 100 startups to the city of Camden to kickstart the startup community and provide jobs/opportunities for Camden students and residents. If Waterfront Ventures is successful, they promise Camden will be a vibrant community with an abundance of jobs/opportunities with a similar ecosystem like Philadelphia. They’ve since hosted several conferences in the city including Startup Conference on May 25th of 2016, UP Conference on January 14th of 2017, and also hosted a plethora of events and programs such as Breakfast with Titans, Camden Tech Meetup, and Lighthouse Mentorship.

Birth of Camden Catalyst 3/24/17

Given their growth and development in the city, a pitch competition was inevitable. On March 24th, Bob Moul CEO of Cloudamize, Dan Rhoton CEO of Hopeworks N’ Camden, and the Waterfront Ventures team got together and created a pitch competition with a prize pool of $25,000. The plan was to have a high enough prize pool to generate buzz for Camden and also provide incentives for a startup to consider building their HQ in the city. The winning startup would have to build their HQ in the city of Camden, hire their first employee in the city, and 50% of their workforce must be Camden students or residents. With the plan in place, the team set out and created Camden Catalyst and announced it to the world.

The Practice Pitch 8/17/17

Hundreds of startups signed up within weeks of Camden Catalyst going live.  The Waterfront Ventures team’s first challenge is to call and vet each and every single startup to ensure that they meet the requirement and qualify. 102 startups qualified through the screening process. On August 17th the team created a practice pitch to help first time entrepreneurs prepare for the big day.

Camden Catalyst Pitch Competition – 10/14/17

The big day took place on October 14th 2017 at the Waterfront Technology Center. Of the 102 startups that passed screening, 40 made it to the big day to pitch. The pitch competition’s format required 2 groups of judges in order to accommodate 40 startups. The judges from these 2 groups were community leaders in Camden, non-profit organization leaders in Camden, business owners, investors, and innovators both in Camden and Philadelphia. The first round was a 90-second elevator pitch. The startup had to sell to the panel of judges in 90 seconds to move onto the round of 16. This was challenging since most of the startups have planned for a 10-minute pitch, but few were ready for a 90-second elevator pitch.

From the 40 startups that came, 16 moved onto Round 1 of Camden Catalyst.

Round 1 of Camden Catalyst

The Waterfront Ventures team opened up Camden Catalyst by sharing the mission and vision of the organization and what their hopes were for all the startups in attendance. 16 Startups will enter Round 1, and 8 Startups will move onto Round 2 of Camden Catalyst. The startups and judges divided into 2 separate rooms and Camden Catalyst officially commenced.

Round 1 Judges

Brett Buterick, Associate at Hill Wallack LLP

Shahid Rana, V.P. of Business Development at Cooper’s Ferry

Rashaan Hornsby, President at Education Over Everything Foundation, Inc.

Sean M Brown, Chief Operations Officer at DuBois Douglass Strategies

Sean O’Donnell, Partner at BALLAST IP LAW, LLP

Ryan Wertman, Co-Founder and Business Lawyer at Growth Counsel

Damon Pennington, President & CEO at ATS Group, LLC

Startups that pitched in Round 1

1. Linked Noodle (Katrina Naidas)
2. Jauntify (Dennis Pitcock)
3. Rezzio (Jessica Sarkisian)
4. Eoko (Jeremiah De Leon)
5. Denial Flow (Robert Rupp)
6. Rising Leaders (Jamia Santiago)
7. Frostheave Fantasy Esports (Kyle Hampton)
8. Networked (Roger Chinchilla)
9. Invincible City Farms (Fredric Byarm)
10. Unishare (Stephanie Huang)
11. Engageathon (Veniece Newton)
12. First Responders Live (James Corbett)
13. Tribes (Liwen Ma)
14. Nuj Health (Deboleena Dutta)
15. Higher Hospitality (Yaz Barqawi)

Round 2 of Camden Catalyst

The success of Round 1 brought 8 semi-finalists to round 2 where they competed again for a seat to pitch at the Camden Catalyst Awards Ceremony & Final Round on October 20th 2017.

Judges for Round 2

Chris Kohl, Vice President & CIO at Vertex Inc.

Chuck Sacco, Assistant Dean of Strategic Initiatives & Director of the Baiada Institute at Drexel U. Close School of Entrepreneurship

Johnathan Grzybowski, Co-founder of Penji

Startups that pitched in Round 2

1. Linked Noodle (Katrina Naidas)
2. Denial Flow (Robert Rupp)
3. Invincible City Farms (Fredric Byarm)
4. Higher Hospitality (Yaz Barqawi)
5. Tribes (Liwen Ma)
6. Unishare (Stephanie Huang)
7. Nuj Health (Deboleena Dutta)
8. Engageathon (Veniece Newton)

The 8 startups pitched their ideas to the panel of experienced judges in round 2 and the finalists were determined at the conclusion of the 6 hour Camden Catalyst Pitch Competition. The 4 finalists will now have time to recuperate and plan their strategies for the final round on October 20th.

Camden Catalyst Award Ceremony & Final Round 10/20/17

This is the biggest startup event ever held in the city of Camden. Over 470 attendees came to the award ceremony to witness the very first winner of Camden Catalyst and to celebrate the birth of an emerging tech community in Camden. Attendees ranged from CEOs and executives from the major fortune 500 companies in Camden, city officials from City Hall, freeholders of Camden, Rutgers/Rowan/Camden County College representatives, to startup founders, community leaders, investors, from both sides of the bridge.

The event was a huge success and brought everyone who shares a common dream together under one roof. Camden Catalyst was the historic day where all the business owners, executives, founders, and investors who believe in Camden came together to support a new startup coming into the city. It was a day of celebration, joy, excitement, and love.

Opening Ceremony

The event opened up with Congressman Donald Norcross sharing his hope for the city and excitement for a new age of technology. Freeholder Director Lou Cappelli followed up with a talk about his efforts to bring safety and security to Camden and elaborating on the police department’s great work in the city to lower crime rates and increase public safety.

Let the final round begin!

Katrina Naidas, CEO of Linked Noodle kicked off Camden Catalyst with her 10 minute pitch about her tech startup. Her startup Linked Noodle connect students and local instructors. Instructors aren’t limited to teaching boring education-based classes. Linked Noodle is a platform for creatives to teach what they know and love best. And allow others to join in on the fun. Prospective teachers and students meet online and end with a tangible offline connection.

Robert Rupp, CEO of Denial Flow pitched second and presented his idea on solving a $250 Billion dollar health insurance issue. The mission of Denial Flow is to bring a lean and agile software to enterprise revenue cycle management while providing clean, practical solutions at a reasonable price.

Veniece Newton, CEO of Engageathon pitched third and presented her idea of providing an incentive empowerment software for students and community. Engageathon is a software platform that provides tools for school districts, nonprofits, and corporations to improve community engagement. They will use Engageathon to promote, track, and reward student engagement, outreach, and social impact.

And finally Fredric Byarm, CEO of Invincible City Farms presented his idea of building a sustainable farm in Camden to solve the food desert problem and also provide jobs for residents in Camden.

The Winner is announced!

With much excitement and anticipation in the room, the winner of the first annual Camden Catalyst Pitch Competition is announced…Invincible City Farms! The room exploded with applause while the startups all congratulate one another and come together for a group celebration.

Camden Catalyst was an exciting event to witness and brings a different kind of energy and enthusiasm to the city. It’s a much needed energy, the kind that sparks innovation, ideas, and the kind that drives people. Now the rest of Camden will have to wait and see if Invincible City Farms can live up to the hopes and expectation that was set out for the startup.

Waterfront Ventures also announced they are currently working to put together the second Camden Catalyst for 2018.