Florida International University’s (FIU) 2012 Americas Venture Capital Conference awarded Trapezoid Digital Security and Fotopigeon top prizes at closing ceremonies for the event, which brought together nearly 400 investors, ventures and other attendees to the JW Marriott Brickell. The 2012 AVCC was presented by the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center at the FIU College of Business.
The focus of this year’s conference, Data, Design & Dollars, drew 29 ventures at various stages of development from throughout Latin America and Florida to present their plans.
“The tremendous reception to this conference by both entrepreneurs and top global investors reinforces our determination to create the infrastructure we need to have a true entrepreneurial ecosystem in Miami,” said Jerry Haar, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and co-chair of the AVCC.
Winning companies receive cash, services and mentoring.
Trapezoid, a Miami company that provides hardware-based security solutions for enterprise and cloud environments, was the winner of the Tres Mares Innovation Prize: a $10,000 cash award and a work of innovative art by Inaki Bonillas valued at $5,000.
Tampa-based Fotopigeon, a niche-market photo sharing and printing company, was awarded the Miami Innovation Fund Start-Up Prize of a $20,000 cash investment in the form of a term sheet. It also received the New Frontier Nomads Idea Validation and micro-MVP Prize: $10,000 in-kind services to validate, design and develop a winning startup’s mobile MVP.
itMD, a Miami cloud-based medical software company, received the CP Capital Later Stage Company Prize: $15,000 in investment banking services.
Cognicor, an innovative customer service management system based in Spain, received the CP Capital Start-Up Company Prize: $10,000 in investment banking services.
World-class speakers from the investment and tech communities addressed the audience including Gerald Brady, managing director of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB); Richard Hale, Worldwide Executive Analytics and Information Warehousing for IBM; Gaston Legorburu, CEO of SapientNitro; and Dan Maccarone, co-founder of Charming Robot.
Hot topics at the conference included the need to establish an entrepreneur-driven infrastructure in Miami to foster venture growth, the role of a network of mentors and accelerators in the venture development process, and the importance of maintaining a meeting place in South Florida for the Latin American venture community.
