On February 28th, 2019, over 200 people from around the world came to witness the inaugural DBC Pitchfest (powered by Detroit Fintech Bay). When EOS Detroit started planning this event with the Detroit Blockchain Center a little over two months ago, nobody could foresee that the event would turn out 200+ attendees and end up as the highest profile blockchain-related event that Southeast Michigan has seen in quite some time. New relationships were forged and old ones fostered, as the community came together to support and learn about startups working in the fintech and blockchain industries. The Detroit Blockchain Center raised approximately $5000 to be used towards bootstrapping costs. It would not have been possible to pull off the Pitchfest without the help of various sponsors who contributed both cash towards event logistics, and digital assets to incorporate into prize packages for the winning teams as well as gifts to attendees. Also, a special thanks to all who helped make the event successful with their time and labor, and in particular Adam Zientarski (
The mood in the room was upbeat and positive. The attendees seemed be to enjoying themselves, hitting it off, and exploring their new EOS wallet courtesy of TokenPocket. Libations and snacks were being served as the room populated. Eventually the main event started, and everybody shuffled into the auditorium to observe the stage. Ingrid LaFleur was the MC for the night, keeping the room lively and show running, while Adam Zientarski manned the A/V setup. The Pitchfest judges were seated in front across from the pitching teams. After a few opening remarks, the competition began.
Twelve companies from, Detroit, the Midwest, California, New York, and even Lichtenstein competed for over $30,000 in crypto prizes. There was also a mystery prize from Envestnet | Yodlee (NYSE: ENV): The Yodlee Incubator Experience -- an all expenses paid trip to the Bay Area in order to pitch Yodlee for a spot in its Fintech Incubator and co-host a meetup with them! The judges used a 0-5 scale based on the following criteria for scoring:
- Execution
- Creativity
- Articulate your customer’s pain
- Impact
- Scalability
The prizes for the event were granted to the following teams, based on receiving the highest scores from the judges:
Champion: AIKON - A decentralized application account creation enabled by existing social media platforms.
Runner-up & Yodlee Experience winner: Truelytics - A business intelligence platform for the wealth management industry that uses proprietary algorithms to grade advisor performance and includes other tools to help wealth management firms run and scale their business.
Honorable mention: CRYPTO CANS - A business that allows people to recycle any deposit returnable can or bottle at a central location or drop-off point in return for fractional amounts of bitcoin.
Honorable mention: PrivEOS - Priveos is a smart contract based access control protocol which offers delegation of data access management to a smart contract.
Honorable mention: LiquidKlear - A frictionless and low cost banking ecosystem featuring prepaid debit cards, atm network, and e-payments. Focused on transparency.
The venue was alive with excitement and energy as the event wound to a close. Many of the attendees carried on with their conversations and celebrations at a nearby bar which to our delightful surprise had an old school Detroit turntable master scratching up his favorite albums, DJ Dez. The moment was truly a turning point in the Detroit Blockchain community as tighter connections were created amongst local enthusiasts across various interest areas, many of whom did not know about all of the amazing work being done here in our city to further the industry. Events such as the DBC Pitchfest will continue for years to come; the benefit can clearly be seen as a galvanizing force in legitimizing blockchain startups and initiatives in Southeast Michigan. EOS Detroit and DBC envision a future where many blockchain-based services flourish in our great city, and EOS Detroit is well positioned on the wave of the blockchain movement to teach others where to start, and provide advisement to the many corporate interests in Southeast Michigan interested in deploying the technology for their own use cases.
Watch the full livestream of event here.
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