All twelve companies that competed in the Startup Bowl did fantastic jobs pitching their startups! The overall quality of the companies present at the Lucas Oil showdown was even higher than anyone expected.

The judges (Ting Gootee of Elevate Ventures, Carla Valdes of Fortify, Sonal Mane of Microsoft, and Christopher Day of Navidar) scored the startups on four categories: Market Potential, Value Proposition, Presentation Quality, and the Team. Live voting during Friday’s panel also factored into the overall score for each of the startups.

Thank you to Bonfyre, FoundOps, Squarejive, Lisnr, Team Mash, CoatChex, Diagnotes, Modulus, Pet Bookings, Adproval, Lesson.ly, and Visit Apps for sharing your story and your startups with us!

First Place: Found Ops

Best Team, Most Votes

Oren Shatken did a fantastic job of pitching FoundOps, a company that provides “Logistics for everyone!” Not only did FoundOps tie for the most in-person votes, but the judges believed that they had the best team, according to the scores. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since everyone that attended the Startup Bowl knows that they have a “Fucking Amazing Team!” Oren reiterated this sentiment, stating “We feel honored to have won given the incredible field of startups. Ultimately, I have to give all credit to our fucking awesome team.”

FoundOps Team (Left to Right): Andrew Pohl (Developer), Oren Shatken (Cofounder and President), Jonathan Perl (Cofounder and President, Tech)

Second Place: VisitApps

Best Presentation, Most Votes

Santiago Jaramillo’s energy lit up the stage, which led to the judges giving VisitApps the highest scores for Presentation Quality. This platform that help Convention and Visitors Bureaus create their own apps tied FoundOps for most votes during the exhibition on Friday. This victory helped cement the trend that the “non-sexy” apps were the ones that fared the best during the PowderKeg Startup Bowl. “The PowderKeg startup bowl was a great way for us to launch our startup and make it public to the midwest startup community. Coming in at 2nd place and hearing positive feedback all week also encouraged us and validated the direction we’re headed in. We were honored to even be chosen to compete among such talented founders and brilliant startup concepts, it was a truly memorable and valuable experience.” -Santiago Jaramillo

VisitApps Team: Adam Weber (left) and Santiago Jaramillo (right)

Third Place: CoatChex

Best Value Proposition

Derek Pacque wasn’t fazed after being introduced as the man that gave Mark Cuban a $200,000 Heisman. His startup, a new high-tech way to easily check coats, presented the best value proposition to the judges, giving them the highest cumulative score in any category. “It’s great to have an event like PowderKeg here in Indy – it brings more attention to what the entrepreneurs in our city are doing and, I would think, encourages others to get involved as well. I’m excited to see how it grows over the next few years!” -Derek Pacque

The CoatChex Team