Entrepreneurs battled it out in Bend Thursday night in hopes of finding an angel investor.
The group Economic Development for Central Oregon (EDCO) hosted a contest called Central Oregon PubTalk: Road to Bend Venture Conference. The conference, held each fall, says it has awarded more than $12 million in investments over the past 20 years.
“It gives us exposure,” said CEO of FiOR Innovations Price Tice. “For one thing, and it offers an opportunity to get capital.”
“Pub talk is really a celebration of entrepreneurship, connecting entrepreneurs to resources and funding and really helping them kind of pitch their products to get interested parties in their business and what they’re trying to do at scale here in Central Oregon,” said CEO of EDCO Jon Stark.
There were local tech companies in the music industry and the construction business.
“We’re building an exchange where retail investors have access to music royalty-backed securities in the form of a reg securities offering,” said Chris and Kyle from Symphony Markets.
“It allows contractors to get as-built data or record data of construction sites stream to their phone so they no longer have to dig into a dangerous situation like hitting gas lines or hitting power lines,” said Tice. “We give them that actionable data right away on their phone through streaming technology.”
Several other companies across the west delivered fast-paced, three-minute pitches to a live crowd.
“People are going to see that band is really a hub for entrepreneurs, and I’m excited to be a part of it,” said Tice. “I’m very honored to see what everybody else is offering, and it’s just great to be a part of it.”
The audience, along with an expert panel of judges, voted to decide which five of the 10 companies advance to present at the Bend Venture Conference next month and a chance to win $25,000.
Stage competitions for the 20th annual Bend Venture Conference take place at the Tower Theatre in Bend on Oct. 19-20.
The five companies advancing are:
- Finnegan the Dragon (Hillsboro, OR) – The first preschool curriculum and mobile gaming system that targets language development for better learning outcomes.
- FiOR Innovations (Bend, OR) – A robust construction management software for the architecture, engineering and construction industries.
- Polaris (Bend, OR) – An AI-powered site reliability tool that detects outages and incidents in web applications in real-time.
- Revino Inc. (Newberg, OR) – A wine bottle reclamation and sanitation service that collects, washes and refills wine bottles in Oregon and beyond.
- Symphony Markets (Bend, OR) – A streamlined, SEC compliant exchange for IP owners to list shares of their music while providing investors exposure to a stable, culturally relevant asset class
