Sarah Schmid
Three Detroit-area startups will vie for a spot in a pitch contest at Google’s California headquarters this spring, after winning the second annual Google Demo Day in downtown Detroit last Thursday.
The winners, announced Monday, were LevelEleven, AdAdapted, and Genomenon. Of the three finalists, one company will be chosen in mid-February to head to Mountain View, CA, to compete in Google’s national demo day on April 2.
The event, organized by Grand Circus, assembled 11 metro Detroit software startups seeking Series A funding and let them pitch to a panel of judges. Demo day is part of the Google for Entrepreneurs program; Grand Circus is one of nine tech training hubs in the U.S. supported by Google for Entrepreneurs.
In addition to the finalists, the startups competing included Locqus, Seat Side Service, Clicktivated Video, Show of Hands, Larky, Wisely, Are You a Human?, and LaunchGood.
“We’re very impressed by the talented entrepreneurs and innovative companies in the Detroit area,” said John Lyman, head of partnerships and marketing for Google for Entrepreneurs, in a press release. “Google for Entrepreneurs partners with organizations like Grand Circus to help these local communities of entrepreneurs grow and thrive.”
Now, for some details about the winners:
—Detroit-based LevelEleven seeks to motivate corporate sales teams through gamification. The company has created a popular Salesforce app that helps sales managers create goals and cultivate behaviors that lead to better performance.
—AdAdapted, located in Ann Arbor, gives independent app publishers the ability to use customized native ads and a digital marketplace that connects their apps with advertisers. The company strives to solve issues for publishers and advertisers while replacing disruptive banner ads.
—Ann Arbor’s Genomenon seeks to simplify the interpretation of patient genome data. Its diagnostic and discovery software enables doctors and researchers to identify disease-causing genetic variants from complex genomic sequencing data. Xconomy
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