New York pitch competition hunts Australian start-ups

Australian tech and media start-ups have been urged to enter the 2011 We Media PitchIt Challenge, offering them the chance to pitch their idea in New York and secure seed funding.

The competition, now in its fifth year, will be the first to be held in New York after four years of being staged in Miami.

Two winners will each be given $25,000 in seed funding, without giving up any equity. The competition is open to media and technology start-ups, or budding entrepreneurs who have an idea but no business. Commercial and non-profit entities are able to enter.

Finalists will pitch their ideas on April 6 in New York, with the judging panel seeking out “bold ideas with a potential for social and commercial impact.”

The pitch competition is organised by We Media, a US digital media company.

Andrew Nachison, founder and MD of We Media, told StartupSmart that he’d “love to see some strong entries from Australia.”

“Australians have not won before (but) we have had strong connections with Australian participants in our We Media conferences over the years,” he says.

“Our intent is to spark powerful, pattern-changing innovation using media and tech to benefit humanity. That may be through an amazing idea for a new and profitable business, or it might be some new non-commercial or open source service.”

“We’re unique because we’re open to innovation from anywhere, we’re open to any kind of business structure and we’re an idea challenge, rather than a start-up competition.”

“You don’t have to have everything built or customers or revenue to win PitchIt. You have to have an amazing idea, a compelling case for it, a strong team that has a reasonable chance of pulling it off and you’ll need a brilliant live pitch to present all that at the finals.”

Previous winners of PitchIt include Audimated, an independent music hub, and volunteering platform Sparked.com.

The deadline for entries is February 4 and finalists will need to travel to New York in order to pitch their ideas. For more information on the competition, click here.