December 11, 2019 – Kevin Peesker, President of Microsoft Canada, announced the winner of the Ingram Micro Canadian regional Comet Competition today. Congratulations to Sensei Labs, who is now one step closer to winning the 1 million USD cash grand prize and securing their position as a leading innovator in the cloud ecosystem. The competition provides aspiring local independent software vendors (ISVs) and startups access to a wider global audience.
The International Comet Competition is designed to identify highly innovative business-to-business (B2B) software innovators from across the globe whose products have clear applications for the technology channel. The three runners-up are LoginRadius, BOOXI and Wedge Networks Inc, each of whom receives 50,000 USD in funding and free entry to Ingram Micro’s Cloud Summit in May 2020.
The Comet Competition plays a significant role in Ingram Micro Cloud’s mission to accelerate innovation and empower the world’s future problem solvers to grow and tackle businesses’ biggest problems. By accessing Ingram Micro’s Cloud ecosystem and channel partners, startups can diversify revenue, enabling repeatable, scalable and profitable growth.
“Canada’s B2B startup ecosystem is so diverse and dynamic, we knew we’d have a tough decision to make for this year’s competition,” said Greg Onoprijenko, Director of Cloud, Ingram Micro Canada. “Our mission at Ingram Micro Cloud is to help identify and bring to market the best technology in the industry. We value the opportunity to advise such exciting startups here in Canada at the beginning of their journeys. To progress through to this final round, our [stage] winners convinced the judges that their technology is not only viable but has what it takes to scale into a potentially thriving and profitable business.”
In-person judging events are taking place in 16 international cities throughout November and December. Each event will feature one winner and three runners up, all of whom receive significant go-to-market funding, training and resources to grow. All city-based winners and runners-up will join Ingram Micro Cloud at Cloud Summit 2020 in Miami Beach, Florida, May 12-14, to compete for the final Global Grand Prize of $1 million. Facing a panel of judges consisting of distinguished founders, executives and industry influencers, contestants will be evaluated on their vision for the future, potential in their channel and ecosystem readiness.
Arun Buduri of Pixm, last year’s grand prize winner, enjoyed the immediate impact from the exposure and resources gained from his Comet Competition winning status. “The year after winning the competition has been a total blessing,” Buduri said. “We were able to get our team of three in front of thousands of potential customers while bringing our customer acquisition cost down to nearly zero. We couldn’t have asked for a better partner than Ingram Micro”.
The competition is supported in part by Microsoft as part of a collaboration between Microsoft’s Microsoft for Startups group and Ingram Micro Cloud, announced in July.
“Microsoft for Startups is a global program designed to help startups quickly scale by providing access to Microsoft Azure, technical and engineering support, and a streamlined path to prepare startups effectively sell their cloud solutions to enterprise organizations in collaboration with Microsoft’s global sales organization and partner ecosystem. Supporting the Comet Competition with Ingram Micro is a natural fit to enable Canadian startups to scale. We look forward to working directly with the Ingram Micro teams in the coming months,” said Adam Nanjee, Managing Director of Canada for Microsoft for Startups.
This year’s finalists from Canada include:
- Lumagate Inc.
- Matter365
- mobilityView Inc
- Aytra Inc
- N8 Identity Inc
- Feroot Privacy
- ZEROSPAM
- Inuvika
- ShookIOT
- Planbox
- CloudOak Corp
