The Idea-to-IPO’s Spring Pitch & Demo event was held at the Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale, California, and hosted more than 365 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and technologists, who took advantage of the opportunity to network, socialize and connect.

1. Rizzoma Wins Idea­to­IPO’s Spring Pitch & Demo Event in Silicon Valley
Rizzoma, an open­source web­based service, took the prize at a recent Silicon
Valley startup event. Rizzoma is a company whose product combines real­time
collaborative editing with text chats in one easy­to­maintain document.
Startup representatives were given the chance to pitch their product to a panel of
investors in a Dragon’s Den­style format. Panel members included Kathryn Inglin
(director at J. Moore Partners) and Victor Belfor (500 Startups mentor).
The Idea­to­IPO’s Spring Pitch & Demo event was held at the Plug and Play
Tech Center in Sunnyvale, California, and hosted more than 365 entrepreneurs,
venture capitalists and technologists, who took advantage of the opportunity to
network, socialize and connect.
Rizzoma was one of six emerging startups that pitched at the event. Other
competitors were:
­Happy Retailer, a social distribution platform for web retailing
­RideAuction, a Priceline­type service for private transportation
­Grimm Bros, who aspire to build a platform and community of core gamers
with Cloud­based games on tablets and PCs
­Letusdropship, a shipping service for those who sell products and need a
service to get the product to their customers
­WeFile, a company that cuts out the middle man and instead connects
customers directly with experienced tax pros for affordable and easy tax
services
Rizzoma only moved to Silicon Valley two weeks ago from its home base of
Russia. This was the company’s first US pitch event in front of a live audience
at Silicon Valley’s premier business accelerator that specializes in growing tech
startups.
Moved to second pitch position, Rizzoma CEO Daniil Kravtsov overcame
technical difficulties with the presenter podium interface to give a presentation
that was well crafted enough for the panel to decide on Rizzoma as first­place
winner. The panel noted some strategic growth opportunities in the enterprise
space once Rizzoma further defined its market position, specifically in regard to
IT business customers, and how this market can help the company to continue
its accelerated growth. Competitors in this business space include Yammer, Jive
and Box.