On June 16, 2022, in Chicago, the fourth of six regional pitch competitions commences on the road to San Antonio for a chance at a grand prize of $100,000 dollars, continuing USAA’s 100th Anniversary Pitch Competition. In Chicago, six companies will compete for $10,000 in prize money and a place on stage at the San Antonio finals!
Want to Be on Stage Next?
Applications are open for the final Regional Pitch Competition in Charlotte until August 1st. Apply today to take your shot at $100,000 in funding!
Need Help Honing Your Pitch?
Pitching under ideal circumstances is difficult, but pitching for a competition is even more intense. Take another look at your pitch with Bunker Labs How-To Pitch Your Business blog series!
Update: Chicago Winners Announced!
Clark Yuan and Candelytics beat out all the other Chicago applicants to take home the top prize of $10,000 for their dual-use SaaS company’s digital platform to visualize, analyze, and share 3D data over the web. Candelytics beat out six other participants, but all participants were able to make meaningful networking connections. Gabriela Bell and Organized Q’s virtual executive assistant software earned second prize and $5,000 in prize money. While Candelytics has a guaranteed seat at the Finals in San Antonio, Tx this November, the other competitors still can earn a wild card spot!
The event also featured a fireside chat between Snapsheet CEO, Founder, and Chairman of the Board Brad Weisberg and Henriette Fleischmann, the COO of Hosta A.I. property assessments. Snapsheet was our host for the event, and is an innovative SaaS appraisals and claims management software that uses machine learning to streamline the process online. Together, they discussed the importance of finding the balance between the confidence to block out negative noise versus the alertness to listen to the market and pivot with shifting market forces. They also recognized that launching companies is a marathon, not a sprint, and shared thoughts on avoiding overly stressing over the quality of early clients, setting smart KPIs, finding internal champions, and making key hires.
The Competitors
Judges will hear business pitches from six US military Veterans or eligible family members. Each competitor has just five minutes to make their pitch, followed by a five-minute Q&A with the judges.
Clark Yuan, Army
Founder & CEO, Candelytics
Candelytics is a dual-use SaaS company building the digital platform to visualize, analyze, and share 3D data on web and app-based platforms. The company is currently working with the US Air Force to automate object detection on airfields and assist with preventative maintenance and damage assessment in a virtual environment. Candelytics has plans to extend its product to help industries including insurance, construction, aerospace, and additive manufacturing better analyze, manage, and share large 3D files seamlessly over the cloud.
Gabriela Bell, Air Force Spouse
Founder & CEO, Organized Q
Organized Q provides Virtual Executive Assistants (vEA’s) to small business owners, executives, and social impact organizations. Organized Q aids clients with effective communication management, business correspondence, scheduling, task management, and overall business support. Organized Q seamlessly integrates into client teams to help save them time and money, maximize efficiency, and focus on growing business. Organized Q’s social impact mission is in providing flexible remote work to military spouses, veterans, and under-employed professionals.
Matt Louis, Army
President, PurePost
Purepost is a veteran-owned B Corporation. We exist to level the playing field for ALL job seekers and talent sourcers by providing services that not only match talents but help untap an individual’s full competencies and skills. We created the first cloud-based software that fully translates a wide range of previous work experience – military or civilian – into transferable hard, soft, and technical skills and easy-to understand job kits.
Steven Krnavek, Army
CEO, NCAMEO
NCAMEO’s No-Code Application Development Platform accelerates the digital transformation of Business Operations by enabling a connected digital experience across platforms, accelerating full and partial Legacy modernizations on the Azure stack, and digitizing/automating manual and redundant processes. NCAMEO builds customized, quality, enterprise-grade web and mobile applications in a fraction of the time and cost of other IT methods using less technical resources.
Matt Fruge, Navy
CEO, SquareDash
SquareDash empowers insurance-focused roofing companies to grow, automate and scale their businesses by combining marketing, sales, and production on one unified platform. The mission is to simplify the complexities of managing repairs after a loss for the policyholder, the carrier, and the contractor.
Clayton Garcia, Navy
President, Community Code Compliance
Community Code Compliance is a comprehensive website-based program that allows for information and demographic collection on contractors. Through the ability to share and collect data on contractors, we will help build safer communities.
The Judges
Our judges have the unenviable task of listening to eight pitches and selecting a winner to take home $10,000 and a spot in the finals, as well as a runner-up, who takes home $5,000.
Brad Harrison,
Founder & Managing Partner, Scout Ventures
Brad is an entrepreneur and seasoned business development executive with a passion for building companies pushing the envelope of technological innovation. He has successfully helped incubate several companies out of the Scout office to include Scout’s most successful investment to date, Unite US, as well as PortfolioWatch (exited) and Assurely. Brad also has deep experience developing concepts including co-authoring 3 patents in search, geo-tagging, and personalization with Edmund Fish.
Brad was a distinguished honor graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and served as an Airborne Ranger in the United States Army for five years before retiring as Captain. He also graduated MIT, Sloan School of Management where he studied New Product and Venture Development. He resides in Austin, Texas with his wife, Angie, his son, Elvis, and his daughter, Scout.
Carson Goodale,
Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder, FanFood
Carson Goodale is an entrepreneur and the founder of FanFood. FanFood is a contactless ordering and delivery platform for live events serving sports stadiums, entertainment venues, and hospitality locations — including restaurants, hotels, and drive-in theaters. Today, the company has more than 400 signed deals, and Carson currently serves as an Advisor & Board Member.
Carson graduated from the University of Iowa, Tippie College of Business, with a B.B.A in Finance and received his commission through the ROTC program. Carson served in the Iowa Army National Guard and United States Army Reserves.
Luke Harris,
Vice President of Innovation, USAA
Luke currently serves as VP of Innovation in USAA’s Property & Casualty Auto organization. His team is currently engaged in the integration of the recently acquired usage-based insurance company, Noblr.
Luke joined USAA in 2017 as a founding member of USAA’s Claims Innovation Team. During his time at USAA, Luke has served in Innovation, Claims Experience, and Claims Operations roles, and has remained focused on continuously leveraging the latest industry and member insights to deliver world-class member and employee experiences while driving market differentiation for USAA.
Luke started his insurance career as a Claim Representative Trainee with Progressive in 2004. He held a variety of leadership positions during his 10+ years at Progressive prior to joining innovative startup pay-per-mile insurer, Metromile in 2014. At Metromile, Luke led the strategy, development, implementation, and oversight of Metromile’ s end to end claims value chain from program inception to production with a keen focus on maximizing process efficiency and developing industry-leading technology.
Luke received a BS in Marketing from Baker University. His most notable accomplishment to date was meeting his wife, Brittany (who also played basketball at Baker). Brittany and Luke are blessed with 4 beautiful children: Maverick (2008), twins Hawk and Noelle (2010), and Boomer (2017). The Harris Family loves sports, the great outdoors, and living life to its fullest.
Want to Pitch Your Business?
Remember, applications are open for the Charlotte Regional Pitch Competition until August 1st. Apply today to take your shot at the road to San Antonio and $100,000 in funding!