Startup FAQs for the 9th Annual Summit

The Startup of the Year team created this conference to give all startups everywhere access to the resources they need to succeed. The entire focus of the conference is on you—the startup—and creating a valuable experience for you. We're not here to make money on you or use you as "product" for other organizations' interests.

We focus on your success by creating programmatic and serendipitous opportunities over the 2.5 days. Programmatic aspects include the pitch competition and the curated match-making. Serendipitous opportunities include parties, dinners, and activities.

We'll set the table and open the door for you—it's up to you to make the most of the people we've brought together for you.

The conference itself is free to startups. We do charge a $100 fully refundable deposit. This is simply to hold your spot until you show up in person, and to prevent no-shows. We refund it on the first day. We provide meals most days (TBD on final schedule for that).

The expenses you have to cover are your flights, hotels and transportation. We do have a block of rooms that are being held at nearby hotels.

The conference will be approximately 2.5 days, starting in the evening of Tuesday January 25th and wrapping up on Thursday January 27th in the late afternoon. The final schedule is TBD but roughly will be:

• Tuesday Jan 25 - evening reception 
• Wednesday Jan 26 - 8am start, programming, pitches, evening dinner
• Thursday Jan 27 - curated matchmaking, finals, awards

The competition is three rounds. Because you’ve already been invited to the 9th Annual Summit, you’ve cleared the first round and if you attend will always be a Startup of the Year Top 100 company.

At the Summit the semi-finals consist of startups being divided into 6-7 groups, with a panel of judges assigned to each group. Pitches are in-person in front of the judges. There is a five minute pitch with five minutes for Q&A from the judges (those times may change +/- a few minutes but will be the same for everyone across all rooms). The scores across all the rooms are gathered, normalized, and then ranked. From this we select a Top 15 and a Top 5.

The Top 5 startups are then invited to pitch in front of the entire conference on the closing day in front of a panel of our top judges. The winner is announced shortly after that.

We hand-pick our mentors and judges to find the best people to give you the resources you need to succeed.

Some of our mentors & judges this year include:

• Mac Conwell, RareBreed Ventures
• Jeff Vinik, philanthropist & Tampa Bay Lightning owner
• Jesse Middleton, Flybridge Capital and Founders Fund
• Rohit Agarwal, Chief Product Officer at CNN

Please see our COVID-19 Policy and Protocol page.

Yes! We welcome teams to attend, up to 3 total per company. Team members are welcome to attend all speaker sessions, meals and keynotes. During Curated Matchmaking, a maximum of 2 team members can attend the 1:1 meetings together; you will be matched as a company, not as an individual. Only one team member will be allowed to pitch during the Pitch Competition.