Patriot Tank Pitch Competition Awards $15,000 to New Orleans Startup

The World Presidents’ Organization (WPO) Patriot Chapter of New England and The Idea Village teamed up to host the first ever Patriot Tank pitch competition in New Orleans.

The Shark Tank-inspired pitch competition was held in anticipation of New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (NOEW) last Friday, March 11. NOEW is the annual festival that celebrates entrepreneurship, innovation, and advanced thinking in the New Orleans area each spring.

Pupular founder Harry Boileau accepting his $15,000 check from Patriot Tank.

Pupular founder Harry Boileau accepting his $15,000 check from Patriot Tank.

Five startup founders, all part of The Idea Village’s CAPITALx program participated in the pitch.

The $15,000 cash prize was awarded to Pupular, a social networking app that helps dog owners connect and meet for playdates. The platform a fun, easy, and safe way to socialize dogs.

Founder Harry Boileau first got on the radar when he pitched at a TechCrunch event in New Orleans in 2014. Since then, he has been building Pupular to eventually expand to other cities across the country.

“The most important thing is building small communities where dogs meetup,” says Boileau.

Other participating startups included:

  • Justin Bayer of Welcome to College, a company helping higher education institutions optimize the college visit process and experience through visit management software and campus visit consulting services.
  • Staacy Cannon of Grok+Banter, an ad-tech company offering out of home advertising agencies, marketers and advertisers a patent-pending system that intuitively measures offline channels through connected devices and distributed data. Grok + Banter captures unbiased consumer data in real time from uncontrolled environments in the non-digital world.
  • Charles Carriere of Scandy, the first app of its kind — allowing users to create 3D and 360° content and order 3D prints from a mobile device. Users can capture spherical panoramas with the Scandy iPhone app or scan objects and people with the Scandy iPad app with an attached scanner.
  • Rupa Mohan of The Sweat Social, a fitness services-company designed for business and leisure wellness travelers. Founded by fitness and travel enthusiasts, The Sweat Social aims to take the chore out of exercising on the road and rather, make it something you want to add to your itinerary.

YPO members who served as judges included: Jeff Dufficy, Founder and President of Dufficy Enterprises, Inc.; Yuchun Lee, Executive-in-Residence at Summit Partners; and David Winston, President of Winston Brothers Inc.

This coverage is brought to you by Callais Capital Management and Susco.

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