This post was provided by the Research Park Corporation in Baton Rouge.
Pass It Down was selected as the winner of the Baton Rouge Entrepreneur Week (BREW) 2019 High-Stakes National Pitch Competition and will receive a $100,000 investment. The pitch competition took place Friday, November 15, 2019 at The Lyceum, marking the conclusion of BREW 2019.
The competition was decided by three members of the Baton Rouge entrepreneur community — Michael Kirby, active private investor and former co-founder of Stonehenge Capital, Steve Nathanson active private investor and prior CEO of Genesis Energy, and Will Eglin, CFO of GMFS Mortgage. The judges chose Pass it Down after hearing pitches from the company and three other finalists – Block Lawncare, Gilded and Moxey.
Pass It Down, currently based in Austin, Texas, enables cultural institutions and brands to build interactive touchscreen experiences and online exhibits to drive visitor engagement with its award-winning platform. The Pass It Down platform is powering businesses and institutions such as Porsche, the New Haven Free Public Library, the State of Texas’s Holocaust and Genocide Commission, and several other cultural institutions.
“Pass It Down is thrilled to win the BREW High-Stakes Pitch competition, and the $100,000 investment will allow us to grow our team and award-winning platform,” said Chris Cummings, CEO of Pass It Down. “Expanding into Louisiana, which is home to one of the richest cultural heritage industries in the U.S., is a perfect next step to grow Pass It Down’s business, both domestically and internationally.”
Chris Cummings is a Baton Rouge, Louisiana native and LSU alumnus.
The BREW High-Stakes Pitch Competition began with an initial pool of 44 applicants, which was then narrowed to 11 semi-finalist companies. Those 11 semi-finalists squared off at the Louisiana Technology Park on October 24th, when the four finalists were selected. All companies were vying for the $100,000 investment pledged by a pool of local accredited investors.
“From the very beginning of our planning, we knew this year’s pitch competition needed to be bigger and more impactful, so we could draw not only the talent and innovation of our local businesses, but to bring more attention to the ever-growing ecosystem of investors we have in our region,” said Wendy Overton, Director of Programs for NexusLA and lead architect of BREW. “We want to make it clear that innovation can not only be born here in Louisiana, but can be cultivated and grown here, too. This $100,000 investment prize is just a small sampling of what’s possible.”
Per the High-Stakes Pitch Competition rules, the company is required to relocate their headquarters to Louisiana. Pass It Down will maintain an office in Chattanooga, in addition to its currently existing satellite office in Austin, Texas.
For more detailed information on the High-stakes Pitch process, or for more information on BREW 2019, please visit www.celebratebrew.com.