Real estate ownership. Legal contracts. Industrial AI. E-commerce fulfillment software. Machine learning monitoring.
The finalists for Startup of the Year at this year’s Startup Awards come from a variety of industries, but all share a common trait: they are innovating, executing, and making a difference.
The five finalists are Arrived Homes; Lexion; Phaidra; Shipium; and WhyLabs.
To be eligible for consideration in this category, startups need to be no more than five years old in 2022.
Last year’s winner was Common Room, a Seattle-area startup that aims to help companies deepen relationships with their users and customers.
The Startup Awards recognize the top innovators and companies in Pacific Northwest technology. Finalists in this category and others were selected based on community nominations, along with input from Startup Awards judges. Community voting across all categories will continue until May 1, combined with feedback from judges to determine the winner in each category.
We’ll announce the winners on May 18 at the Startup Awards, presented by Astound Business Solutions. There are a limited number of table sponsorships available to attend the event. Contact our events team at events@geekwire.com for more information.
Submit your votes below and keep scrolling for descriptions of each finalist for Startup of the Year, presented by Meridian Capital.
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Arrived Homes
The pitch: The Seattle startup uses crowdfunding to help anyone purchase shares of rental properties for as little as $100 and earn a passive income while the company handles everything from property acquisition to necessary improvements and management of daily operations.
Founders: CEO Ryan Frazier and CTO Kenny Cason were previously at Simply Measured. COO Alejandro Chouza led Pacific Northwest efforts for Oyo and Uber.
Related coverage: Rental property investment startup Arrived Homes raises $25M to fund further expansion
Lexion
The pitch: The spinout of Seattle’s Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence helps lawyers make sense of contracts, using algorithms to automatically parse contracts and surface relevant info. It produces an organized searchable repository and various reports.
Founders: CEO Gaurav Oberoi previously founded two startups that were acquired. He started Lexion with Emad Elwany and James Baird. Elwany worked as an engineer at Microsoft on artificial intelligence and Baird came from web development firm Pancake Labs.
Related coverage: Legal tech startup Lexion is using GPT-3 to help lawyers write summaries and suggest edits
Phaidra
The pitch: Phaidra builds artificial intelligence tools for industrial customers ranging from vaccine manufacturers to paper mills. The startup aims to help reduce energy consumption of a plant, as well as emissions.
Founders: CEO Jim Gao founded the company with fellow DeepMind alum Vedavyas Panneershelvam, and Katherine Hoffman, a defense and HVAC industry veteran.
Related coverage: Phaidra, which sells AI tech to industrial customers, raises $25M from DeepMind co-founder, others
Shipium
The pitch: The Seattle logistics startup helps e-commerce companies make fulfillment decisions, such a deciding which shipping option is fastest or cheapest, or which box size is most optimal.
Founders: CEO Jason Murray spent nearly two decades at Amazon, where he ran supply chain teams. Co-founder Mac Brown was also an early Amazon employee and later joined Zulily, where he was vice president of supply chain and fulfillment software.
Related coverage: Solving the ‘Prime problem’: Shipium lands $27M to help online retailers compete with Amazon
WhyLabs
The pitch: The Seattle startup, also a spinout from the Seattle’s Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, sells an AI data monitoring platform that helps companies figure out why machine learning models fail and which data inputs need attention.
Founders: All three founders previously worked at Amazon. CEO Alessya Visnjic spent eight years at the company helping develop its machine learning infrastructure. Andy Dang is a former Amazon machine learning engineer, and Sam Gracie was most recently a principal UX designer with the machine learning group.
Related coverage: Amazon vets land $10M for WhyLabs, a Seattle startup that monitors machine learning models
Thanks to gold-level and category sponsors: Wilson Sonsini, JLL, Blink, BECU, Baird, Fuel Talent, RSM, Talent Reach, WTIA, Meridian Capital, Bank of America, and T-Mobile. And thanks to silver level sponsors: First Tech, Remitly, Fuel Talent, and SolluCIO Partners.
If interested in sponsoring a category or purchasing a table sponsorship for the event, contact us at events@geekwire.com.
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