A self-described “motley crew of passionate developers, marketers, mattress testers, and professional eaters” took home the top prize at the fourth annual InnoTech San Antonio Beta Summit Thursday.
CallGrader, a 9-month old startup, won the three judges over to claim first place in the competition. The founders include Daniel Garcia, Ben Niemietz, Chip Mobley and Jonathan Dobbertin.
CallGrader has created a software application that allows companies to track the performance of advertising campaigns using its grading system. The software tracks phone calls to a designated number and then grades the quality of those calls to tell whether the advertising is on target and delivering the desired results.
CallGrader launched its beta version of its product in January and quickly signed up about 300 non-paying customers. It has focused on plumbers and heating and air-conditioning markets so far.
The team is currently finishing out building the platform. So far, they’ve bootstrapped their operations, but they plan to seek about $350,000 in venture financing within a few months, said Garcia.
ZippyKid, a WordPress hosting company, and SnappTours, a smartphone platform targeted at art museums, came in second and third respectively.
All of the top three companies reside at Geekdom at the Weston Centre in downtown San Antonio.
In all, six companies competed at the San Antonio Convention Center. They delivered eight-minute pitches. But the summit dragged on longer because of technical difficulties in loading up the computer presentations.
The other companies included BudgetDoc, a healthcare referral service, Making Sense, a mobile app developer and REDU Concepts, which makes a Kinect rehabilitation game aimed at those with traumatic brain injury and autism. REDU Concepts, formed by a group of University of Texas at San Antonio students, just advanced to round three of the Microsoft XBox/Windows competition.
“Today is all about showcasing innovation,” said Richard Perez, president of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. The winner received a one-year membership in the chamber.
SnappTours took home third place in the InnoTech San Antonio Beta Summit. The 18-month old startup has created a mobile app platform aimed at museums to share their art collections with visitors via a smartphone.