Canatu Takes Winning Spot at Innovate!100 Stockholm Pitch Slam Event

SAN FRANCISCO and STOCKHOLM, June 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Guidewire Group, the world's leading analyst firm focused exclusively on startups and emerging markets, held a regional 'Pitch Slam' event in Stockholm, Sweden on June 1, 2010 as part of the Innovate!2010 competition and top honors at the event went to Canatu. Based in Finland, Canatu is a leading developer of a new class of versatile carbon nanomaterial-based components. The runner-up at the event was TaxiPal, and two other companies tied as the second runners-up: BehavioSec and  No Excuse Accounting.

The Innovate!2010 Pitch Slam in Stockholm is one of over 20 Pitch Slam events that Guidewire Group is hosting this year across Europe and the United States. At each Pitch Slam, startups are evaluated by a panel of expert judges using the G/Score, Guidewire Group's proprietary assessment methodology for evaluating startup success and business viability. The judges at the Stockholm Pitch Slam were: Lea Bajc, Investment Manager, Northzone; Kaushal Chokshi, Chairman and Founder, Quickstart Global; and Richard Lind, Director, Technology and Platforms at Microsoft AB.

The G/Scores will be aggregated from all of the Pitch Slams, normalized across markets, stages and segments, and then ranked to determine the Innovate!100. Innovate!2010 partners with market leaders like Best Buy, HP, Microsoft, Motorola, O2, RIM, Oracle and SWIFT and serves as a platform for these corporations to quickly identify and  partner with high-potential startups.  

More information, including videos from the Stockholm Pitch Slam, can be found at www.innovate100.com.  Congratulations to all of the startups that were invited to present in Stockholm:

Apica: Offers Web performance monitoring and optimization services.

BehavioSec: Analyzes keyboard and mouse behavior in order to identify unauthorized computer users and prevent information theft.

Canatu: Produces carbon-based components tailored to increase performance of optical, energy generation and storage and electrical devices, and reduce environmental footprints.

ClaroVision: Software platform that creates a hybrid television/Internet experience by making Internet services and media accessible through a television screen.

Intellus: Offers tools and services to help companies modernize their AS400 RPG to a new UI based on Silverlight, and to migrate RPG code to C#.

Jobita: Online employment marketplace for selling skills and buying services for home or the office.

No Excuse Accounting: Mobile application that enables independent contractors to send a well-documented invoice to their clients instantly from their iPhone.

Nuiteq: Offers multi-touch hardware, software and services for a variety of devices and platforms.

Synble: Language localization tools for lean software development.

TaxiPal: Mobile app that provides information on nearby taxi companies and allows the user to place orders without having to make a phone call.

Vidispine: Content management platform for developing innovative rich media software. 

About Innovate!2010

Innovate!2010 is a global competition to identify and promote the top 100 global technology start-ups. The program enables the most promising startups to gain access to resources and opportunities to accelerate the growth of their companies. Innovate!2010 also enables its partners, including technology and telecommunications vendors, government agencies, professional services providers, technology scouts and investors, to identify and engage hundreds of highly vetted, fast-growing startups and raise their brand profile in the global startup community. Innovate!2010 sponsors and partners include leading organizations like Alacatel-Lucent, Best Buy, Cisco Systems, Comcast, DifferenceEngine, eBay, EMC, HP, HSBC, Hearst, IBM, LaPoste, LG Electronics, Microsoft, O2 Litmus, Oracle, PayPal, PWC, Quickstart Global, RIM, SAP, Silicon Valley Bank, Sony, SWIFT, Turner Broadcasting, Verizon, and the City of Zaragoza; as well as European and US economic development agencies, and dozens of leading angel and venture capital investors.

About Guidewire Group, Inc.  

Guidewire Group is a global market intelligence and advisory firm passionate about technology entrepreneurship. Our exclusive focus on early-stage companies and emerging technology markets drives insight and opportunity to our clients and community. At the heart of our offerings is the G/Score™, a proprietary assessment tool that brings clarity and focus to the art of transforming ideas into successful enterprises. Developed over the course of more than 20,000 startup interviews, the G/Score has proven to be a reliable predictor of startup viability and promise. Our G/Score data helps technology investors, customers and platform vendors rapidly qualify and respond to startup deal flow from even thousands of startups. Our G/Score assessment tools help startups, investors, service providers and government agencies to identify and benchmark competitive strengths and weaknesses, and our Studio G business acceleration programs helps startups achieve their growth objectives with clarity of purpose, speed and efficiency.

For more information, contact Vanessa McDonald, [email protected], +44 (0)754 032 5319.

SOURCE Guidewire Group, Inc.