Thumbtack Awarded the Gold Medal at the Juice Pitcher Competition

Local Services Marketplace Wins Top Prize in a Field of 132 Competitors

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Thumbtack (www.Thumbtack.com), the trusted online marketplace for local services, was awarded the Gold Medal at last night's inaugural Juice Pitcher event by an open ballot of the almost 300 investors, founders, and members of the media in attendance. Hosted by TheFunded.com (www.TheFunded.com), the resource for entrepreneurs, and Vator.tv (www.Vator.tv), the place for emerging companies to showcase and market themselves, the Juice Pitcher showcased 10 promising early-stage companies who were selected by their peers on the three-week Juice Pitcher Competition (http://vator.tv/competition/show/vatortv-and-thefundedcoms-juice-pitcher). In total, the competition attracted 132 companies and over 3,000 votes.

"Thumbtack is very proud to win the Juice Pitcher competition and formally announce the release of our alpha," says Marco Zappacosta, Founder and CEO of Thumbtack.

Thumbtack facilitates an online marketplace for local services by offering consumers one place to easily find, compare, and purchase local services, while also giving service providers verifiable reputation, transaction support, appointment management, and marketing tools.

"I'm happy to say that the democratic nature of this competition netted us a worthy winner in Thumbtack," says Adeo Ressi, Founding Member of TheFunded.com and TheFunded Founder Institute. "We look forward to hosting new Juice Pitcher competitions in the future to give even more startups a fair chance at publicity."

"The response to this competition was overwhelming," says Bambi Francisco, Founder and CEO of Vator, Inc. "Our fresh and open approach to the startup competition format appears to have hit a sweet spot."

The Silver Medal was awarded to Spreezio(TM) (www.Spreezio.com), a mobile/web-based shopping company that specializes in driving consumers to local merchants, service providers, and retail sales reps. The Bronze Medal went to HearPlanet (www.HearPlanet.com), an application that has been downloaded by more than 500,000 people that turns your cell phone into an audio guide to the world.

Other companies who presented included RentCycle (www.RentCycle.com), the central marketplace for renting anything online; QLess (TM) (www.waitinginlinesucks.com), a virtual line management system; IDNTITI (www.idntiti.com), a social rating site and Facebook application; RelayRides (www.RelayRides.com), the world's first peer-to-peer carsharing community; tribevibe (www.tribevibe.com/), a social media impact measurement tool; Viralogy (www.Viralogy.com), a social media ranking service; and Cloudmach (www.Cloudmach.com), an in-browser 3D virtual world.

All of the presenting companies will receive a professionally-produced video of their presentations, as well as free services from select Juice Pitcher sponsors. Sponsors include Microsoft BizSpark (www.Microsoft.com/BizSpark), OSF Global Services (www.OSF-Global.com), Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (www.WSGR.com), Silicon Valley Bank (www.SVB.com/svbcapital), Cornish & Carey Commercial (www.ccarey.com), PRNewswire (www.PRNewswire.com), and oDesk (www.oDesk.com). Media Partners include ReadWriteWeb (www.ReadWriteWeb.com), Mashable (www.Mashable.com), and GigaOM (www.GigaOM.com).

Future Juice Pitcher competitions are currently in planning.

About TheFunded.com

TheFunded.com (www.TheFunded.com) is a private membership community of over 12,500 CEOs, who use the site to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide and to discuss operating challenges of growing a business. The site lists over 5,000 funding sources and 17,500 investment professionals worldwide. Monthly readership includes nearly everyone involved in the funding of start-up companies.

About Vator.tv

Vator (www.Vator.tv) is a leading platform for innovators to broadcast and communicate with the market. Vator.tv has nearly 20,000 members and high-tech companies, using the service to effectively communicate with their partners, investors, media and customers. VatorNews is a video business network on entrepreneurship and innovation with over 150-plus contributors.

SOURCE TheFunded.com