SXSW Unveils 2025 Pitch Competition Finalists

The Seventeenth Annual Competition premieres 45 innovative startups across nine categories

AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conference and Festivals today announced the finalists for the 17th annual SXSW Pitch® event presented by KPMG, happening March 8 - 9 at the Hilton Austin Downtown during the Startups Track of the SXSW Conference. The 2025 event will present 45 inventive and transformative companies, hand-selected by the SXSW Pitch advisory board out of 589 applications, within nine distinct categories to a panel of industry experts, including high-profile media professionals, venture capital investors and angel investors.

"As someone who has had the honor of being involved with SXSW Pitch for the last 17 years, I have had the pleasure of helping empower and celebrate many innovative ideas and companies," said SXSW Pitch Event Producer Chris Valentine. "2025 is a particularly exciting year for startups, given recent technological advances and the AI revolution, and we are looking forward to showcasing and propelling the companies leading the next generation of innovation across the globe." 

The 45 participating companies will present their innovations at the 2025 Award Ceremony, which will be emceed by Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital, to a live audience of expert judges, including industry leaders such as Esther Dyson of Wellville, Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital, Dave Rose of Gust, Artur Gushiken of Softbank, Jessica Robinson of Assembly Ventures, Brian Dixon of Kapor Capital, Becky Center of Indiegogo, Monique Idlett-Mosley of Reign Ventures, Mohanjit Jolly of Iron Pillar Capital, and more.

Of the participating companies, one will be named winner per category, with the most up-and-coming startup receiving the Best In Show award.

SXSW Pitch is dedicated to creating a platform for today's leading startups and is excited to showcase the best and brightest companies across a variety of industries and sectors, bringing to life innovative ideas regarding technologies such as breath-enabled disease diagnostics, pollution remediation, and AI empowered security.

Each year, SXSW Pitch welcomes finalists from all around the world. This year will feature entrepreneurs representing Australia, Canada, India, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, and Singapore, among others.

The finalists of the 2025 SXSW Pitch in each category are:

AgTech & Food: Azul Biotechnologies, Inc. (Brooklyn, NY); Earnest Agriculture (Rantoul, IL); Entomal Biotech (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Farmish, Inc. (Grand Rapids, MI); Knead Technologies (Calgary, Canada)

Enterprise, Smart Data, FinTech & Future of Work: Fazeshift (San Francisco, CA); Launch Ahead (Tulsa, OK); Polygraf AI (Austin, TX); Safebooks Inc. (San Francisco, CA); Springboards (Sydney, Australia)

Entertainment, Media, Sports & Content: HAND (Human & Digital) (Brooklyn, NY); Human Native AI (London, England); NeuralGarage (Bangalore, India); Vobble (Bengaluru, India); ZIbra AI (Kyiv, Ukraine)

HealthTech, MedTech, BioTech & Accessibility: Glidance (Seattle, WA); Intero Biosystems Inc. (Ann Arbor, MI); NerView Surgical Inc. (Hamilton, Canada); Somnair Inc. (Baltimore, MD); Vocxi Health (Arden Hills, MN)

Innovative World Tech: ChakraTech (San Diego, CA); Expanso (Seattle, WA); Fast Sense Ltd (Tel Aviv, Israel); We Hear You (St. Louis, MO); Xatoms (Toronto, Canada)

Robotics, Web3, Voice & Extended Reality: Airtrek Robotics (Covington, KY); Contoro (Austin, TX); Fluid Reality (Chicago, IL); MUSE Inc. (Chuo-Ku, Japan); Wubble.ai (Singapore)

Security, GovTech & Space: Charter (Los Angeles, CA); Hyphen Innovations LLC (Dayton, OH); Lifeknight, Inc. (Traverse City, MI); Little Place Labs Inc. (Houston, TX); Verisoul (Austin, TX)

Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability: Carbon Negative Solutions (Portland, OR); Helix Earth (Houston, TX); Importal (Austin, TX); SLY (San Francisco, CA); Tern AI (Austin, TX)

Student Startups: MabLab (Boston, MA); MyEndoscope (Tokyo, Japan); The Dev Difference (Chicago, IL); The Flossy Organization (Brooklyn, NY); Vocadian (Boston, MA)

Since the program debuted in 2009, SXSW Pitch finalists have raised more than $23.2 billion in funding, highlighting the impact of these innovative companies. 17% of these SXSW Pitch finalists have been acquired by industry giants such as Google, British Telecom, Huffington Post, Apple, Live Nation, OpenTable, Meta, Michelin, Constant Contact, and Harmon. SXSW Pitch startups also include Klout, ICON, Hipmunk, Wildfire, Tubemogul, Siri, Foodspotting and Tango.

The 2025 Pitch event will feature 25 companies on Saturday, March 8, and 20 companies on Sunday, March 9, at the Hilton Austin Downtown. A winner from each category will be announced during the SXSW Pitch Award Ceremony on Sunday, March 9, at 6:30 pm CT at Salon H.

For a complete list of the 2024 Finalists, including alternates, visit:  https://www.sxsw.com/pitch/

To learn more about the Startups Track, visit: https://www.sxsw.com/conference/startups/

About SXSW
SXSW dedicates itself to helping creative people achieve their goals. Founded in 1987 in Austin, Texas, SXSW is best known for its conference and festivals that celebrate the convergence of tech, film and television, music, education, and culture. An essential destination for global professionals, the annual March event features sessions, music, and comedy showcases, film and television screenings, exhibitions, professional development, and a variety of opportunities to meet and connect with people. SXSW proves that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and individuals come together. SXSW 2025 will take place March 7–15 in Austin. Learn more at sxsw.com. To register for the event, please visit sxsw.com/attend.

SXSW's expansion into the Asia Pacific region, with SXSW Sydney starting in 2023 and Europe with SXSW London in 2025, provides new possibilities at this iconic experience. These events, each with their own distinct flavor, make South By an indispensable three-stop tour for the global creative community.

SXSW 2025 Driven by Rivian.

Press Contacts:
Benjamin Perez
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Nicole Lombardo
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SOURCE SXSW