WTIA Announces Winner of Seattle Regional Startup World Cup 2022 Competition

Advocat Headed to San Francisco to Compete for a $1 Million Investment Prize

SEATTLE, Aug. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA), a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering a robust, equity-centered technology sector that empowers thriving communities, today announced that Advocat won the Seattle regional Startup World Cup by Pegasus Tech Ventures. The head-to-head competition was held on August 4, 2022 at CoMotion UW Startup Hall. Advocat will move on to the Grand Finale in San Francisco on September 28-30, 2022 to compete for a $1 million investment prize from Pegasus Tech Ventures. 

Advocat is led by CEO Pradnya Desh and was founded to make contracting accessible to all. The company's AI-driven legal contract generator saves time and money by accelerating contracting processes and empowering companies to do more with AI guardrails set by in-house legal. Incorporating the latest machine learning and knowledge graph technology, Advocat's platform creates legal documents to provide seamless integration between corporate and outside legal departments and their business counterparts to improve efficiency, productivity, and to free up attorneys' time for more strategic work.

"Winning this round of the Startup World Cup competition is testament to the vision and work of the entire Advocat team," said Pradnya Desh, Advocat CEO. "We are steadfast in our commitment to helping companies accelerate and streamline legal contracting processes using the power of AI. We are proud to head to San Francisco not only to represent Advocat, but the entire Pacific Northwest tech community."

Startup World Cup is a global series of conferences and competitions that bring together top startups, investors, entrepreneurs and tech CEOs around the world. Each startup had four minutes to pitch their idea followed by a two-minute question-answer period from the judging panel which included Dave Parker, Senior Partner at Fearless.fund; Tina Hoang-To, co-founder of Kin Ventures; and Yuval Neeman, Managing Director at Trilogy Equity Partners.

The startups included:

• Advocat.ai - an AI-driven legal contract generator that saves businesses, their attorneys and customers time and money
• Parrots Inc. - a hardware-agnostic platform using AI and ML to give a real-time voice and telecare for people with neurological disorders
• Curie Vision, Inc. - a machine learning and AI tool that converts 2D photos into interoperable 3D objects
• rThreat Inc. - a Zero Trust Emulation platform that proactively allows organizations to validate their cyber security tools and teams against real-world cybersecurity threats
• Blueblox Labs, Inc. - a full-stack company that manufactures and develops Co-pilot ($400 20 TOPS AI computer that retrofits cars already on the road) and its applications
• Asha AI Inc (Asha Care) - a fully voice enabled remote care platform that empowers the elderly to age in place, while keeping loved ones informed
• H ROBOTICS INC. - a medical device company that focuses on making the world a healthier place through robotics and software technologies
• Loopie - a startup that provides tech-enabled laundry services

"The 2022 Seattle Regional Startup World Cup showcased the depth and breadth of talent in the Pacific Northwest. While only one company can advance to the Finale, all eight startups showcased their impressive companies to leading investors from across the region," said Michael Schutzler, CEO of WTIA. "Advocat secured its top ranking based on the company's vision, market opportunity and ability to execute. The Advocat team has the full support of our tech community as they compete for the investment prize next month."

The Startup World Cup was founded in 2016. It is now one of the largest startup competitions worldwide with more than 50,000 global attendees, 2,500 investors, and 70 regional competitions that take place in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Australia. 

About WTIA
Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) is a consortium that includes a not-for-profit member trade association, a not-for-profit tech apprenticeship intermediary (Apprenti), and a for profit corporation providing business services (HRBI). The organization's mission is to foster a robust, equity-centered technology sector that empowers thriving communities. We recruit technology companies and allies that view diversity as a competitive advantage, value collaboration as essential to sustainable growth, and fully embrace the opportunity to partner with and empower the communities in which we operate.

SOURCE Washington Technology Industry Association