After giving a nod to tech’s bygone era of gadgets and gimmicks, we celebrated the new entrepreneurs shaping the future of innovation in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest on Thursday night at the GeekWire Awards.
The annual event, now in its 15th year, brought a sold-out crowd to Showbox SoDo in Seattle, where more than 60 finalists across a dozen categories competed for awards ranging from Startup of the Year to Next Tech Titan to Workplace of the Year, and more.
Much like it has been for the past year, artificial intelligence was a recurring buzzword running through the evening, as evidenced by the number of finalists and winners seizing on the technology.
“It’s an exciting moment and a transformational time in all our lifetimes because of the way generative AI has taken the industry by storm,” said Deal of the Year winner Madhan Subhas, co-founder of Seattle-area startup Rhythms.
But long before AI, the innovation of yesteryear was just as celebrated and equally instrumental in getting us where we are today.
The “Land Before Tech” theme of the night had a prehistoric feel with dinosaurs and table centerpieces made of outdated VHS tapes, Polaroid cameras and more. It was all punctuated by a performance by Robert “The Drunken Tenor” McPherson.
With lyrics set to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” performing in front of a rapid-fire video montage, McPherson touched on seemingly every gadget or gizmo that ever seemed cutting edge to the majority of the people in the room.
We threw it in a fire. Tech that once was so hot but now is so not.
We threw it in a fire. Tech that once had its day but now it’s passé
We received hundreds of nominations this year, which were analyzed by a panel of judges to determine the finalists in each category. The ultimate winners were chosen by the Pacific Northwest tech community, from more than 20,000 community votes.
Keep reading for a recap of all the winners and honorees, and highlights of acceptance speeches (edited for brevity):
Startup of the Year, presented by Silicon Valley Bank
Winner: Pictory
The gist: The Seattle startup uses AI to help content creators and marketers turn long-form content into short-form videos.
The speech: “To get an award is simply unbelievable. It’s a testimonial of the great mission the team is pursuing to democratize video creation, make video storytelling as easy as writing an email or editing a document. Thanks to all our great team members, our partners our investors. … This is amazing.” — Abid Mohammed, co-founder of Pictory.
Other finalists: Kevala, Overland AI, Shipium, and SingleFile. See this post for more background on this category.
Public Policy Champion for Innovation Award, presented by WTIA
Winner: Washington State Sen. Joe Nguyen
The gist: Since taking office in 2019 as a Democratic senator from West Seattle, tech veteran Joe Nguyen has landed important leadership roles as the chair of the Environment, Energy and Technology Committee and vice chair of the Ways and Means Committee. He has sponsored significant legislation addressing climate change and clean energy, facial recognition technology and computer science education.
The speech: “This is a huge honor to receive this award. I will say, this is the first award that my kids have wanted to keep for themselves as a toy, so that’s a huge bonus. I honestly think that I’m just a regular person trying to help out in our communities. Probably the reason why I have this award is because I’m one of the few legislators who knows how to use their computer. But this is very serious business for us in Washington, the technology sector truly drives the economies that we have, the innovation that we see, and to receive this award for the work that we’re doing to help broaden access to technology in our communities, is truly humbling.” — Sen. Joe Nguyen.
See this post for more background on this category.
Sustainable Innovation of the Year, presented by Alaska Airlines
Winner: Electric Era
The gist: The Seattle company makes the PowerNode EV fast-charging station, which pairs charging devices with onsite batteries. That combination allows the businesses providing charging to draw power from the batteries in order to avoid higher electricity prices during times of peak energy use.
The speech: “As anybody in this room knows that’s associated with a startup, it’s really about the people. It’s ultimately their hard work that has enabled our successes. It’s everybody at Electric Era, our investors our customers our partners — thank you for getting us here. I also want to take a brief moment to reflect on the rare opportunity Seattle has to become a leading global city over the next century. You may not realize it, but Seattle is simultaneously the global leader in cloud computing, aviation, Starlink satellite internet, fusion energy, and AI services. As a city we have an amazing opportunity to propel our city to global prominence with our technological advantages. I want to thank all the hard-working founders in the audience that are making these startups in Seattle possible. — Quincy Lee, founder and CEO at Electric Era.
Other finalists: Aquagga, Banyu Carbon, and Carbon Robotics, Tidal Vision. See this post for more background on this category.
Deal of the Year, presented by Wilson Sonsini
Winner: Rhythms
The gist: Rhythms raised a $26 million seed round in December for its platform that connects to various systems inside a company and uses new breakthroughs in AI, such as large language models, to analyze a company’s “rhythms,” or habits and patterns — monthly business reviews, quarterly retrospectives, weekly cross-functional meetings, etc.
The speech: — “It’s a great moment, and the realization of a lot of hard work and the idea we had, about how we can transform enterprises and how they operate, using AI by orchestrating and automating the results. It’s an exciting moment and a transformational time in all our lifetimes because of the way GenAI has taken the industry by storm. It’s a great honor to be part of the startup ecosystem here in Seattle.” — Rhythms co-founder Madhan Subhas.
Other finalists: Icosavax, Oleria, Recurrent, and Treasury4. See this post for more background on this category.
Innovation of the Year, presented by Astound Business Solutions
Winner: Allen Institute for AI
The gist: The Seattle-based institute released OLMo, the open-source large language model in, February along with the underlying data and code, meant to significantly improve understanding of how generative AI actually works.
The speech: “Thank you for recognizing our project. OLMo is a big effort at AI2 and it’s a project that aims to make AI more open, more accessible, easier to use. It’s a project that wouldn’t have been possible without everybody at AI2 and also our partners and collaborators outside AI2, and the wider research community and the open source community. We built our work on top of their effort. I remember when we first started this project, and we were wondering if there is a place for open AI models in an ecosystem where proprietary models are dominating the environment. A year later, it’s clear that open source models are playing an active role in advancing the research and engineering of AI.” — Iz Beltagy, lead research scientist at Allen Institute for AI.
Other finalists: Hiya, Protect AI, Read AI, TEAL, and WhyLabs. See this post for more background on this category.
Health Innovation of the Year
Winner: CalmWave
The gist: The spinout of the Al2 Incubator in Seattle aims to make the hospital a quieter place by using software to help reduce alarms from devices attached to patients in the ICU.
The speech: “Last year, we got best UX Design of the Year award. And this year, we got Health Innovation of the Year. I think we’re onto something. I want to accept this award today for all the nurses, doctors, patients and their families who suffer from the scourge of alarm fatigue every day. And it’s especially poignant that this is National Nurses Week. So thank all of the nurses in your lives for the incredibly hard work that they do for all of us. And I thank you for providing this powerful recognition of the importance of our work and our mission.” — CalmWave CEO Ophir Ronen.
Other finalists: A-Alpha Bio, AdaptX, adyn, and Proprio. See this post for more background on this category.
UX Design of the Year, presented by Blink UX
Winner: Copper
The gist: A simple user experience makes it easy for teenagers to learn the basics of investing and money management.
The speech: “I’m beyond proud to be here representing Copper, especially our three-woman design team. As we all know, the startup journey can sometimes feel like you’re building a plane as you fly it. The only way to navigate the wild ride is with a mission you believe in and a team that dreams bigger than the sum of its parts. At Copper, we’re committed to empathizing with the needs of our teens so we can help build the next financially successful generation.” — Alyssa Vernon, product designer at Copper.
Other finalists: Digs, Row Zero, WellSaid Labs, and Solo. See this post for more background on this category.
Geeks Give Back (honorees), presented by BECU
Winners: Coding for Cancer, Housing Connector, TrueMedia.org
The gist: Coding for Cancer is a program at Seattle’s Fred Hutch that introduces high school students to the key ways in which computing skills intersect with the biomedical field. Seattle nonprofit Housing Connector pairs landlords with renters who have imperfect rental backgrounds, helping more than 6,200 people find housing in the past five years. TrueMedia.org is a nonpartisan group developing an AI-powered tool to detect deepfake videos, photos and audio, aiming to combat political disinformation in the leadup to the 2024 elections.
The speeches:
“Thank you to the Geekwire community for this wonderful honor and for welcoming our small high school internship program, where a small group at a large cancer institute is hoping to increase different opportunities for young high school students to get access to opportunities in computational biology.” — Hanako Osuga, program manager at Coding for Cancer.
“Thank you to everyone on our team at Housing Connector for the work that you do every single day to make a difference in people’s lives. I know tonight’s theme is ‘Land Before Tech.’ And the truth is, for so many people experiencing homelessness, it is truly land before tech. We ask individuals who are experiencing homelessness to dig themselves out of poverty, and we provide them a broken shovel to do so. And for us at Housing Connector, we’re trying to modernize the tools and the resources that people have to have a path towards housing, and a path out of poverty.” — Shkelqim Kelmendi, CEO of Housing Connector.
“I’m looking at this amazing collection of talent, and hard work and success, what I really want to do for TrueMedia.org is ask for your help. We don’t have a marketing budget, we’re a nonprofit, we need to get the word out, both about the risks of deep fakes and about our free tool. So please sign up at our website. Tell your friends about it. Tell your friends that work at social networks about it. Help get the word out so that this incredibly critical election is not swayed by deep fakes.” — Oren Etzioni, founder of TrueMedia.org.
See this post for more background on this category.
Next Tech Titan, presented by Baird
Winner: Zuper
The gist: Seattle-based startup that provides field operations software to help companies manage workers across various industries, including cleaning, maintenance, and landscaping. Zuper’s technology lets companies schedule appointments, dispatch workers, track their jobs, and handle customer interactions smoothly. The company in December announced a $32 million Series B round led by FUSE.
The speech: “This is a huge moment, an incredible moment for Zuper as a company and for our Seattle and India-based startup. I wanted to take this moment to thank our customers, partners, our investors and to the Zuper humans — our employees — who are putting in all the hard work. The Next Tech Titan award is a testament to the best-in-class platform that we are building to transform service organizations around the globe to improve their operational efficiency and delight their customers.” — Zuper CEO Anand Subbaraj.
Other finalists: MotherDuck, Rec Room, Statsig, and Submittable. See this post for more background on this category.
Workplace of the Year, presented by JLL
Winner: Likewise
The gist: Likewise is a Seattle-area content-recommendation startup that helps users find TV shows, movies, books and more.
The speech: “This is a very nice surprise. Thanks to John, Todd, and everyone at Geekwire, doing a great job covering the Seattle community for years and years. [Likewise] is a great workplace, so this is a great one to win. It’s an easy place to really enjoy. Likewise is all about things we all do every day by connecting people with personalized recommendations for TV shows, movies, books and podcasts. So, a little plug, download the Likewise app and enjoy.” — Likewise CEO Ian Morris.
Other finalists: Arrived, Humanly, Lexion, and Syndio. See this post for more background on this category.
Startup CEO of the Year, presented by T-Mobile
Winner: Rathna Sharad
The gist: The UPS and Microsoft veteran co-founded FlavorCloud in 2017 to help e-commerce companies ship products around the globe. The startup has been described as the “Stripe for international shipping” and raised $6.3 million in 2021.
The speech: “It has been an incredible journey, a challenging journey, as well a rewarding experience as a founder and CEO. I get to do this with an incredible team, super smart team. We’re solving an amazing, complex problem of cross-border e-commerce. There’s no place I’d rather be. Thank you for the recognition.” — FlavorCloud CEO Rathna Sharad.
Other finalists: SEngine Precision Medicine CEO Carla Grandori, Joon CEO Emily Pesce, Strella CEO Katherine Sizov, and AltPep CEO Valerie Daggett. See this post for more background on this category.
CEO of the Year, presented by Baker Tilly
Winner: Ozan Unlu
The gist: The Edge Delta CEO leads a Seattle startup whose software platform helps engineering and security teams analyze data. Founded in 2018, the company raised $63 million in 2022. Unlu previously spent more than five years at Microsoft and another 4 1/2 years at Sumo Logic.
The speech: “Ever since I was a kid, I told my parents I wanted a Geeky. So I’m very, very proud. Almost five years ago, you guys covered our seed round of funding, and I’m very appreciative of that. You put us on the map. I know all of us here are working really hard day in and day out. So thank you so much. It’s a huge honor for me.” — Edge Delta CEO Ozan Unlu.
Other finalists: Lexion CEO Gaurav Oberoi, Common Room CEO Linda Lian, Mason CEO Nancy Xiao, and Statsig CEO Vijaye Raji. See this post for more background on this category. Thank you!
Thank you!
Special thanks to Astound Business Solutions, the presenting sponsor of the 2024 GeekWire Awards.
Also, thanks to gold-level and category sponsors: Wilson Sonsini, JLL, Blink UX, BECU, Baird, First Tech, Baker Tilly, WTIA, Silicon Valley Bank, and T-Mobile. And thanks to silver level sponsors: Prime Team Partners, Meridian Capital, Submittable, and Cosmogence. And supporting sponsors: Choose Washington, ALLtech, Showbox SoDo, and Roanoke.
More photos!
Check out this post for a photo recap of the event, and visit the photo booth link to see all the pics and gifs — use the password b9d232.
