Lion’s Lair shows you can do anything in Hamilton
Lion’s Lair 2012 took place at the fantastic Carmen’s Banquet Centre on this past Thursday October 4th. The annual event is organized by Innovation Factory (@itbeginswithIF) and the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce (@hamiltonchamber) and pits 10 startup finalists against one another in a pitch competition reminiscent of Dragon’s Den in order to win some of the $100,000 worth of cash and in-kind services. Over 500 people were in attendance at this year’s event, and as with the 2011 event it turned out to be the greatest celebration of entrepreneurism in Hamilton all year.
The third place winners Nervu (@NervuNinja) came away with $15,000 in cash and in-kind services. Nervu helps consumers take advantage of sales and savings they may not be aware of or might miss by connecting vendors and subscribers together through a convenient method of text messaging. One of the cool things about the Nervu team is the road through events in the Hamilton-area community that they followed get to Lion’s Lair – from first pitching at an iF Innovation Night and then further developing the concept at Startup Weekend Hamilton 2. Nervu was a winner at both Innovation Night and Startup Weekend Hamilton 2, making Lion’s Lair a Hamilton-area hat trick.
The driving forces behind Nervu are CEO Mohamed El Mahallaway (@mmahalwy) along with co-founders Shawn McTigue (@shawnmctigue) and Bilal Husain (@sBilalHusain). It’s important to note that all three founders are McMaster students. Despite originally being from the GTA, the founders intend on growing Nervu in Hamilton. Given the support they’ve found in Hamilton this shouldn’t be too surprising! I think it’s fantastic in particular to see a student leader like Mohamed come away with top prizes at Innovation Night, Startup Weekend Hamilton 2 and now Lion’s Lair because to me it sends a clear message to ALL McMaster students: if you’re willing to work hard on new tech startup in Hamilton, Nervu is carving a path for you to follow, and this city and our community will support you.
The second place winner REfficient (@REfficient) came away with $35,000 in cash and in-kind services. REfficient is an online reuse marketplace for businesses which allows you to go shopping in another companies’ surplus inventory. By optimizing reuse, companies save money on equipment purchases and keep product out of landfills. REfficient is a company that’s helping to save the environment as well as save money and time. By its two year anniversary earlier this year, REfficient had already diverted over one million pounds of waste from landfill, serving clients in seven countries in the process.
Originally located in the GTA, REfficient CEO Stephanie McLarty (@REstephmcl) moved the company to Hamilton to take advantage of costs that were 30% lower and to be closer to their customers. Stephanie has spoken highly of her experience in Hamilton thus far, as she put it recently, “there is more cohesion and support here than anywhere else I’ve experienced”. This support should come in handy as REfficient reaches for its ambitious growth plans, with a “big hairy audacious goal” of diverting one billion pounds from landfill by 2017. I think it’s fantastic to see a startup like REfficient move-in from the GTA to utilize Hamilton-area strengths because to me it again sends a clear message, this time to Toronto startups: if you move your tech startup to Hamilton, this city and our community will help you reach for your big hairy audacious goal.
The first prize winner that came away with $50,000 in cash and in-kind services was Dunlea Farms Pet Hay, makers of top quality hay for pets in a hangable in-cage feeder. Now, I’m a cheerleader for software in Hamilton, so in truth I would have preferred to see Synxer (@SynxerTech) , Snap-Pay, Enthuzr (@Enthuzr) or Weongozi come away with the top prize – but, hay, what can you do? Especially when Dunlea Farms makes such a great product and definitely deserved to win too! The diversity of the finalists and winners just goes to show that you really can do anything in Hamilton.
At the closing of the event Nick Bontis (@NickBontis) challenged the community to support all ten startups by spreading the word about their products and services, and if you were following the #lionslair2012 hashtag that night you saw that the community did exactly that. Probably the coolest thing about the evening was that, as Jim Rudnick (@JVRudnick) put it in a recent blog post, Hamilton was really the winner too! You can check out video of the award portion of the event below:
