Nix Sensor wins Lion’s Lair 2016

Nix Sensor (@NixSensor) took home the $65,000 top prize in cash and services at Lion’s Lair this week! Nix also won the “people’s choice” award, marking the first time that the attendees agreed with the lion’s (i.e. judges). Nix created a real-life PhotoShop colour eyedropper tool – just tap it on a surface, and it returns the colour of that surface!

Startup competition Lion’s Liar entered its 6th year with a line-up of startup companies markedly stronger than earlier iterations, showcasing the growth of the community. The finalists were well beyond “the idea” stage and were citing traction in terms of number of users, revenue, employee counts and funding received.

The Nix team’s prizes include: $15,000 in cash from: Cogeco, Mohawk College, McMaster University, RBC, McMaster Innovation Park and Meridian Financial Credit Union; $10,000 from VA Partners for Sales/Lead Generation consulting; $10,000 from Marketing CoPilot for SEO/Content Marketing assistance; $10,000 from Fresh Insights for market research; $10,000 from Biz Clip for photography and video development and an additional $10,000 from Communica for business coaching.

Nix started up in 2014 with a successful $70k crowdfunding campaign and has been a leader in the local tech startup scene ever since. Nix Sensor founder Matthew Sheridan cites his experience with the McMaster solar car project as vital, “The textbook skills aren’t going to help you in the real world,” he says, “but managing people on a team, raising funds from donors, figuring out how to run marketing campaigns and working 24/7 in the basement of the engineering building are all good lessons on how entrepreneurship works.””

Other winners included Nuts for Cheese, Laifa Baby, and 180 Drums.