Boston Startup Winners: SeedCX: Medical Marijuana "Seeds" the Future in Boston

Winner: SeedCX Finalists: Human, Spot, MyLumper and Irhad.com The winnerSeedCX will be participating at the Private Equity Forum at the Yale Club in October. HUMAN presents at Startupalooza Boston Commentary: SeedCX is a new futures exchange for hemp & marijuana growers and traders. They won because of the combination of excellent planning, appropriate background and the offer to participate in once-in-a-generation opportunity at its moment of substantial growth. MyLumper was a finalist because they represented domain experts in an entirely fresh, payment processing field - truck loading - that had significant potential upside with minimal competition with the introduction of a disruptive solution and significant pain point. However, it is an unfamiliar area to most investors and so requires more due diligence. Spot is the “AirBnB” of parking spots and lets people and companies rent out their underutilized parking spots - thereby turning empty spaces into hard cash and preserving city resources. This is a very well executed plan that is showing real numbers in the Boston area and could scale nationally. It may not work in all cities and it is not always clear there where the best opportunities lie are, but they are nevertheless, a close runner-up. HUMAN offers a better way for users of Virtual and Augmented Reality to interact with all emerging platforms as well introduce the element of collaboration - especially in high value business and medical fields. There are patents pending and the team has much experience. Nevertheless, it is a crowded though growing field, where many competitors abound and their positioning is still not quite focused. Irhad.com is a travel website and mobile app for Muslim travelers in the west with a special focus on visitors from the high value Gulf States. It has special features that offer unique value to these well-heeled travelers. However, the financial model is all advertising and therefore limited, while there is a clear opportunity for a higher value “Freemium" model offering specialized high cost services for the higher-end travelers. Next Boston Startupalooza: Sep. 29th Register here.