Concept to Company contest seeks new round of Utah inventors

Startups » Grow Utah Ventures, others offering prizes for best ideas.

By cathy mckitrick

| The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Apr 16 2012 07:17 am • Last Updated Aug 05 2012 11:32 pm

Grow Utah Ventures, a nonprofit organization aimed at sparking the creation of startup businesses, kicked off another round of its Concept to Company contest Monday, pledging $40,000 in cash and services to help entrepreneurs get their consumer-product ideas off the ground.

Innovators with projects that are tangible and require some degree of manufacturing are urged to apply.

"One of our often overlooked sectors is engineering and manufacturing," Grow Utah Ventures President T. Craig Bott said in a statement.

"Utah has unique expertise and great capacity in this sector, and we are pleased to dedicate this event to those who innovate and make great products," Bott added, encouraging "anyone with a cool product idea and the drive to build it" to enter

Eight finalists will be chosen from an initial pool of applicants. They will get the opportunity to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges who have business and investing backgrounds. From the eight, the judges will select three winners, who will present their concepts during a June 6 CrowdPitch event. The audience will get to vote on its favorites by investing "CrowdCash."

The grand prize winner will receive $5,000 in cash and $15,000 in services, while the two runners-up will each win $2,500 in cash and $7,500 in services. The NorthFront Business Resource Center in Kaysville and SEED Weber-Davis-Morgan is funding the cash prizes.

Applications for the contest are due by May 20. For more information and to apply, go to www.ConceptToCompany.org.

This contest is one of several sponsored by Grow Utah Venture. To date, Concept to Company competitions have awarded more than $450,000 in cash prizes and services and helped launch more than 75 companies.

cmckitrick@sltrib.com

twitter: @catmck

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