If you're a wine startup seeking to get in front of some high-profile people with connections and capital, better take note of the Wine 2.0 Business Plan competition.
It's coming to an end tonight at midnight. Last year's winner - Crushpad - went on to raise $9 million in funding.
The winner will get a one-hour session with each of the judges.
The judges are Heidi Roizen, founder of Skinny Songs, former partner at Mobius Venture Capital; Richard Rosenblatt, CEO, Demand Media; Bowen Osbourn, M&A, Demand Media; Gary Vaynerchuk, star of Wine Library TV, Alan Citron, executive at Buzznet and J. Smoke Wallin, chairman of Wine 2.0, the wine social networking and events company that is hosting the competition.
With fewer than 12 hours to go, here's the current standing, based on community votes.
With the most votes so far is Curiosk Marketing Solutions, a wine marketing company. Curiosk has developed a kiosk that resides in wine and liquor retailers. The kiosk allows consumers to scan a wine bottle, and create personalized cards that have pre-filled information about the wine, such as characteristics and suggested pairings. Curiosk jumps to first place with 102 votes, up from third place last year.
Multineer Magazine jumps to second place with 78 votes. This isn't surprising that we'd see a newcomer join the competition (Multineer joined in the last week), and drive the votes to get itself highlighted and noticed!
Vinobilla, which had the most votes just a week ago, is now in third place with votes. This startup essentially developed a tool to identify the characteristics of wine, enabling the attributes to be more visual and understood by consumers. No more guessing whether the wine has earth tones, no tannins, and a smooth finish, while shopping at, say, Whole Foods. This looks like a consumer-friendly, and easy way to learn about wines.
Vinogusto, Bibola.com, and WomenWine are now in fourth through fifth place, in terms of the popular vote.
Keep in mind that the popular vote will be considered with the judges'
votes. So the company with the most votes won't necessarily be the
winner - though the votes, followers, and comments will be hard to ignore.
Founder and CEO of Vator, a media and research firm for entrepreneurs and investors; Managing Director of Vator Health Fund; Co-Founder of Invent Health; Author and award-winning journalist.
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Steven Loeb
Startup/Business
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Curiosk is redefining the way people shop for, buy, give, receive and enjoy wine and spirits. Installing a Curiosk touchscreen kiosk lets wine & liquor retailers enhance customer service, increase basket size, achieve store differentiation, provide a value added product and turn browsers into buyers. The Curiosk product and process is an innovative and informative, creative and convenient retailing solution.
How does it work?
Simply scan the barcode label to receive product information such as; tasting notes, food pairing notes, serving recommendations and cellaring guidelines. Then use the touchscreen to personalize and a print a greeting card. The patents pending card containing both the product information and the personal message, prints at the kiosk and is designed to fit over the neck of the bottle. It is the ultimate greeting card.
Startup/Business
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General: Mutineer Magazine (Wine Mutineer LLC) is beverage media company that currently produces a Nationally distributed print magazine and dynamic web site/blog. Our mission is to meet the communications and media needs of the industry we serve while producing the best products we can for our customers.Startup/Business
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The Vinogram™’s 12 flavor and aroma criteria are a revolutionary promotion tool for your wines. The intuitive visual aspect is quickly and easily understood, breaking language barriers. If you are looking to export increase sales, you’ve got a new secret weapon. Learn more
Internet Presence and Advertising
Exporting your wine has become an obvious necessity. But the big question remains. How do you get buyers and consumers abroad to see yourproducts? We provide visibility with our innovative communication, presentation and GPS tools.
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Wine 2.0™ is the innovator in social networking and events in the wine industry. With a focus on the next generation wine consumer, Wine 2.0 breaks down the barriers to learning about, experiencing, and enjoying wine. Wine 2.0 events feature a rich diversity of world class wines and the newest generation of emerging technology companies, services and communication tools that are changing the world of wine.Startup/Business
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Women & Wine http://womenwine.com is a lifestyle company with a social media platform for user contributed content from lovers of wine, food and travel ages 21-59. Free members can share stories, tips, pics, and videos to entertain, inspire and educate. Our weekly newsletter goes to 50K people - both women (80%) and men who like our storytelling sensibility.
Women & Wine's core revenue comes from creating multi-media content and offline events for our A-list clients who are interested in unique and creative ways to reach savvy college educated women who, in addition to their interests in wine, food and travel, also love movies, books, fashion - you name it! Clients from movie studios, women's magazines, top fashion houses, travel and of course wine, spirits and food brands engage W&W as a trusted source for women. W&W has held events in 31 cities for over 7,000 people in the past 18 months and has a top rated podcast on i-tunes (RSS feed from http://womenandwineradio.com).
Women & Wine is a US and EU trademark and the company also owns a small wine boutique called Wine Valet at Two Rodeo Drive which provides the company the ability to sell wine and build an offline clientele around the world for our concierge services.
W&W has a top 100 wine show on i-Tunes with over 90 hours of archived podcasts and on March 29th at 10 a.m. PST will launch our new one hour show LIVE! at the Wine Valet at Two Rodeo Drive on CRNTalk.com and broadcasting to 20 million Time Warner Cable households (check local listings). The show tapes on Via Rodeo - similar to The Actor's Studio as guests sip the wines of our winemakers and tastemakers and the they can buy the wine in our store or online.
We have an ambitious plan to be the next breakout brand for women - as there's a huge vacuum in this space - and believe we are the leader in this niche catering to 40 million women who say they buy or drink wine at least once a week. And, as there is an enormous opportunity to reach women ages 21-30 who are interested in learning about, as well as drinking wine, there is the opportunity to be the "brand for life" as wine means something different to women at every stage of their lives.
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Operating Partner at DFJ, board member TiVo and DMGT, teach entrepreneurship at Stanford. Co-founder/CEO T/Maker Company. Former VP WW Developer Relations at Apple. Stanford undergrad and MBA.
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