$5M Comet Competition to give B2B startups unparalleled opportunities to scale

Giving startups in unlikely places an unparalleled opportunity to bring their revolutionary B2B solutions to the world much faster, the $5 million Comet Competition is open until October 31.

Ingram Micro, a company delivering global technology and supply chain services, has launched the Comet Competition aiming to discover talented startups and ISVs and to help them scale across the world.

Any startup that has made less than $10 million in annual revenue over the past year is able to compete, especially those innovating in cybersecurity, infrastructure management, IoT, fintech, and other leading B2B technologies. 

Registration for the Comet Competition runs until October 31, 2019. 

For Ingram Micro Cloud, the Comet Competition opens a path for the most innovative technologies in the world to reach key markets around the world exponentially faster than they otherwise would have. 

“Our goal at Ingram Micro Cloud is to help identify and bring to market the best technology in the industry”

The competition provides a chance to compete for over $5 million, with zero equity taken by Ingram Micro in return. Furthermore, relevant companies will also be able to build a business relationship with the company, its Cloud Marketplace and its broader partner ecosystem.

Said Michael Kenney, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for Ingram Micro, “Our goal at Ingram Micro Cloud is to help identify and bring to market the best technology in the industry.

“It’s especially exciting to advise global startups at the beginning of their journeys and watch them achieve significant business milestones faster and more broadly than they ever anticipated.”

During the first phase of Comet Competition, startups from around the world compete in 16 of the biggest tech markets. Winners in each country will receive $100,000, while two runners-up in each region each get $50,000. 

Each winner will then be eligible to compete in Ingram Micro’s Cloud Summit in Miami that will be held in May 12 to 14. At that point, the overall winner of the competition will be awarded $1,000,000. 

The Comet Competition is, in particular, looking to support startups with their customer acquisition costs. 

The 16 host countries for the Comet Competition are spread out across five continents, giving innovators in unlikely places an unparalleled opportunity to bring their revolutionary B2B innovations to the world much faster than they might have been able to otherwise.

Winners of previous editions include:

• Boston-based Pixm, which prevents phishing attacks in real-time at the point of click.
• Tel Aviv-based Verifyoo, which  enables users to safely access their accounts and perform high risk transactions without memorizing passwords and without compromising their privacy.
• Austin-based ClearBlade, which enables enterprises to rapidly engineer and run secure, real-time, scalable IoT applications.

Arun Buduri, Co-Founder and President of Pixm, said of his experience, “Having Ingram Micro as a channel partner is absolutely amazing and being here at the Cloud Summit where, globally, all the resellers being here is fantastic!”

Verifyoo CEO and Co-Founder Roy Dalal remarked, “The Ingram Micro [Cloud] Summit has been amazing; everything from the organization to the summit itself has been an incredible experience.”

And ClearBlade CEO Eric Simone said, “Ingram is the largest technology distributor, and the Internet of Things is the marriage of hardware and software, and Ingram delivers both of those things to their customers today.”

“I’m just happy to be working with Ingram Micro,” he added.

Along with Ingram Micro Cloud, a leading global cloud software company, the event is co-hosted Microsoft for Startups, Microsoft’s immersive global accelerator network that provides promising startups with Microsoft’s scale-up products including Azure.

This article includes a client of an ESPACIO portfolio company.