The Contest
Earlier this week, we announced that we were one of the 10 lucky companies that were accepted as finalists for the Google Machine Learning Competition put on by Google Cloud. Over 350 companies applied. Wow.
The companies in the competition included: Brainspec, Cardiogram, LiftIgniter, Pavlov, Petasense, PicnicHealth, ReviveMed, Rex, TissueAnalytics, and TrendAlytics. After listening to them all present, we were not only impressed by their quality but humbled to be part of the group.
The prizes included a potential investment from Emergence Capital or Data Collective (DCVC) plus the "Built With Google" grand prize of $1 million in GCP credits or a runner's up price of $500k in GCP credits. 4 potential awards.
The esteemed panel of Venture Capital judges included:
- Matt Ocko, Managing Partner | Data Collective
- Santi Subotovsky, General Partner | Emergence Capital
- Bill Coughran, Partner | Sequoia Capital
- Dave Munichiello, General Partner | GV
- Frank Chen, Head of Deals and Research | a16z
- Jerry Chen, Partner | Greylock Partners
- Muzzammil Zaveri, Partner | Kleiner Perkins
- Vanessa Larco, Partner | NEA
Each company had 3 minutes to pitch plus 3 minutes for questions. I recall Matt Ocko, Santi, Jerry Chen, and Vaness Larco asking me some pretty tough questions around our type of machine learning, our deal sizes (and revenue). The audience included over 40 of Silicon Valley's top venture firms and about 100 other press, Googlers and invited parties.
We Won - Twice!!
After all the companies had presented, the judges went off to deliberate. The crowd them re-assembled....you can read Google's version of the event here. Techcrunch also wrote up a great article describing the whole day.
DCVC announced their winner: Brainspec. Then, Emergence Capital announced their winner: Us! I went up on stage and received a Google Home with a special plaque.
I then walked off stage. Adrenaline was pumping and I received some high fives from folks in the audience. Phew. We won....
And then Alison Wagonfeld, the VP of Marketing for Google Cloud went up on stage. She discussed why Google Cloud held the event and why she was excited about the two companies she chose. She started with the runner-up and called, LiftIgniter! Two awards. Just like that. Theoretically, we had just won a cool million dollars, which, as any startup founder knows, goes a long long way!
Two awards. Pretty awesome. We still have a long way to go. It was back to work the next day but that night, we celebrated just a little.
If you're curious why the judges liked us, reach out. We'd love to help make machine learning personalization a reality for your business!
