This week in San Francisco, a broad array of tech startups and promising entrepreneurs descended on The City by the Bay for the annual LAUNCH Festival, the tech industry’s biggest startup competition started and hosted by Jason Calacanis.
This year, LAUNCH welcomed more than four dozen companies that formally launched their enterprise on stage as a sea of successful entrepreneurs evaluated each over the course of three days.
With over 9,000 attendees and a $200,000 investment grand prize up for grabs, the competition was every bit as fierce as the presenting startups were impressive. When you consider that past winners include such industry heavyweights as Yammer, Drobox, Mint, Hipmunk, and Boxbee, the momentum afforded by recognition at LAUNCH can go a long way over the long haul.
Last night, Connect was the big winner of LAUNCH Festival 2014.
Connect is a new location-based address book and friend-finder platform available for both web and iPhone. The innovative service lets users know who is close in proximity and helps to facilitate encounters between and among friends who may have otherwise missed an opportunity to meet.
“Connect was built to make it easier to stay connected to your friends throughout life,” the company says on its official website. “Connect shows all your friends from social networks on a map, and can notify you when they are nearby. You can see where friends have checked in recently, as well as the cities they live in around the world. Connect was designed so that all your friends from Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, iPhone Contacts, Google Contacts, and LinkedIn show up on your map – so, from the very start, your map will have hundreds of your people on it.”
A promising startup with huge momentum coming off of last night’s recognition at LAUNCH, Connect recently shared video from its presentation at the tech festival from earlier this week. To learn more about Connect, check out the video below or visit their website here.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/87644238[/vimeo]
