VetsinTech Announces Winners of Second Annual Tech Startup Pitch Competition

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Oct 18, 2022, 11:27 ET

Native Selected Grand Prize Winner

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- VetsinTech, the leading national non-profit dedicated to supporting veterans through tech-based programs and opportunities in education, employment, and entrepreneurship, announced the top winners of its second annual tech startup pitch competition. Hosted by VetsinTech and sponsored by JPMorgan Chase, Oracle NetSuite, and AWS, Native was selected from the field of veteran, military, and spouse-owned startup finalists as the grand prize winner ($25,000). The tech startup competition occurred during a live virtual competition held on October 13th.

Native is a secure platform for multilingual messaging that creates access to opportunity by empowering people to communicate in the language they know best.

"Thank you for the opportunity to share our story, our vision, and our progress with a new audience today. Native's technology is democratizing communication, and we welcome people from all over the world to join us in realizing this future. We are grateful to VetsinTech, JPMorgan Chase, Oracle NetSuite, and AWS for acknowledging the veteran entrepreneur community and creating a space for us to pursue our collective potential," said Ben Lang, CEO of Native.

Zimba came in second place and was awarded $10,000. Zimba develops automated core banking software for financial institutions in emerging markets, so they can be more efficient in helping people and businesses. The third-place winner, Parlay was awarded $5,000. Parlay is a financial education software as a service (SaaS) that creates alternative credit decisioning data to help mission-driven lenders rapidly underwrite loan applications from underrepresented borrowers.

Participation criteria required that businesses veterans or military spouses be the founders of innovative products or services filling an unmet market need.

"Veterans own only around 10% of U.S businesses and through events like these and programs like the NetSuite Accelerator we are hoping to not only show our support for these businesses but be a champion for their future," said George Ploss, Director of NetSuite Accelerator. "NetSuite has a long history of supporting the Veteran community, including our recruiting program SuiteVets, and we're honored to play a small part in their incredible journeys."

"The outstanding support from our sponsors made this invaluable event possible and an overwhelming success. We look forward to our future work with JPMorgan Chase, NetSuite, and AWS to continue supporting veterans and military spouse-owned businesses," said Katherine Webster, founder and CEO of VetsinTech, "We also want to recognize our winners and the amazing innovations coming from veteran and military spouse startups in general."

Over the years, VetsinTech has supported veteran entrepreneurs, equipping them with extensive mentorships, workshops, boot camps, hackathons, and virtual office hours. This pitch competition extends a broad range of ongoing entrepreneurship initiatives provided by VetsinTech.

About VetsInTech

Based in San Francisco, with more than 70,000 vets strong and 20 chapters across the country, VetsInTech is the leading national non-profit devoted 100% to springboarding veterans into tech careers. VetsinTech harnesses the national technology ecosystem to benefit veterans returning from active military duty who want to apply their exceptional training, skills, and experience to a new technology career. Comprising technology industry leaders and former service members, VetsinTech is the only non-profit supporting our veterans through tech-based programs and opportunities in education, employment, and entrepreneurship. For more information, interested parties can visit www.vetsintech.co.

About JPMorgan Chase's commitment to service members and veterans:
JPMorgan Chase, a leading global financial services firm with assets of $3.7 trillion and operations worldwide, has supported our veterans since before World War I. Since establishing the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs in 2011, the firm has hired more than 16,000 veterans; facilitated more than 680,000 veteran hires through the Veteran Jobs Mission coalition; awarded more than 1,050 mortgage-free homes to military families in need; and helped nearly 50,000 participants enroll in Onward to Opportunity, a free career training program of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families, which was co-founded and is supported by JPMorgan Chase and Syracuse University. Learn more at: www.jpmorganchase.com/veterans.

Press Contact:
For VetsinTech
Carmen Hughes
Ignite X
650.453.8553
[email protected]

SOURCE VetsinTech