The competition, sponsored by Flatiron Gaming, will present the ambitious start-ups the opportunity to showcase their innovative products in front of a live audience and a judges panel of industry leaders and investment elite. The First Pitch Competition will take place at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in New Jersey and will form part of the summit’s ‘Emerging tech and investment’ track on Wednesday May 10.

‘We partner with early stage companies to help build the right infrastructure for growth, execute effective user acquisition, monetization and retention strategies, and deliver the business performance metrics needed to enable large VC rounds or exits. As such, we want to support this next wave of high-potential entrepreneurs as a growth partner, investor and strategic advisor,’ said Ryan Faber, Founder & CEO at Flatiron Gaming when discussing why they felt it was important to sponsor the competition. ‘Our advice to the finalists would be, track everything, iterate quickly and always be testing and always maintain direct open communication with your most engaged and valuable customers. ‘

The five finalists of the SBC Summit North America First Pitch are:

Scrimmage Co:  A retention tool that helps operators in the betting space keep their customers by designing a gamified rewards program that keeps users more engaged.

BettorFantasy: Offers Daily Fantasy Sports contests for all major sports, including football, basketball, baseball and hockey. 

Bettor Vision : A free mobile app that aggregates fantasy sports and sports betting accounts to allow consumers to see all accounts in one place. 

Sweeps: The only sports game that builds savings instead of debt by using FDIC-insured prize-linked savings accounts and live entertainment to redefine what motivates people to save money.

Inside the Pocket: The world’s first white label B2B content aggregation platform, focusing exclusively on F2P and P2P gaming content. 

The First Pitch will be hosted by Jesse Learmonth (The Betting Startups Podcast) and will have a judging panel formed of industry experts Adam Krejcik (Principal Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, LLC), Lloyd Danzig (Managing Partner, Sharp Alpha Advisors), Clark Smith (Director, NJEDA), Melissa Blau (CEO, iGaming Capital) and Ryan Faber (Founder & CEO, Flatiron) who will vote to decide the winner.

The winning company will receive an impressive prize package consisting of:

-A 6-month Sports & Emerging Verticals subscription by Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, a research and consulting firm that serves the gaming equipment, interactive gaming, and sports betting sectors (worth $25,000),

-a promotional package from SBC Media, which includes six months of advertising on SBC Americas, newsletter advertising, and two featured editorials promoting the business (valued at $12,000),

-an exclusive brand or web design package from Vegas Kings, the leading iGaming design and development agency (worth $2,800)

-a press pack which includes 2 drafted press releases distributed via Business Wire, a video interview produced and shared by GameOn, and 2 additional thought-leadership articles placed within a SBC media partner (worth $3,660)

A Receptional Prize Pack in which Receptional will collaborate with the winner to provide a tailored digital marketing package (worth $12,000)

$5,000 investment + advisory help in raising & structuring the next investment round from Discerning Capital

Sue Schneider, VP of Growth and Strategy at SBC, said “Here at SBC we have always valued innovation and outside the box thinking when it comes to sports betting and iGaming practices. The First Pitch competition is a highlight at our events as it not only gives us the opportunity to support the brightest new minds in the industry, but also improve the industry as a whole.”

“Although finalists are competing for an incredible prize package, I see it as so much more. First Pitch gives start-ups the opportunity to be centre stage in front of a plethora of potential clients and investors, whilst allowing the companies to hone their public speaking and networking skills.”

The inaugural First Pitch competition had two joint winners: the Parleh Media Group, a Canadian digital media specialist and currently SBC Summit North America’s media partner, and SharpRank, a Maryland-based independent sports betting ratings agency.

Last year’s competition crowned BetSwap as the winner, which is an integrated marketplace platform that allows users of a sportsbook or DFS platform to buy and sell active bets or DFS entries within a secondary marketplace while remaining within the confines of the operator platform.