Career Allies wins PitchNo.Co competition

FORT COLLINS — Career Allies — a platform helping employees, their managers and HR departments manage parental leave — won the the PitchNo.Co competition at Fort Collins Startup Week on Friday evening.
The other three finalists were HearMe Technology, a company creating a device to help patients with Parkinson’s amplify their speech; Sunshower.io, a cloud-management and optimization solution and Laborjack, a technology-based labor service connecting college students with people who need manual labor.
All four companies won prizes at the competition. Career Allies won $18,000 in UX evaluation services. Second-place winner Sunshower.io won six months of public-relations services from MAPRagency. Third-place winner Laborjack received a year membership to Rockies Venture Club. And fourth-place winner HearMe Technology received three months of free coworking at Cosolve in Longmont.
The four winners also got a free bottle of bourbon from Feisty Spirits in Fort Collins.
All of the preliminary companies — Ageto Energy, Bee Nails, MyPerforma and Stephanie Carlson — won a prize package that included support form CSU’s Ascend program and six months of consultation from LaunchNo.Co. Stephanie Carlson and Sunshower.io also received free legal services.
This year marked the second year PitchNo.Co took place during Fort Collins Startup Week.
The event was hosted by LaunchNo.Co, a nonprofit promoting entrepreneurship in Northern Colorado.
The six judges for the competition were Cate Zavod, head of marketing and communcations for the Cognizant Accelerator; Doyle Albee, president of MAPRagency; Jose Vieitiez, co-founder of Boomtown Accelerator; Peter Adams, executive director of Rockies Venture Club; Scott Caruso, director of strategic ventures for UpRamp; and Scott Shrake, director for the Institute of Entrepreneurship at Colorado State University.