The Coresight Research team is attending and participating in Shoptalk 2019 in Las Vegas this week. To kick off this year’s conference, our CEO Deborah Weinswig emceed Shoptalk’s startup pitch competition for the fourth consecutive year. The event saw 15 innovative retail-technology companies vying for two cash prizes of $25,000 each.  [caption id="attachment_79064" align="aligncenter" width="656"] Shoptalk 2019 Startup Pitch Competition emcee Deborah Weinswig
Source: Coresight Research[/caption] Leaders from the startups pitched their businesses to a panel of four judges. Two winners were chosen, one by the panel of judges and one through audience voting. The judges were: 

• Cheryl Cheng, a general partner at BlueRun Ventures, a Menlo Park-based early stage venture capital firm focused on seed and series A opportunities. 
• Julian Counihan, a partner at Schematic Ventures. The early-stage venture capital fund is focused on investments in technology companies within the supply chain, manufacturing, transportation and digital industrial sectors.
• Annie Kadavy, a partner at Redpoint Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in startups across seed, early and growth phases and has backed over 500 companies.

Shoptalk curated the participating startups based on their solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing retailers today. The 15 startups were selected from among hundreds of applicants through a rigorous vetting process. 

• Countries of origin: The 15 startups represented the US, Canada, Germany, Israel and the UK. 
• B2B focus: The pitch competition focused on startups that are creating business-to-business (B2B) solutions. 
• Area of disruption: The startups all focus on one of four areas of retail disruption: merchandising and marketing solutions; physical retail solutions; fulfillment and post-purchase operations; and, retail e-commerce experiences. 
• Funding: Of the 15 competing startups the majority (11) have raised seed funding, two are in the post-seed/series A funding stage and two have chosen not to disclose their level of funding. 

Each startup focuses on one of the four areas of retail disruption, as depicted below.  [caption id="attachment_79065" align="aligncenter" width="664"] Source: Coresight Research[/caption] The Winners

• Judges’ Choice: Chatter Research
• Audience’s Choice: Rapitag

[caption id="attachment_79066" align="aligncenter" width="656"] Audience’s Choice winner: Rapitag. From left to right: Joe Laszlo (VP Content, Shoptalk), Deborah Weinswig, Sebastian Mueller (Founder & CTO, Rapitag), Cheryl Cheng, Annie Kadavy, Julian Counihan
Source: Coresight Research[/caption] [caption id="attachment_79067" align="aligncenter" width="650"] Judges’ Choice winner: Chatter Research. From left to right: Joe Laszlo (VP Content, Shoptalk), Deborah Weinswig, Simon Foster, (Founder & CEO, Chatter Research), Cheryl Cheng, Annie Kadavy, Julian Counihan
Source: Coresight Research[/caption] See the full list of participant profiles.