BOSTON—TiE Boston, one of the region’s largest and leading-edge organizations supporting the Massachusetts entrepreneurial ecosystem and connecting entrepreneurs, executives, and venture capitalists, announced the winners of their annual TiE Boston Women’s Pitch Competition, which was broadcast live online on August 25, 2022.
Gili Naveh, Founder of CaviSense Inc, won the first prize and will go on to represent TiE Boston at the TiE Women Global Pitch Competition in December. The other winners of the event were Liane Clamen, CEO of Adaptilens in second place; Trisha Ballakur, Co-Founder and CTO, Pointz Mobility, Inc who took third place.
In an exciting live broadcast, the TiE Boston Women’s Pitch Competition gave the floor to eight women founders/co-founders to pitch for a chance to compete for prizes up to $10,000 in winnings at the event, as well as the opportunity to compete in the TiE Women Global Pitch Competition in December 2022 to receive a $100,000 equity-free cash prize.
For the winner, Gili Naveh, TiE Boston’s competition will prove as just one stop in the road map to take the global stage in December 2022 at the TiE Global Summit , where winning women entrepreneurs from all over the world will pitch for the top place.
The event opened with remarks from Keynote Speaker Geeta Aiyer, President of Boston Common Asset Management. Aiyer laid down the tenets for a successful woman-entrepreneur in today’s business, and shared from her rich experience over the years.
Each semi-finalist took the floor to deliver a concise and convincing pitch, in an attempt to impress on the Judges Ameeta Soni, CMO of engage2learn; Sridhar Solur, CEO of Kenmore; Nilanjana Bhowmik, co-founder of Converge; Anil Khurana, Partner and Global Leader, Industrials, Manufacturing, & Automotive.
The contestants fielded tough questions from the judges, while painting a full picture of their startups. From dollar opportunity to exit strategies, the eight participants were put in the hot seat for Q&A after each pitch to ensure the judges could make a well-informed decision in selecting the winner.
This year’s first place winner, Gili Naveh, said “ CaviSense is extremely proud to win 1st place at the TiE Women Boston Pitch competition. Thank you TiE Boston members for your support and belief in our way of revolutionizing oral health. We are honored to be part of an inspiring group of Boston women led companies and beyond excited to represent Boston in the TiE Women Global Pitch Competition.”
The second place winner, Liane Clamen, CEO of Adaptilens, said, “I was honored to be selected as the second place winner in the 2022 TiE Boston Women’s Pitch Competition. I really enjoyed learning about the companies founded by the other women in this pitch competition. Thank you TiE Boston for this wonderful opportunity and thank you for supporting female founders!”
Trisha Ballakur, Co-founder and CTO of Pointz Mobility, was awarded third place winner. She said, “My love for venture started with TiE Boston, and I’m forever grateful to the TYE program for helping me build a foundation”.
Geetha Sreedhar, TiE Boston Board Member and Chair of the pitch competition said, “It was exciting to chair and oversee the TiE Boston Women’s Pitch Competition this year. Women entrepreneurs are starting new business across all types of industries. We, at TiE, are here to support budding women entrepreneurs through their journey and lay the foundation for their success.”
In closing, TiE Boston President Yash Shah said, “It was an extraordinary list of women-founded companies who applied for the 2022 TiE Boston Pitch Competition. Reviewing, rating and judging these companies was incredibly tough. The diversity, innovation and potential impact of these companies to our lives in the future is what makes the TiE Boston Women program so exciting. TiE Boston is thankful to all our annual sponsors who support such competitions that provide incredible visibility to all of the participating companies.”
The following women founders competed in the TiE Boston Women Pitch Competition:
- Amanda Drobnis, Co-founder & CEO of Hilltop Bio
- Dina Zaki, Co-founder & CIO of Parrots Inc.
- Gili Naveh, Founder of CaviSense
- Heather Fraser, Co-founder & CEO of Synthera Health
- Liane Clamen, CEO of Adaptilens
- Melissa LaCasse, CEO of Tanbark Molded Fiber Products
- Priya Bhasin, Chairman, CEO of Inclusively
- Trisha Ballakur, Co-founder & CTO of Pointz Mobility, Inc.
TiE Boston is the second oldest and second largest TiE chapter and currently has around 170 charter members in Massachusetts, who have founded signature Boston companies creating $250B+ in wealth and thousands of hi-tech jobs. A charter membership to TiE Boston provides access to TiE’s global network of over 15000 entrepreneurs, professionals, industry leaders, and investors, across 64 chapters worldwide.
