Community Updates

Sustainable Brands Seeks Entrepreneurs for Startup Business Competition

SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2017 – Sustainable Brands® recently opened submissions for its internationally recognized startup business competition Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO). Co-sponsored by Whirlpool, and judging platform YouNoodle, the competition will culminate at SB’17 Detroit, May 22-25, with venture finalists presenting their early operational plans to business leaders and investors in the Sustainable Brands community.

Published 7 years ago | About a 2 minute read

SAN FRANCISCO, March 9, 2017 – Sustainable Brands® recently opened submissions for its internationally recognized startup business competition Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SBIO). Co-sponsored by Whirlpool, and judging platform YouNoodle**,** the competition will culminate at SB’17 Detroit, May 22-25, with venture finalists presenting their early operational plans to business leaders and investors in the Sustainable Brands community.

Sustainable Brands, known for bringing together diverse groups of business leaders with innovative and disruptive plans to embed sustainability into their companies, will accept entries for SBIO until March 31st. Startup ventures looking to gain exposure for their pioneering consumer products and/or products/services that support existing corporations in achieving their sustainability-led programs are encouraged to submit an entry.

Details and timing as follows:

Startups in their post-launch phase with early operating metrics and/or a proven Beta/prototype are encouraged to apply before March 31st.
A panel of expert judges including investors, entrepreneurs and brand merchants will evaluate entries based on creativity, team quality, economic scalability and level of disruptive innovation. Ten semi-finalists will be selected by early April.
A short list of entries will be featured for a public poll starting on April 4th on www.SustainableBrands.com in order to select an 11th semi-finalist. The public vote winner will be announced on April 18th.
All 11 semi-finalists will be given exhibit space at SB’17 Detroit and will pitch their business plans to an esteemed panel of judges on May 23rd. The final 4 finalists will pitch their ventures to the full SB’17 Detroit audience on May 24th.
SBIO Award: The final winner of the SBIO’17 Detroit competition will receive a ticket granting access to the next 3 years of Sustainable Brands conferences

“The SB Innovation Open gathers entrepreneurs from diverse disciplines that go beyond the innovative and into the disruptive,” states Riley Scherer, Sustainable Brands’ Innovation Open Coordinator. “The exposure that startups gain from participating is not only beneficial to their own endeavors, but can potentially lead to the creation of partnerships with more established brands in attendance.”

To submit an entry and learn about past finalists, visit the SB Innovation Open 2017 web page at www.SB17Detroit.com/innovation-open. To learn about additional SBIO partnership opportunities or additional ways to get involved, please contact Riley Scherer at [email protected]. Further information about SB’17 Detroit can be found on the conference website at www.SB17Detroit.com