MIAMI, Florida – March 31, 2014 – (HISPANICIZE WIRE) – The Latino Startup Alliance (LSA) and Hispanicize 2014 are announcing the four startup finalists that will compete in Miami April 2nd for the nation’s top Latino Startup of the Year competition. The contest is sponsored by Strayer University, the official university of Hispanicize 2014 and Hispanicize Wire, the innovative multimedia press release service that offers media and social media distribution to Latino media and influencers.
“We’re excited to welcome four top quality candidates that represent the diversity of Latino startups our competition sought”
“We’re excited to welcome four top quality candidates that represent the diversity of Latino startups our competition sought,” said LSA Co-Founder and Co-Chair Jesse Martinez. As per the criteria, the startups had to be in one or more of the following fields: Social Media, Journalism, Film, Music, Marketing, and/or Entertainment.
The four finalists selected to be in Miami will present their ventures live before a group of investors and entrepreneurs on Wednesday, April 2nd. The grand-prize winner will receive introductions to investors, guaranteed national media coverage, a package of multimedia press release distributions from Hispanicize Wire worth $2,500 and a Samsung Tablet and Samsung Galaxy Watch from Strayer University.
The four national finalists are: Crowdismo, New Force Media, Interesante and Oye!.
Crowdismo: Crowdismo is a Latino Crowdfunding platform. Our goal is to provide Latinos everywhere the ability to fund their passions, dreams, and ambitions.
New Force Media: New Force Media empowers niche communities, provides user experiences that members crave and builds hyper-targeted consumer networks for the savvy advertiser.
Interesante: Discover and share the most interesting things in the world.
OYE! : OYE! analyzes, monitors and reports online conversations among Hispanics offering brands and organizations a unique opportunity to develop culturally-relevant communication strategies.
“We had a very difficult time deciding on the third startup so we decided to have four startups pitch because the competition was very tight,” said Hispanicize Wire CEO Bill Gato.
JUDGING THE WINNER
Each startup will have five minutes to pitch live on stage and will be followed by five minutes of Q&A by a panel of four judges which includes:
— Cristina Henley, Strayer University
— Mario Tapia, Founder of Momentum Accelerator
— Derek Beckmann, Partner, Plura Ventures
— Beau Ferrari, Executive Vice President of Operations, Univision Networks
— William Crowder, Comcast Ventures
Qualified startups must have been founded within two years or less, have raised Series A or less funding and have a technical co-founder or in-house technical lead on the team.
About Strayer University
Strayer University is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and has been in operation since 1892. The University offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in business administration, accounting, economics, information systems, information technology, human resource management, education, health services administration, public administration, management and criminal justice to working adult students. Strayer University also offers an executive MBA online through its Jack Welch Management Institute. For more information, visit www.strayer.edu or call 1-888-4-STRAYER (888-478-7293).
Sponsorship and Registration Information
The presenting sponsor and exclusive beauty care sponsor of the event is Procter & Gamble. As of today, other announced sponsors include: 3M, Toyota, Walt Disney World, Google, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Gain, Sherwin-Williams, Crest, Home Depot, Coffee-mate, Burson-Marsteller, Transitions, Fox News Latino, NASDAQ’s GlobeNewswire, Vme TV, Florida Blue, The Zocalo Group, Visit Philadelphia, Sensis Agency, Hispanicize Wire, Textter, Balsera Communications, El Sol Newspaper, Traffic Sports, Pinta, Latinum Network, Center for American Progress, BodenPR, República, Thomas & LoCicero, Startup Angels, VPE Tradigital Communications and other consumer products, food and and travel brands who will shortly be disclosed. Media partners include Being Latino, NPR’S Latino USA, Latin Heat, Media Moves, PRODU, OVN Latino and iBlog Magazine.
Sponsorship information is available by contacting sponsorship@hispanicizeevent.com or calling 203.364.4779. To reserve a hotel room visit
About Hispanicize 2014
Now in its fifth year, Hispanicize 2014 (http://www.HispanicizeEvent.com) (#Hispz14) is the iconic, largest annual event for Latino trendsetters and newsmakers in social media, journalism, advertising, PR, technology, film and music.
Co-chaired by award winning journalist Maria Hinojosa of NPR’s Latino USA and Patricia Pineda, Group Vice President of the Hispanic Business Strategy Group of Toyota Motor North America, Hispanicize 2014 is expected to gather more than 1,700 of the nation’s most influential Latino professionals from the industries of blogging, journalism, technology, music, marketing, film and business over four full days. Featuring U.S. Hispanic thought leaders and celebrities, the 5th anniversary edition of Hispanicize will be taking place at the InterContinental Miami hotel with several offsite events at major cultural venues.
The event is a launch pad for creative endeavors, new products, technologies, marketing campaigns, films, books and more targeting Latinos in the U.S. and/or Puerto Rico.
Hispanicize 2014, a partnership of the Hispanic Public Relations Association (HPRA), Hispanicize and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), will be held at the InterContinental Miami hotel, April 1-4, 2014 in downtown Miami.
About the Latino Startup Alliance (LSA)
Co-headquartered in San Francisco and Miami, LSA is a fiscally sponsored project of CEL Education Fund. LSA is committed to building the foundation that fosters an ecosystem to support Latino tech entrepreneurs and future innovators by providing a community of peers, resources, mentors, & investors.
Originally founded in 2011 by first generation Mexican-American entrepreneur brothers Jesse and Ed Martinez as a support group for Latino tech entrepreneurs, LSA’s national non-profit is led by the Martinez brothers as well as Manny Ruiz, founder of the nationally known Latino digital and social media platform collectively known as Hispanicize.
http://latinostartupalliance.org/
For more on Latino Startup Alliance, visit & follow the organization on
https://twitter.com/Latino_Startups and https://www.facebook.com/LatinoStartupAlliance