paypalx PreyProject.com added to finalists of Startup RallyLast week we announced the finalists of The Next Web Paypal X Startup Rally 2010 here. Zee and Patrick spent a lot of time reviewing the 245 startup submissions, 73 one minute video pitches and ended up selecting 45 companies for the final interview round. They ended up with 23 selected companies that were given a chance to present their start-up onstage during the conference.

One of the selected companies is TwitterCounter. It is a great company that really deserves to be selected. They came out of nowhere, grew incredibly fast, are profitable and the market leader in their segment. And we own 100% of the company. In fact, I founded it myself and wrote the first version in less than a week.

After we announced the selected companies we received some feedback from people who thought it wasn’t very fair to choose a company we own 100% of shares in. We can honestly say we didn’t let our involvement with TwitterCounter cloud our judgement but we do understand that some people might not take our word for that.

What we didn’t announce yet was that we were also going to give one South American start-up a spot onstage. So after giving it some thought we have decided to withdraw TwitterCounter from The Next Web Paypal X Startup Rally. They will still be at the conference with a booth and will launch some cool and amazing new stuff.

Working together with MaestrosDelWeb we picked a company that we think makes a great addition to our selection. The start-up taking TwitterCounter’s place will be the Prey project.

Prey is a lightweight application that will help you track and find your laptop if it ever gets stolen. It works in all operating systems and not only is it Open Source but also completely free. The founders are Tomás Pollak and Ismael Celis who will travel all the way from Chile to present their startup.