America’s Venture Capital Conference: And the winners are…

The America’s Venture Capital Conference (AVCC) has unveiled the winners it selected during its 2012 edition, which was dedicated to “Data, Design & Dollars,” and took place in Miami over the last two days.

Supported by the Florida International University’s (FIU) Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and its College of Business, it brought together around 400 US-based and Latin American investors and entrepreneurs.

In addition, it also gave 29 tech companies the opportunity to pitch their projects to the audience, and compete for the $70,000 worth of prizes that were awarded tonight. According to Jerry Haar, associate dean of the College of Business, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and co-chair for the AVCC, the pre-selection process was the most competitive and difficult so far, with only one out of four applicants making the cut.

Without further ado, here’s the list of winners per category:

• Trapezoid Digital Security Services, a Miami company that provides hardware-based security solutions for enterprise and cloud environments, is the winner of the Tres Mares Innovation Prize, which includes a $10,000 cash award and a work of innovative art by Iñaki Bonillas valued at $5,000, which was specially commissioned for the occasion.
• Tampa-based Fotopigeon, a niche-market photo sharing and printing company, was awarded the Miami Innovation Fund Start-Up Prize of a $20,000 cash investment in the form of a term sheet. It also received the New Frontier Nomads Idea Validation and micro-MVP Prize: $10,000 in-kind services to validate, design and develop a winning startup’s mobile MVP.
• itMD, a Miami cloud-based medical software company, received the CP Capital Later Stage Company Prize: $15,000 in investment banking services.
• Cognicor, an innovative customer service management system based in Spain, received the CP Capital Start-Up Company Prize: $10,000 in investment banking services. The startup was also one of the companies that took part in Wayra’s first Global Demo Day, which took place in Miami earlier this week.

In addition to startup pitches, the AVCC also featured panels and keynotes from speakers such as Silicon Valley Bank’s managing director Gerald Brady, managing director of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), SapientNitro’s CEO Gaston Legorburu, Hernán J. Kazah from Kaszek Ventures, and Charming Robot’s co-founder Dan Maccarone.

“The amount of global attention we have received, from top accelerators like NXTPLabs and Wayra, is a testament to the entrepreneurial engagement we have worked so hard to achieve this year. The caliber of competitors at this year’s AVCC is a direct reflection of Miami and Latin America’s entrepreneurial tech boom,” Haar says.

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There’s no doubt that initiatives such as Innovate Miami can contribute to putting the city on the map, while fostering its ties with Latin America’s growing tech scene.

Disclosure: Wayra paid for TNW’s lodging in Miami. The AVCC paid for TNW’s flights to Miami.