The Seattle 2.0 Awards, sponsored by GeekWire, lit up the night and the video wall of the EMP Sky Church with the names of movers, shakers and Seattle startup company makers.
And the Winners are…
Investor of the Year: Chris DeVore
The co-creator of Founder’s Co-op is reinventing angel investing with a portfolio that includes more than two dozen startups. With partner Andy Sack, Founder’s Co-op now manages an $8 million fund which is devoted to 20 new companies.
Other finalists in this category are Geoff Entress, Andy Liu, Bill Bryant and Hadi Partovi.
Schmoozer of the Year: Shauna Causey
See our spotlight profile on Shauna, the current president of Social Media Club Seattle, in People.
Geekiest Coffee Shop: Uptown Espresso
Sip your espresso machiattos on the shores of Lake Union. Other finalists: Zoka, Cherry Street Coffee, the Madison Park Starbucks.
Startup CEO of the Year: Ben Huh, Cheezburger
SEOmoz CEO Rand Fishkin used a Meme to announce $18 million in financing but narrowly got edged out by the Cheezburger chieftan oi Memes for this award. Huh’s Cheezburger patty has become a Whopper, encomnpassing more than 60 company-operated comedy sites and 20,000 user sites with monthly visitors of more than 22.5 million. He was one of the leaders of the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act on the national level. And in his spare time, he’s working on a reality TV show with Bravo, and launching a new online journalism startup, Circa.
Other finalists: Keith Smith of BigDoor, Bryan Mistele of INRIX and Glenn Kelman of Redfin.
Deal of the Year: PopCap Games
PopCap scored $1.3 billion game points last summer for founders John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka who started the PopCap brand “popping.” Other Finalists: Swype, Apptio, Double Down Interactive and Zillow.
See this post for more background on this category.
Geek of the Year: Jim Demonakos
Give this one to the Director of the Emerald City Comicon, narrowly nudging Oren Etzion and startup Decide.com out of the winner’s circle.
Other finalists: Nathan Myhrvold, Yoky Matsuoka and Buster Benson.
Hire of the Year: Kate Matsudaira, Decide
SEOmoz’s loss was Decide.com’s gain. Kate Matsudaira accepted the post of VP engineering. Other Finalists: Daryn Nakhuda of Amazon, Dan Shapiro of Google, Wibe Wagemans of Big Fish Games and Mitch Hill of Opscode.
Innovation of the Year: Kinect for Windows
It goes without saying, only moving. Kinnect sees every move you make.
Other Finalists: Vioguard (self-santizing keyboard), LaserMotiv, Symform (cloud storage ) and ExtraHop (application inspection triggers).
Bootstrapper of the Year: HasOffers
See our interview with the brothers Brown in Seattle24x7 ShopTalk.
Other Finalists: Green Cupboards, Dwellable, and BigOven. More background here.
Mobile App of the Year: Battle Nations
BattleNations is a free app for iPhone and iPod touch.
Other Finalists: Glympse (location sharing), PaperKarma (junk-mail avoidance), Swype (mobile input) and One Bus Away (transit).
People’s Choice Award, Iron Man of Startups: Andy Sack
Andy Sack was named the People’s Choice for the “Iron Man of Startups.” The life force behind Founder’s Co-op, Lighter Capital, and TechStars Seattle, Andy recently underwent a bout with Cancer, for whcih he prevailedm and plans to return to his role as manager of TechStars Seattle. The son of Judy’s Book eponymous namesake, our best wishes go out to Andy as he regains his awesome strenth and footing in the Seattle startup community. [24×7]
SEOmoz Adds Capital to the Capital Letters S-E-O!
Search engine software maker SEOmoz has raised $18 million in Series B funding in a round led by The Foundry Group’s Brad Feld, with participation from Ignition Partners. Last time the company raised funding was a $1.1 million seed round secured all the way back in 2007.
Awesomely, SEOmoz decided to shun ‘normal’ press releases to announce the news on its site, using memes. They even invented the word ‘memenouncing’ for it.
SEOmoz says it currently has 15,000 paying subscribers and a monthly count of over 2 million unique visitors to its online community. The company predicts revenue between $18 million and $20 million this year, after booking $5.7 million in 2010 and doubling that to $11.4 million in 2011.
SEOmoz will use the new funding to grow its Web index, hire new people, add more social and content functionality to its software and make acquisitions. [24×7]
