ARK Challenge Names Winners of Startup Competition

After months of hard work and a last-minute pitch to judges, and with large sums of money at stake, the winners of the technology boot camp competition called the ARK Challenge were selected Thursday in Bentonville.

Startup companies Btiques and MineWhat won the two top prizes of $150,000. And after a surprise announcement that Gov. Beebe was funding a third prize equal in value to the original two, StackSearch was named the winner of that award.

The Great Hall at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art was packed with investors, the competing teams and their supporters for Demo Day, the culmination of the three-month-long program to foster technology startups in Northwest Arkansas.

Sara Beck, who with partner Will Carter founded Btiques, said after the announcements the whole experience has been invaluable, “mostly because of the support we’ve gotten from the community leaders, and the fact that they took the time to teach us, invest in us, help us with details to really do what it takes to build out a full business model and get it up and running.

“That right there is something that you can’t get in school, something that you can’t get on the street, and I’m so grateful for the brilliant minds we’ve been able to work with.”

Beck and Carter describe Btiques as “a powerful new way for independent fashion boutique stores to interact and sell limited-quantity items online in the mobile and social media space.”

Both are Northwest Arkansas natives, and though Beck currently lives in Kansas City, Mo., they plan to grow their business here.

Ram Ganesan, who co-founded MineWhat with partner Pavan Kumar Thiruvuru Vijayan, said they are looking forward to “scaling up” their company faster now with the prize money and the guidance they’ve received from mentors like Jeff Amerine with Innovate Arkansas.

“It’s phenomenal so far,” Ganesan said, “and I’m hoping it will be more phenomenal going forward.”

MineWhat is described as a cloud-based “re-engagement” platform to help e-commerce businesses increase user conversion rate and revenue.

The pair, from Bangalore, India, also plan to establish their company in Northwest Arkansas.

StackSearch co-founder Mark Brandon said he and partner Sloan Ahrens had been working on their company for six months and only started taking customers last month.

“That’s meant our spouses, significant others, people who depend on us have been sacrificing a long time,” he said. “And a lot of people in the ARK Challenge have put a lot of time into us, they’ve opened doors for us, gave us money. We could not be here without them.”

StackSearch’s cloud-powered product search server is described as “reducing cart abandonment and increasing conversions for our e-commerce clients.”

“I could not be happier,” Brandon said, “and I could not be more proud of my ARK Challenge colleagues as well. They’re all great young leaders. We should hope they all stay in Arkansas.”

Fifteen startups took part in the program, working with mentors to develop their ideas into viable businesses. Each company received $15,000 in seed money, and the ARK in turn took a 6 percent equity stake in each firm.

The ARK is a partnership among Winrock International, the University of Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas Community College. It was one of 20 projects chosen from more than 150 applicants nationwide to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Jobs & Innovation Accelerator Challenge.