A recent blog post on the Robert H. Smith School of Business MBA blog highlighted the second annual DC Tech Day — an open forum for the startup community in the DC/Baltimore area to come together and share their products with the public. The free event was held at the National Building Museum on October 6th and featured more than 50 exhibitors and 3,000 attendees.
The free event was sponsored by larger businesses in the DC/Baltimore Metro and brings many of the smaller startups in the area under one roof. What’s at stake? The ability to get off the ground and lock up investors. Sponsors companies are also on location to scout for new talent from the DC tech scene.
The author of the MBA blog post, a 2016 MBA candidate at the Smith School named Ying, noted a few things that stood out to her at Tech Day.
- Uber — the well known on-demand cab service was promoting their newest extension, UberEats, which is a meal delivery service available from within the app that promises 10 minutes delivery times.
- ZIRX — an on-demand valet parking service that makes location-based valets available on-demand. Cheap garages outside the city center are now suddenly viable. Pickup/Drop-off is greatly helped by scale.
- Optoro — a local startup that has raised $100+ MM toward building an online marketplace for distressed retail inventory.