Bixby wins Make It in Brooklyn Smart Cities pitch contest

Bixby, an NYC-based start-up that allows property managers to streamline their operations, won Downtown Brooklyn Partnership’s Make It in Brooklyn smart cities pitch contest last week, held at the newly-opened NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress (NYU CUSP) facility at 370 Jay Street. The two-year old company beat out four other entrepreneurs in a very close competition. Bixby took home the $5,000 cash prize and in-kind legal services provided by the Brooklyn Law Incubator and Policy Clinic (BLIP) and the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship (CUBE) at Brooklyn Law School.

The competition showcased a top selection of NYC’s startups working to improve urban infrastructure and create smarter, more resource-efficient cities through innovations in urban technologies. Apart from Bixby, these included CARMERA, a real-time, street-level intelligence platform for autonomous vehicles and the built environment; GoKid, a complete carpool solution for schools, teams, organizations and active families; Hylas, a system for eliminating landfill food waste; and NGEMS, an IoT startup working on emergency systems that provide emergency personnel with real-time situational awareness.

Each finalist had three minutes to make their pitch to a panel of five judges. After listening to and asking questions of the five valiant entrepreneurs, the judges withdrew for lengthy, nerve-wracking deliberations (providing the large crowd opportunity to enjoy beverages from Sixpoint Brewery, and yummy Yaso Tangbao noodles), ultimately selecting Bixby – citing their confidence in the technology and the capabilities of the model.

On the judges panel sat a range of influential voices in the Brooklyn tech community: Shaina Horowitz, the Urban Tech Hub Director at New Lab; David Post, a Global Enterprise Public Sector Leader at IBM; Miriam Roure, Program Director at URBAN-X; Joe Silver, Program Manager at NYU Tandon’s Urban Future Lab; and Jacob Yormak, Partner at Story Ventures.

This was the 10th pitch contest in the Make It in Brooklyn series, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership’s campaign to support entrepreneurship and cultivate a lasting innovation ecosystem throughout Brooklyn. The series of pitch contests, meet-ups, and panels have brought together hundreds of entrepreneurs and provided seed money ($95,000 thus far) as well as valuable pro-bono professional services.

Thanks go to our sponsors, JPMorgan Chase and NYU Tandon School of Engineering, who underwrite the Make It in Brooklyn series, and event partners NYU CUSP, Remix Summit, Sixpoint Brewery, and Yaso Tangbao.

UPDATE: Bixby announced July 23rd, 2019 that it has been acquired by Manhattan PropTech company HelloAlfred. Congratulations to co-founders Mark Smukler and Alex Ohebshalom and the rest of the Bixby team! They made it in Brooklyn.