Startups across the globe focused on business-to-business (B2B) technology have an opportunity to win $1,000,000 in the Comet Competition announced during Microsoft Inspire by Ingram Micro Inc. Applications will be accepted from August 1st to September 30th, 2019. The partnership of Microsoft for Startups and Ingram Micro’s Cloud Marketplace creates the largest competition search for B2B companies in the world.
“Finding new routes to market for amazing, never-before-seen technologies benefits the entire channel ecosystem,” said Ingram Micro Cloud’s executive vice president, Nimesh Davé in a press statement. “Teaming with Microsoft affords us amazing scale and resources. In turn, we are extending these benefits to our Comet Competition applicants, giving these startups the opportunity to share their ideas with a global audience.”
The startup competition is made up of several smaller startup competitions across five different continents, selecting 15 finalists per region and awarding the top three of them with $50,000 in-kind go-to-market funding. The winners in each region receive $100,000 in-kind go-to-market funding, and compete against the other regional winners for the $1,000,000 grand prize.
In order to apply, each technology startup must be generating $10 million in revenue at most over the last year, and should be positioned to leave a lasting impact on their industry. The contest is otherwise open to any B2B technology startup meeting those requirements, especially fintech, IoT, collaboration tech, retail tech, manufacturing tech, middleware, cybersecurity, and infrastructure/IaaS management startups.
