Five local entrepreneurs to pitch their startups for a chance to win $5,000 in cash prize
St. Pete Pitch Night returns live on May 17, 2022 and features startup businesses ready to make an impact in St. Pete and beyond. The event celebrates the local entrepreneurial community while cheering on a friendly competition and community connections.
St. Pete Pitch Night focuses on showcasing, elevating and seeding community-based businesses. The Greenhouse is proud to partner again with Regions Bank to bring back the first round of St. Pete Pitch Night 2022, where five local start-ups can win $5,000 in funding to accelerate their business growth. Join The Greenhouse at 3 Daughters Brewing to cheer on the following five local entrepreneur participants that were selected to pitch: Fungible Chocolates, MetArena, AppyHour® Inc., Shamrck, and Swingin Stix: A Matchmaking App for Golfers
{When}: May 17, 2022, 5:30 – 7:30 PM
{Where}: 3 Daughters Brewing
222 22nd St S, Saint Petersburg, FL 33712
MEET THE PITCHES
MARCUS HOWARD, FOUNDER/CEO
MetArena
Marcus Howard, MetArena’s CEO, is a serial entrepreneur, college professor, and international startup advisor. His parents got him Super Mario Bros. 3 for Christmas when he was 6, which inspired his love of technology. Today, he has 15 years of software development and entrepreneurship experience. Marcus is also a globally-recognized thought leader in the video game and blockchain industries; LinkedIn recently selected him as one of its top voices for sports. Marcus’ new book “Innovate Gaming & Esports” has been unanimously enjoyed by gamers, parents, educators, investors, and business leaders on 6 of the world’s 7 continents (the 7th, Antarctica, is coming soon).
SCOTT REVEY, FOUNDER
Swingin’ Stix: A Matchmaking App for Golfers
Scott Revey is a driven and inquisitive entrepreneur with an acute, gnawing desire to create meaningful value in the lives of his users. Born in Oakland, CA, and raised in the other bay area of Northern California, he has seen firsthand the powerful effect a supportive local tech and entrepreneurial community can have on emerging businesses and he is now proud to call St Pete home.
NEIL JIRELE
AppyHour
As a lifelong technology aficionado, Neil Jirele has always had a fascination with creating technology-driven user experiences and businesses. While pursuing his bachelor’s degree in finance and Spanish at the University of Iowa, he spent a summer interning at a startup accelerator in Madrid, Spain where his education and tech experience intertwined and inspired the founding of his first company. After earning his degree, Neil spent the beginning of his career in the liquor distribution industry where he recognized a massive opportunity to take his early enterprise’s initial vision to a much larger scale and founded AppyHour® Inc.
MARIA GARCES, OWNER/FOUNDER
Fungible Chocolates
Fungible Chocolates was founded by Maria Paula Garces, a Colombian-Canadian entrepreneur that began her career in the startup world when she was 18. Maria has always had a passion for building impactful businesses and coming up with creative ideas. Fungible Chocolates was born from her love for dark chocolate and her admiration for the healing power of mushrooms. Maria created Fungible Chocolates as a way to entice people to venture into and explore the mysterious and incredible world of fungi. What better way to get people acquainted with different mushrooms that benefit their health than through delicious and nutritious chocolate they can feel great about? She believes that mushrooms will help us heal and better understand our bodies, our environment, and perhaps even our souls.
SHEFFIE ROBINSON, FOUNDER/CEO
Shamrck
Sheffie Robinson is a serial entrepreneur, software engineer, and clinical sociologist that specializes in solving racial and gender equities with technology. She is currently the CEO of Shamrck, an artificial intelligence platform designed to solve the education to industry gap by upskilling high school students and connecting them with businesses for freelance and internship opportunities. She has over 20 years of experience as a software engineer and over 3 years in clinical sociology with an emphasis in organizational communication and human resources. She is a second-time founder, her first company being a fintech product that brought banking services to virtual currencies in metaverses back in 2006.
Sheffie is a graduate of Thomas Edison State University with a degree in Sociology obtained her MBA from Georgia Southern University. Sheffie has been named the Top 10 under 40 and a Top CEO by the Mississippi Business Journal in 2021 as well as named Cloud Platform for the Year in 2021 by Women in Cloud and M12, Microsoft Venture Capital Fund. She is also a recent recipient of the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund and Beyonce’s BeyGOOD Foundation Impact Fund in 2020. The Augusta, Georgia native currently residing in the Tampa Bay area is a military spouse and mother of 3 that maintains a link to her community in being representation for girls of color in STEM and helping other founders of color and women succeed.