Who won Ingram's million-dollar ISV competition?

CRN last week had the privilege of helping to judge Ingram Micro’s COMET Competition – an effort to find an independent software vendors to represent Australia and New Zealand at a global event offering a US$1m cash prize. Three other runners-up receive substantial go-t0-market asssistance from Ingram Micro.

WINNER:  CRN IMPACT-award-winning ISV Cogniss believes that apps designed to change behaviour are in demand, so has created tools that make it possible to develop and deploy them quickly. The company works with neuroscientists to ensure its software will make a human connection. Judges approved of strong early wins with government clients. 

RUNNER UP: MeldCX lives at the intersection of mobile device management and application kiosks, offering a package that lets users develop, deploy and manage software. The company targets ISVs, digital agencies and enterprise users.

RUNNER UP: PoweredLocal believes that bricks and mortar retailers deserve the same wealth of data enjoyed by e-tailers, so has integrated with top WiFi equipment vendors to provide a stream of information about opted-in shoppers. The company already works with big retail brands. Judges saw potential to enter adjacent markets.

RUNNER UP: Zetaris aims to ease the chore of grooming data for use by analytics applications. The company has therefore created tools that let applications act on data no matter where it resides. With a management team that’s succeeded with other enterprise software plays, Zetaris had judges exploring how the Ingram Micro cloud marketplace would help it reach more markets.

AgUnity provides farmers and small businesses in developing nations with a rugged smartphone that connects them to marketplaces and banking services. It also offers a platform for organisations that deliver services in pursuit of United Nations sustainable development goals, including blockchain technology that makes it possible to track produce from farmers to help with compliance. Judges admired its vision and strong early success. 

The Block Ledger is a fintech startup that aims to provide a single source of truth to verify any transaction, with the aim of accelerating the adoption of electronic invoicing. By doing so, it hopes to make invoice financing (factoring) more accessible, then see what other services it can facilitate.  

COREIot offers both sensors and a platform to manage them, and promises a plug and play IoT experience for industrial users. Judges noted the slick presentation and packaging of its products, and its considerable ambition. 

Crossware believes that email signatures aren’t just a useful way to append your contact details to every message: they’re also a marketing opportunity and a compliance tool. So it has automated email signature creation and distribution, hooking into Microsoft mail platforms and drawing info from Active Directory to ensure accuracy. Judges liked the dual use cases.

Curious Thing has created an AI that automates job interviews by having a bot speak to candidates over the phone. The company feels that too many CVs are discarded after cursory human inspection, and suggests an AI-driven phone interview is a better and less-likely-to-be-unconsciously biased filtering mechanism than other methods for filtering job applications. Judges could not help but be impressed by the precise questioning the company’s AI employed in a mock interview with a software developer.

Geo’s workforce management suite assigns staff to jobs, tracks them to completion and integrates with the likes of Xero to ensure that service providers get paid. Judges explored the company’s geographic growth prospects and moves into adjacent industries.

Quintessence Labs taps the brain-bending theories of quantum physics to create encryption keys that are harder to crack than those generated with conventional random number generators. It then distributes those keys using technology that alerts users to any attempt to observe the keys, a sign that the key should not be trusted. Judges felt the company’s advanced technology creates fascinating commercial possibilities.

Robonomics AI has an ambition to advance robotic process automation by creating a community of AI developers that can rapidly create minimal viable products. Already working across Australia and India and with University alliances in place, judges felt many building blocks for success are in place.