Nova Lumos Ltd. won The Pitch contest for new start-ups at the "Globes"-Ernst & Young Journey Conference in Tel Aviv. Nova Lumos, founded by Nir Marom and Davidi Vortman, enables people in developing countries to generate their own electricity and pay for it with solar energy grids.
Nova Lumos' video presentation at The Pitch included a creative idea for sales promotion, and included a speech by Nigerian Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that mentioned the product.
Nova Lumos beat seven other finalists, and will win a mentor which will help at the IBM SmartCamp competition in Vienna in November. Four potential mentors were the judges at The Pitch: 888 Holding plc (LSE:888) founder and former CEO Gigi Levy, who is now an active angel investor; Canaan Partners general partner Maha Ibrahim; Hotbar founder Oren Dobronsky, who is now an angel investor; and IBM Sofware Group VP industry strategy & integration Thomas Inman. In addition to the judges, the audience of 700 participated in the vote via a special app.
As soon as The Pitch moderator Canaan Partners general partner Izhar Shay verified with Nova Lumos's representative that Okonjo-Iweala's participation was genuine, Gigi Levy volunteered to be the company's mentor. He unexpected faced competition from Inman, who said that the company was very suitable for IBM. Levy compromised with a proposal to co-mentor the company
Ernst & Young, Canaan Partners, and IBM backed this year's The Pitch.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 17, 2013
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