PACT held its annual Enterprise Awards IRL this week. Here’s who was honored

For the first time in about a year and a half, the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT) gathered tech and healthcare innovators from across the region for an in-person event to celebrate the org’s annual Enterprise Awards.

As vaccination rates rise in the region and COVID-19 case counts plummet, PACT gathered nearly 500 attendees on Tuesday, June 29, at Springfield Country Club in Delaware County, a day after the state lifted its mask mandate. The awards were honoring tech and life sciences innovators across the region for their hard work, innovation and growth in the region in the last year.

Investor and serial entrepreneur Josh Kopelman was honored with this year’s Legend Award. Kopelman is an investor, advisor to many tech companies and the founder of First Round Capital, which specializes in seed stage funding for startups. He started his career in the early 1990s while a Wharton School student, first cofounding a company called Infonautics, an early IT firm that was building as the very infrastructure for the web was still being developed. In June 2000, he sold Half.com to eBay for $390 million.

“Josh has consistently ranked in the top 20 of Forbes annual ‘Midas List’ of the top 100 tech investors,” PACT said in its initial announcement of the awards series.

PACT President Dean Miller told Technical.ly that careful consideration was used by the PACT team to plan an in-person event that followed the guidelines of both Pennsylvania and the CDC for safely gathering outside “in order to provide an opportunity for our PACT community to network and to celebrate Josh Kopelman, our Legend honoree.”

And for folks who wanted to watch from home or who didn’t yet feel safe gathering in a large group (like this reporter), PACT streamed a one-hour broadcast of the awards on Wednesday (watch here).

The move to have a hybrid in-person and virtual event is likely one we’ll see throughout the rest of the year, tourism and hospitality pros told us in June during a panel on how to plan for a safe gathering as the U.S. eases out of the pandemic.

“The last year and a half has been all about scenario planning,” Mike Shane, chief business officer of the Philadelphia Flyers and Wells Fargo Center, said during the panel. “When you’re doing that kind of detailed scenario planning, you really have to look critically at every single part of your business.”

PACT’s nearly 500 guests gathered outdoors on Tuesday and unvaccinated attendees were asked to produce a negative test result within three days of the event. The org partnered with Vybe Urgent Care for rapid testing opportunities and the org utilized tech for contactless check-in.

“It felt freeing. It felt euphoric. Absolutely amazing,” Miller said of being able to gather that many community members together for the event.

“PACT’s superpower is connectivity and the Enterprise Awards was the penultimate event of connectivity coming out of the pandemic,” he added.

And the 2021 Enterprise Award winners are…

• Life Sciences and Healthcare Startup of the Year: Envara Health, Inc.
• Tech Startup of the Year: Crossbeam
• Healthcare Innovator of the Year: NeuroFlow
• Investment Deal of the Year: David DeStefano and Vertex Inc.
• Life Sciences and Healthcare Emerging Company of the Year: Incyte
• Life Sciences and Healthcare CEO of the Year: Maria Maccecchini, founder and CEO of Annovis Bio
• Tech CEO of the Year: Larry Berran of iPipeline
• Tech Company of the Year: Suvoda
• Technology Emerging Company of the Year: Greenphire
• Legend Awardee: Josh Kopelman

Our Final Award is the Legend Award. We are thrilled to announce @joshk as the 2021 recipient! Congrats Josh. Thank you for all you do for the #Philly community.

Thanks to @cigniti and @GrantThornton for sponsoring the Legend Award. pic.twitter.com/u24QrYehuR

— Philadelphia Alliance for Capital & Technologies (@PhilaPACT) June 30, 2021

https://twitter.com/IntegriChain/status/1410205223398768641

Our team had an amazing time tonight at the 28th Annual Enterprise Award ceremony! Thank you @PhilaPACT for all that you do to drive innovation and highlight top businesses in Philadelphia. pic.twitter.com/3uPeycKG87

— Vertex Inc. (@vertexinc) June 30, 2021