PicFic wins Make It In BK pitch competition

Visual publishing platform PicFic got a nice bump last week when it won the Make It In BK pitch competition held at Greenpoint’s A/D/O.

The Brooklyn startup won the $5,000 prize in addition to impressing some well-placed judges.

PicFic is made up of a team of writers and developers from MIT and Columbia University. Its mission is to “build a publishing platform that empowers writers and artists, bringing them directly to their readers.”

@JJ_Kasper of @BlueSeedCap supports @DowntownBklyn artists and entrepreneurs at @makeitinbk Arts+Tech Pitch Competition #DBP2017 pic.twitter.com/YV9XbqIJxs

— DraperVentureNetwork (@DraperNetwork) July 26, 2017

“We specialize in illustrated novels, particularly science fiction and fantasy stories, serialized by chapter each week. These novels are called ‘picfics,'” according to the company.

PicFic beat out four other Brooklyn startups working in the creative/art space: Artwrld, Audiodrops, Museum Vision and Stareable.

“We liked PicFic because we thought it was the one company trying to do something really disruptive — i.e., creating a new format for content,” one of the judges, J.J. Kasper, a founder and partner of Brooklyn venture fund Blue {Seed} Collective, told Technical.ly Brooklyn. “Illustrated books have long been and are a much bigger market in China, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries. And there are a bunch of startups there also capitalizing on the trend. We loved the big vision of PicFic to make this real in the US and hope the Make It in Brooklyn event is help along the way.”

Other judges at the competition were: De Angela Duff, the codirector of the Integrated Digital Media (IDM) program at NYU Tandon School of Engineering; Jon Vanhala, the managing director of Crossfade Partners; Joni Saylor, a design principal at IBM; and Catherine Levene, a cofounder at Cat Perkins.