Boy, do we wish we could have been in the car when this winning pitch was delivered.
Uber and Technical.ly teamed up to bring UberPITCH to Philadelphia during Philly Tech Week 2016 presented by Comcast. The on-demand event delivered potential investors to participating entrepreneurs through the Uber app. From the pitches that were heard, five finalists were selected to compete in a final pitch round before a panel of judges.
The grand prize? $10,000 in seed funding and an invitation to participate in Philly Tech Week 2017.
The winning pitch was from Siddarth Shah and Shashwata Narain, cofounders of Fermento. Shah and Narain rode with investor Isabelle Freidheim of MissionOG.

Info on the "Three MuskeBeers." (Image courtesy of Uber)
Info on the “Three MuskeBeers.” (Image courtesy of Uber)

The Penn-developed technology behind Fermento speeds up the fermentation process in beer production by up to nine times while maintaining alcohol quality and composition at an industrial scale. This, as you might imagine, could lead to substantial cost savings for big brewers.
The Fermento team, which also includes Alexander David, hails from the Wharton School and Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. The company’s “microfluidic fabrication technology” was developed in the lab of Penn professor David Issadore.
Shah and Narain are no strangers to successful pitches. Shah is the founder and CEO of two startups, in Dubai and India, in the financial services and ecommerce industries, respectively; Narain has worked in product development at a logistics startup in India.
Cheers to the Fermento team and to all of the participants who took a shot during this year’s UberPITCH!