Two days after this month's long-anticipated MassChallenge awards ceremony, Boston area startups will get another shot at winning a bundle.
Six teams of entrepreneurs will dive into the first Boston Angel Shark Tank on Thursday for a bite at $100,000.
"We want to raise the level of interest in entrepreneurship and how many amazing companies are being built in Boston," said Dave Baltar, CEO of BzzAgent, the competition's creator and sponsor. "We also want to show that Boston investors can be just as fast and just as fun in making investment decisions as anywhere in the country."
Last week, the "sharks" — who include Nicole Stata of Boston Seed Capital, Fred Destin of Atlas Venture, Katie Rae of TechStars Boston, Pete Blacklow of GSN, Mike Troiano of Actifio and Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot — began whittling down the list of 72 nominees.
"The submissions we've received are all incredibly high quality," Stata said. "As an investor, you look for an opportunity or idea that disrupts a large marketplace that can support a new company, and an exceptional team."
After a stint working on making expensive, unmanned drones to do surveillance for the military, James Peverill co-founded Rotary Robotics, an engineering company dedicated to bringing aerial photography to the masses.
Its $250 drones weigh 1 pound, are small enough to fit in a backpack and are ideal for both hobbyists and farmers who want to monitor the health of their crops from the air, where it can be easier to detect diseases.
"The Shark Tank seemed like a good opportunity to get some marketing exposure and some funding," said Peverill, whose company was one of 125 MassChallenge finalists this year. "Plus, being in a competition like MassChallenge, you get a lot of practice pitching your company."
The Boston Angel Shark Tank, which will be held at 4 p.m. at the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge, is part of MITX's FutureM, which runs from Tuesday through Thursday, bringing together marketing and technology innovators to discuss the future of marketing.
