After helping start more than 100 companies now worth over $1 billion combined, the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama (EDPA) wrapped up the second cycle of their 2023 Alabama Launchpad competition last night.

The 17-year-old business competition added two more startups to the winner’s circle: Birmingham based employment app Croux, who were awarded $50,000 and Auburn based biotech company VivoSphere, LLC, who were awarded $25,000.

Each year since 2006 the EDPA has run three cycles of the Alabama Launchpad competition, where the state’s best and brightest entrepreneurs can compete for a chance to win a combined $75,000 in funding.

The competition is separated into two different divisions: companies that are in the concept stage and companies that are in the seed stage, meaning they have a newly established business and are looking for funding to grow it further.

One winning company from the concept stage division is awarded $25,000 and one company in the seed stage division is awarded $50,000 at the Launchpad finale. The competition begins when budding companies are selected from an application pool by a panel of industry experts. They are then coached on how to improve their business ideas before they move on to the finale where they first pitch it to a panel of judges behind closed doors and then finally present a trimmed down 90-second pitch to a live audience according to competition rules.