Friday, October 30, 2009

Highest Wind makes noise at Speed Venture Summit

By Mass High Tech staff

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Renewable energy startup Highest Wind LLC, of Newmarket, N.H., took home the top prize Wednesday at the Speed Venture Summit, held in Nashua, N.H., winning by a whistle on an audience “applause-o-meter.”

Co-hosted by the New Hampshire High Technology Council and the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center, the summit attracted 47 entrepreneurs and their startups who gave private pitches to potential investors, culminating in the public, five-finalist “pitch-off”. The five finalists included Highest Wind, EnerTrac Inc., Telling Stone Software, Boston Heart Lab Corp. and ColdStor Data Inc. More than 350 attendees made enough noise to award top honors to Highest Wind and runner-up honors to EnerTrac.

Highest Wind makes small-scale, on-site, wind-powered electricity generation technology to help power rural organizations with too little wind for wind turbines. EnerTrac makes remote-monitoring service, based on software as a service, to lower delivery costs for heating oil/propane companies.

The two companies won application hosting services from award sponsor ColoSpace, Inc. and Dell Mini Netbooks from award sponsor Dyn Inc.

The second-year Speed Venture Summit is set up as a speed-dating style event for fast-growth business and investors.