Meet the ten finalists for the Cape Town Entrepreneurial Competition

Last night, at LaunchCapeTown‘s TechBash opening ceremony, the ten finalists for the Cape Town Entrepreneurial Competition (CTEC) were announced. LaunchCapeTown is a five day event that brings together startups, entrepreneurs, and digital tastemakers.

Five finalists were announced for two groups. The “idea stage” group — businesses that are not trading yet — and the “growth stage” group — businesses that have been trading for less than two years or that have been trading for more than two years, with a new product or service or that need capital for expansion.

The first round of the competition kicked off today and saw each team presenting their elevator pitches to a group of judges and mentors. The teams are currently undergoing mentoring from the likes of AOL Europe COO Nimeshh Patel and serial entrepreneur Lane Becker, co-founder of Get Satisfaction. Teams will utilise the feedback and mentoring sessions happening today, to present their final pitches to the judges and the press tomorrow.

The three winning teams will receive premium prize packages containing cash, valuable tech-related services and for the Growth track winners, the added benefit of potentially competing in the Global Entrepreneurship Competition in Barcelona during June 2012.

Idea stage teams

Home Bug‘s device for your home can monitor and control electricity usage, irrigation, hot water, lighting as well as your pool’s pump and lights.

Moola4U allows an under-employed individual to register their skills. Moola4U’s scoring algorithms matches the informal worker to a job provider with a need. As the informal worker’s reputation score increases, they will be able to access advanced features such as a resume builder, notifications, search rankings and crowd-source based financing.

Zoe-X provides online brain training software. In 15 minutest a day, it aims to help you think faster, remember more, remain focused, adapt to new situations and be creative.

Ching wants to help merchants accept debit and credit card payments through their mobile phones. Ching customers register their debit/credit card details with Ching and can then pay at participating merchants by simply entering their telephone number and a PIN.

Frelio allows clients to hire independent freelance workers and use online collaboration tools to manage remote teams and projects.

Growth stage teams

Krit is a customer feedback system. It aims to resolve issues discreetly by encouraging customers to send feedback through a mobile application directly to businesses.

Quicket is a ticketing service that allows you to sell tickets for your event and promote it online. Create an event page, promote it through social channels and collect payment for tickets online. The solution also provides venue access control with rentable ticket barcode scanners.

Snapplify offers a service to authors and publishers to transform PDFs into company branded mobile applications. The applications then become available to download from the App Store. Multiple publications can be placed in a single app making it a perfect tool for magazines, newspapers and books.

Triggerfish Triggerfish is a studio of professional artists who specialize in bringing fresh, inventive and efficient techniques into world-class performance animation.

Umuntu Media puts hyper-local content online. Umuntu connects people who want to know what’s going on in their area through portal web sites.