Welcome to the 2011 Crunchies!
Here in Silicon Valley, there’s no question that there’s an enormous amount of talent everywhere you go and it’s this talent that’s going around and creating some of the most memorable and successful startups that the industry has ever seen. Just who’s talking about these guys? Well besides us at Bub.blicio.us (small plug), you’re going to hear about it from at least one of the most influential tech publications out there: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and GigaOm. Each year, these three competitive groups join together to celebrate all that is tech and have what some may consider to be the industry’s version of the Oscars: the Crunchies.
Last Tuesday, entrepreneurs, journalists, investors, VIPs, fanbois, and those passionate about tech gathered at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco to bear witness to some of the best of the best appear on stage, interested to hear who would win. Many were nominated for a chance to win from among several categories, including Best Technology Achievement, Best Social Application, Best Mobile App, Best Design, and more. But it wasn’t all just limited to the company and the technology. Other categories were created to celebrate the individuals themselves and not just the startup team, but the investors themselves.
Bobby Hammer performs!
The show opened up with a great opening monologue by Harris Whittel and then an outstanding performance by Bobby Hammer, son of MC Hammer, singing “Is The Name“ before we dive right into the show. And what a show there is…nearly everyone from the tech scene is here. From Path’s Dave Morin to Google’s Marissa Mayer and Don Dodge to Ron Conway and Mayor Ed Lee! A bevy of who’s who showed up for this once a year celebration of tech!
Path's Dave Morin accepts the award for Best Design
Some of the biggest wins of the night went to Google+ for their award for the Best Social Application what may have been an upset against Instagram (runner-up) and even Path 2.0. In the category of Best Mobile Application, Evernote dominated the field against worthy competitors Flipboard (runner-up), Square, and Pandora. In a tough-battle, in the Best Design category, Path 2.0 took the award over recent blossoming startup, Pinterest. And in what would be the start of a great night for Dropbox, the cloud-based storage service took home the award for (what else?) Best Cloud Service, besting their rival Box.
Heather Harde addresses the audience at the Crunchies
In-between the awards, we took a quick break to pay a much-deserved tribute to former TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde for all her hard work over the years with the tech publication. Legendary Angel Investor Ron Conway took the stage to give a fitting tribute of Ms. Harde and even a brief interview with her industry colleagues was shown…it was quite moving and the only time a standing ovation was bestowed.
Twitter & Square founder Jack Dorsey accepts Founder of the Year
In the individual awards category, the Angel of the Year award went to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman while the VC of the Year award went to Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz (who coincidentally also announced they’re raising another round of funding). The Founder of the Year award went to Jack Dorsey for both Square and Twitter denying Dropbox’s Drew Houston a chance at a third major Crunchie award. But it was LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner who took the win for CEO of the Year denying Spotify’s Daniel Ek.
Lastly, the most important awards were for the newbie startups and also for overall in the year. In 2011, the winner of the Best New Startup of 2011 went to Pinterest over Codecademy and the Best Overall Startup of 2011? Why that’s Drew Houston’s Dropbox returning the favor to Jack Dorsey’s Square.
And so there you have it…the winners of the 2011 Crunchies!
Oh, but wait, there’s more to fun to be had at the Crunchies…now we get to talk about the after-party, complete with photos!
Ben Parr, Twilio's Danielle Morrill, VentureBeat's Jolie O'Dell, and Aaron Gotwalt
8Tracks' Kate Imbach and Pandora's Tom Conrad ("Shit Silicon Valley Says")
Google's Don Dodge & TextPlus's Heather Meeker
Evernote's Phil Libin & TechCrunch's Susan Vander Kooi Hobbs
We won a Crunchie!
The legendary Ron Conway wheeling & dealing
Bessemer Venture Partner's Ethan Kurzweil claims a Crunchie!
This startup won a Crunchie!
Saleforce.com's Kevin Marks, Hubspot's Laura Fitton, & Seesmic's Liza Sperling
Shasta Ventures' Jacob Mullins & VentureBeat's Dylan Tweney
PandoDaily's Paul Carr & founder Sarah Lacy
Sarah Lane, CrunchFund's MG Seigler, TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld, Travis Kalanick, Menlo Venture's Shervin Pishevar, & Ana Pishevar
For more photos of the 2011 Crunchies, you can view them on my Flickr photostream by clicking here.
Photo Credit: All photos shown here are from Ken Yeung.
