HeroX

HeroX, the for-profit spin-off of the XPRIZE, is building an online platform for incentive competitions as a means for crowdsourcing complex solutions to the challenges facing corporations, governments, non-profits and individuals.

The XPRIZE Foundation, a non-profit organization led by Peter Diamandis, has for years been the leader in large scale multi-million dollar incentive competitions, including the $30M Google Lunar Prize, $10M Qualcomm Tricorder Prize, $15M Global Learning Prize and the $10M Ansari XPRIZE (which privatized space travel). However, the XPRIZE isn’t designed to service the needs of HeroX’s target market, so Peter and Emily Fowler (who at the time was Director of Strategic Initiatives and Prize Development at XPRIZE) decided to start HeroX in 2013. They were joined by Christian Cotichini (CEO) and Nadav Wilf (Chief Possibility Officer) – serial entrepreneurs with experience founding, building and successfully exiting startups and high growth technology companies.

There is $435 billion in R&D spending and $290 billion in charitable giving each year in the US alone. Rather than using these large budgets to hire or donate to one person or team, HeroX enables organizations to spur innovation and achieve their strategic objectives by launching an incentivized challenge.

These competitions offer a valuable form of leverage to sponsors, with participants often spending 10x or more of the prize amount in aggregate to solve the problem, and the sponsor only pays if the desired result is achieved (and within the desired timeframe). Moreover, the power of the crowd amplifies the amount of time, resources and expertise dedicated to a problem, and research shows it results in more rapid and more innovative solutions.

Fueled by the proliferation of internet use, mobile devices and online communities, there has been a significant recent surge in organizations utilizing prize competitions as the value of this technique is becoming more apparent and well-known. However, the majority of organizations today do not incorporate incentive prizes as part of their strategy due to a lack of awareness, expertise and resources. HeroX is capitalizing on this trend by providing a centralized platform solution for these competitions and is positioned to capture a large share of the existing incentive competition market as well as to be an enabling force in the rapid expansion of the industry.

HeroX leverages its expertise to plan, implement and market challenges to ensure they produce the desired result. HeroX charges its clients a platform fee (10% of the prize value) in addition to offering professional services such as challenge design and marketing solutions for an additional fee. HeroX already has 14 prizes that have launched or are in development, from sponsors such as the Rockefeller Foundation, Smart Tech Foundation and P&G.

HeroX recently closed contracts on 2 new $1 million challenges, bringing the aggregate prize value to $7 million and growing. HeroX also earned a place as one of ten awardees for the NASA Open Innovation Service Contract. Current competitions include a $1 million prize for smart gun technology that has attracted over 250 competitors and that is now being led by a 17-year-old innovator whose video has gotten over 11 million views.

HeroX officially emerged from beta in March 2015 and has seen a 400% increase in qualified leads over the past 5 months; it currently has over $12 million in prizes in the pipeline. HeroX achieved $356,700 in revenues for 2014 and projects revenues to exceed $1 million in 2015.

Team Background

Dr. Peter Diamandis - Co-Founder & Director

Peter is an international pioneer in the fields of innovation, incentive competitions and commercial space. In 2014 he was named one of “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” by Fortune Magazine.

In addition to his position as Chairman and CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, Peter is also the Co-Founder and Vice-Chairman of Human Longevity, a genomics and cell therapy-based diagnostic and therapeutic company focused on extending the healthy human lifespan. He is also the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that studies exponentially growing technologies, their ability to transform industries and solve humanity’s grand challenges.

In the field of commercial space, Peter is Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Planetary Resources, a company designing spacecraft to enable the detection and mining of asteroid for precious materials. Peter’s mission is to open the space frontier for humanity.

Peter earned a BS in Molecular Genetics and an MS in Aerospace Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is also the New York Times Bestselling author of “Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.”

Emily Fowler - Co-Founder & COO

Emily has over ten years of experience creating and leading impactful "skunkworks" strategy projects for brand consultancies, Fortune500 companies and non-profits.

Prior to founding HeroX, Emily was the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Prize Development at the XPRIZE Foundation, an organization dedicated to developing radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity through incentive prize competitions. During her time at XPRIZE, she directed the design of competitions across a multitude of topic areas and, from there, co-created the HeroX concept with Peter Diamandis.

Previously, Emily was a Marketing Communications Strategist, working with clients such as SC Johnson, Unilever, Bayer Healthcare, Nissan, Adidas, Red Bull, Cirque du Soleil and Kraft.

Emily has been a guest speaker by invitation of the United States Department of State, as well as the Canadian Federal Government. She was also highlighted as a notable tech entrepreneur in Vivek Wadhwa’s book “Innovating Women,” released in September 2014.

Emily holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University.

Christian Cotichini - Co-Founder & CEO

Christian has over 20 years of experience leading startup and high growth technology companies.

Prior to founding HeroX, Christian was the Founder and CEO of MAKE Technologies, which provided an innovative platform for the analysis, transformation and re-architecture of its clients’ legacy software systems. While remaining on the Board of MAKE (later sold to Dell in early 2012), Christian left in 2009 to join Subserveo as the CTO and EVP of Operations. Subserveo was a SaaS company that targeted the post-2008 compliance and regulatory challenges facing the banking sector, before it was acquired by DST Systems in 2011.

Prior to founding MAKE, Christian held positions as Software Architect with Imediat Digital, a Web Development company which was sold in 1999, and as VP of Technology Operations at Autodebit Systems, where he directed the creation and launch of their flagship B2B portal product – ebill.

In 1994, Christian founded Absolute Software, a leader in computer security and asset management that went public in 2000. Christian began his career in IT sales and then transitioned into technology management with Hughes Aircraft.

Christian is an active angel investor and mentors startup entrepreneurs.

Co-Investors

City Light Capital

Venture fund seeking market-based solutions to major social problems. It invests in early stage, for-profit businesses that create solutions in Safety and Security, Education & Media and Energy & the Environment.

Naveen Jain

Founder of Intelius, Moon Express, inome, World Innovation Institute, TalentWise and Infospace

Jeff Shames

Executive in Residence at MIT, XPRIZE Foundation Board Member, Retired Chairman and CEO of MFS Investment Management

Gil Elbaz

CEO & Founder of Factual, XPRIZE Foundation Board Member, Founding Partner of TenOneTen Ventures