Tech Trailblazers Awards unveil Amoo Venture Capital Advisory as emerging markets VC mentoring partner

Inaugural awards for enterprise tech startups announce BRICS specialist firm as exclusive VC mentoring partner for Emerging Markets Trailblazers 

LONDON, UK – August 31 2012 – The inaugural Tech Trailblazers Awards for enterprise tech startups today unveiled Amoo Venture Capital Advisory as the venture capital (VC) mentoring partner for the Emerging Markets Trailblazers category. The boutique advisory firm will work with the winners and runners-up in the emerging markets category.

Amoo's founder and MD, Nzube Ufodike, said: “Starting a business can be daunting – but with the right support, tools and planning, tech startups can launch their innovations into commercial success. Initiatives such as the Tech Trailblazers Awards are a key part of that support network. We are pleased to be an industry supporter and look forward to working with emerging markets trailblazers, who sometimes have many more hurdles to jump to bring their ventures to fruition.”

The founder of the Tech Trailblazers Awards, Rose Ross, commented:  “The insights from funding experts such as Amoo Venture Capital Advisory are valuable to all startups, but even more so for startups from emerging markets such as the BRICS region. Having access to Amoo’s specialist knowledge will be a great prize for our winners from the emerging markets.”

The Tech Trailblazers Awards represent the first independent initiative to recognize and reward enterprise technology startups in a global arena. Prizes include business-development products and services worth thousands of dollars, plus expert advice in the form of mentoring from VCs and major vendors’ CTO offices. In addition to emerging markets category, other award categories include: big data, cloud, infosecurity, mobile, networking, storage, sustainable IT and virtualization.

There is a heavily subsidized entry fee of just $50 for a standalone submission to the emerging markets category. Tech startups entering any other categories may also enter the emerging markets category free of charge. For more information, please consult the Tech Trailblazers Awards  website.

The judging panel includes the IT industry’s leading figures from around the world, giving little-known startups the opportunity to have their products and services reviewed by eminent influencers. Judges from the emerging markets include Mohit Agrawal, Founder and Editor of Telecom Circle (India);  Elise Huang, Partner at WestSummit Capital (China); Mark Hillary, CEO at IT Decisions and Huffington Post blogger (Brazil); Andrew Seldon, Editor of Hi-Tech Security Solutions, TechNews (South Africa); and Monica Zlotogorski, Editor of Inside Latin America (originally from Uruguay but now based in the US).

The prize fund is supported by sponsors and industry partners including MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, the Cloud Security Alliance, Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Computing, Prezi, Startup America, StartTau, TiE Silicon Valley, RealWire, Lissted, Launchpad Europe, Mynewsdesk, Wazoku, and ExecEvent.

Entry forms should be submitted before the final closing date of September 12th for consideration by the expert panel. For more information and to download an entry form, please visit www.techtrailblazers.com.

To join the Tech Trailblazers as a sponsor, please email innovate@techtrailblazers.com.

To be added to the mailing list to receive the latest updates, please email innovate@techtrailblazers.com.

For more information, please visit www.techtrailblazers.com or follow the Tech Trailblazers Awards on Twitter @techtrailblaze, #ttawards or on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/tech-trailblazers-awards.

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Notes to editors

Rose Ross, founder of the Tech Trailblazers Awards, and Amoo spokespeople are available to comment. Please contact Olivia Shannon at Omarketing for more information (contact details below).

Media Contacts

For Tech Trailblazers Awards

Olivia Shannon

Omarketing

UK: +44 (0)208 255 5225

US: +1 781 519 0275

olivia@omarketing.co.uk

www.twitter.com/Olivia_at_O

About Amoo

Amoo Venture Capital Advisory is a trailblazing boutique advisory firm. They support pre- and post-VC technology startups with strategic direction and business development. Their experience covers advisory and fund raising services for high potential tech companies in their second or third year of operation looking for growth capital.

They work with firms in the OECD and emerging markets. Their interest in the latter has grown with the size of the opportunity and we have worked with several emerging markets entrepreneurs looking to expand in their home markets and abroad. We are currently working with a Nigerian startup and are relishing the opportunity to do more work in these fast growing markets.

More information on Amoo at: www.amoo.co.uk  @amootweets

About the Tech Trailblazers Awards

www.techtrailblazers.com

Tech Trailblazers is a new concept in awards, designed explicitly for smaller businesses and startups that are less than five years old and at C-series funding or below. The awards have low barriers to entry and prizes that not only recognize startup innovation, but also proactively help startups grow their businesses with exclusive coaching, mentoring and development from VCs and leading CTOs as well as an estimated prize fund worth in excess of $1m. The awards seek to recognize true innovators in the following enterprise technology and other areas:

• Big Data Trailblazers
• Cloud Trailblazers
• Emerging Markets Trailblazers
• Mobile Technology Trailblazers
• Networking Trailblazers
• Security Trailblazers
• Storage Trailblazers
• Sustainable IT Trailblazers
• Virtualization Trailblazers

Entries close on September 12th at 11:59pm PT – register your interest by emailing us at innovate@techtrailblazers.com, following us on Twitter @Techtrailblaze or via the hashtag  #TTAwards, or on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/tech-trailblazers-awards,