T8, WebFilings, Dwolla named Prometheus ‘companies of the year’

The Technology Association of Iowa (TAI), a nonprofit dedicated to growing Iowa’s tech industry, and its event co-sponsor, LWBJ Financial, hosted the seventh annual Prometheus Awards on Wednesday in front of audience of more than 600 tech business leaders, educators, and government officials who came together to highlight the industry’s progress. Themed “What a Wonderful…

 

Representatives of Dwolla (bottom left), T8 Webware (middle) and WebFilings pose for photos at the seventh annual Prometheus Awards.

The Technology Association of Iowa (TAI), a nonprofit dedicated to growing Iowa’s tech industry, and its event co-sponsor, LWBJ Financial, hosted the seventh annual Prometheus Awards on Wednesday in front of audience of more than 600 tech business leaders, educators and government officials who came together to highlight the industry’s progress.

Themed “What a Wonderful Award,” this year’s awards yielded a record amount of entries for tech companies and key innovators who would be worthy of the awards modeled like Greek-era torches.

WebFilings, Dwolla and T8 Webware took top honors. Ames-based WebFilings was named the Software Company of the Year (Large/Enterprise) and the Technology Company of the Year (Large/Enterprise), and Des Moines-based Dwolla earned recognition as the Technology Company of the Year (Small/Medium). Both the companies brought large teams on stage for their acceptance speeches. Cedar Falls-based T8 Webware was named Software Company of the Year (Small/Medium)

The Best Startup of the Year award went to Iowa City-based Cyber-Anatomy Corporation, which also won the award for Innovation in Teaching. StartupCity Des Moines was presented the Investing in Iowa award.

SPN’s own Geoff Wood was on hand to present the award for the student innovation category to Iowa City-based Stackd.

 

Words from the winners

Following the awards ceremony, Silicon Prairie News spoke with three of the award winners.

WebFilings

Software Company of the Year (Large/Enterprise) and Technology Company of the Year (Large/Enterprise)

Matt Rizai, CEO: “Upcoming, we have a lot of growth, new products, and perhaps new markets that we are going to get into. There’s a lot of work ahead of us.”

 

 

 

Dwolla

Technology Company of the Year (Small/Medium)

Ben Milne, CEO: “We’re going through an exploratory phase about what markets we go into next. By and large, we’re focused on our goals right now, that’s accelerating our options and usage inside the United States. We’re looking for the right, really smart and talented people to work with, and we think they’re right here (in Iowa). The market in the U.S. is like a 32 trillion dollar annual market. There are not bigger markets. The market opportunity inside the US is so big that we would be making a mistake by going into international markets too early.”

Cyber-Anatomy

Best Startup of the Year and Innovation in Teaching

Rich Lineback, president: “We deliver our services over the internet. Our product is interactive science software. For us, it’s very gratifying to win this award (Best Startup of the Year Award). As a startup, you put a lot of time and effort into getting the company going, and trying to make sure things are up and running. To have other people recognize that is wonderful. For us, it really helps to have awareness of what we’re doing in the state (of Iowa).”

 

The 2012 Prometheus Award winners

Stephen Ausman and Frederick Galoso of Stackd, winner of the Student Innovation of the Year awards.

Software Company of the Year (Small/Medium) – T8 Webware (Cedar Falls)

Software Company of the Year (Large/Enterprise) – Webfilings (Ames)

IT Service Provider of the Year – Ovation Networks, Inc. (Cedar Rapids)

Clean Technology Company of the Year – Submittal Exchange (Des Moines)

Best User of Technology – Ovation Networks, Inc. (Cedar Rapids)

Innovation in Teaching – Cyber-Anatomy Corp (Iowa City)

CIO/CTO/CSO of the Year – Brad Rasmussen (GeoLearning)

CEO of the Year – Charles Link (NewLink Genetics) (Ames)

Student Innovation of the Year – Stackd (Iowa City)

Break Out Award – NewLink Genetics (Ames)

Outstanding Startup Company of the Year – Cyber-Anatomy Corp (Iowa City)

Top Growth Company of the Year – Genova Technologies (Cedar Rapids)

Life Sciences Company of the Year – Harrisvaccines, Inc. (Ames)

Technology Company of the Year (Small/Medium) – Dwolla (Des Moines)

Technology Company of the Year (Large/Enterprise) – Webfilings (Ames)

Investing in Iowa – StartupCity Des Moines and Farm Bureau Federation

Tej Dhawan, Becky Mollenkamp and Christian Renaud of StartupCity Des Moines, winner of the Investing in Iowa award.

 

For more on the award winners, see the Technology Association of Iowa’s press release: “2012 Prometheus Award Winners, Recognizing the State’s High-Tech Leaders“.

For more on the Technology Association of Iowa, see our post: “Q&A: TAI’s Leann Jacobsen on Iowa’s inaugural ‘TriTECHta’ “.

 

Credits: Photos courtesy of the Technology Association of Iowa. Photo of Matt Rizai by Adrienne Baughman.

Disclosure: Silicon Prairie News is a media sponsor of the Prometheus Awards

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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