Recently, Innovation Works portfolio company ShowClix has been in the news quite a bit. First, founder Josh Dziabiak was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the top “30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs” for 2010. Here’s the brief video posted by Inc.:

Not long after, local Pittsburgh station KDKA did a story that not only features Josh and fellow founder Lynsie Camuso, but also the legendary cereal wall.

Most recently, Lynsie was interviewed by Mixergy and tells the ShowClix story and how it came to be the company it is today.

Congrats ShowClix on all the recent buzz!

Last week, members of the Pittsburgh startup community gathered at AlphaLab to participate in This Week in Startup’s second international pitch contest. Several pitches were presented before the actual show’s start at 2:00 PM Eastern, and Shoefitr was selected as the Pittsburgh representative.

At the end of the show Jason and Lon selected Shoefitr as the winner of the pitch contest! Here’s their pitch:

Also part 2 where they make the decision:

Congratulations Shoefitr on a great pitch and special thanks to John Ganotis from Deviceknit for organizing the event!

This week we welcome the next class of passionate entrepreneurs to AlphaLab for the start of the next session of our program. With that in mind, we take a look back at the most recent Demo Day with a few pictures of the event.

AlphaLab’s Demo Day is the opportunity for our “graduating” AlphaLab companies to present to an audience of investors, potential partners, and other key individuals from across the country. Attendance was standing-room only and the companies all did a great job with their presentations, continuing to raise the bar for the next AlphaLab class.

Innovation Works President and CEO Rich Lunak welcomes the audience with some opening remarks.

John Ganotis of DeviceKnit

Rodrigo Carvalho from Black Locus

Karen Anderson of 80 Degrees West Interior Design

Don Charlton, founder of The Resumator (far right)

The Shoefitr team (who also was featured on CNET.com’s Web Crawler Blog)

Derek Wahila, along with Regina Parundik and David Wells, from Photo Synesi

Startup Pittsburgh provides a round-up of the event on their blog as well.

(photo by Matt Bulvony / Pittsburgh Business Times)

iTwixie was recently profiled in an article that appeared on Portfolio.com, where founder Rebecca Gaynier tells the story of why she wanted to start iTwixie as well as the exciting things that are currently going on with the company.

Read more about this Winter/Spring 2009 AlphaLab alumnus over at portfolio.com!

Congratulations go out to our friends at ModCloth, who have secured the biggest raise in the Pittsburgh area so far in 2010 for the amount of $19.8 million.

CEO Eric Koger has spoken to AlphaLab participants on several occasions: sharing his experiences in starting the company as well as technical and business strategies that helped make them a leading online clothing destination.

You can find more information about the investment as well as Eric’s comments in the Pittsburgh Business Times article online.

ModCloth is an Innovation Works portfolio company and arguably the fastest growing startup in Pittsburgh – increasing its headcount by five times in two years to 138. The company sells retro and vintage clothing from independent designers.

Congratulations again to Eric, Susan, and the entire ModCloth team!

We’re in the home stretch of our application cycle for the Summer/Fall 2010 session of AlphaLab!

The deadline for submission is 11:59 PM Eastern on Thursday, April 8th.

To submit an application, visit our application overview page and click “apply now”. Once you create a login, you will be able to save your progress as well as download a PDF version of the application.

For any questions, please contact us at application (at) alphalab [dot] org!

Good luck!

We’re pleased to announce that we are opening another set of “office hours” for those interested in our Summer/Fall 2010 session of AlphaLab!

The response to the previously announced office hours has been terrific – so much so that they have already “sold out”!

Monday, April 5th from 12:30-2:00 PM is when we’re holding the additional office hours session here at AlphaLab. The meetings will be 20 minutes in length with members of the AlphaLab team to talk about your concept as well as ask questions and discuss the AlphaLab program.

While we encourage you to attend them in person, we also would like to welcome those who aren’t located in Pittsburgh to participate via conference call.

To register, please visit our registration website. Two slots are available for a given 20-minute time period. If a particular slot is grayed out, it has already been reserved. Please limit your team to one time slot.

Good luck!

As mentioned previously, we will be holding “office hours” that will allow applicants to meet the AlphaLab team and ask questions about AlphaLab and the application process. In order to ensure we spend some 1:1 time with each applicant, we are asking interested applicants to schedule a timeslot with us in advance. The “office hours” are current scheduled for the following dates/times:

• Thurs, February 25th  1:00-2:30 PM
• Friday, March 19th  9:00-10:30 AM
• Weds, March 31st  5:00-6:30 PM

We’ve provided a method to allow interested individuals to schedule themselves for a meeting slot via online reservation. Two slots for a given 20-minute time period exist. If a particular slot is grayed out, it has already been reserved. Please limit your team to one time slot.

For any issues or questions, you can e-mail application (at) alphalab [dot] org.

We’re happy to announce that we are now accepting applications for the Summer/Fall 2010 Session of AlphaLab which begins June 14th, 2010!

We’re also pleased to let you know that we will be holding three “office hour” sessions for individuals who would like to meet and discuss their concept with members of the AlphaLab team. The dates and times are as follows:

• Thurs, February 25th  1:00-2:30 PM
• Friday, March 19th  9:00-10:30 AM
• Weds, March 31st  5:00-6:30 PM

We’ll provide information on the structure / format and how to register soon. Check in with the blog and our Twitter account for more information.

In the meantime, create your ID and start filling out your application today! The deadline for application submission is 11:59 Eastern Time on Thursday, April 8th.

Good luck!

(Don Charlton, seated center)

Don Charlton, the creator of The Resumator, has written about some of his most important takeaways from participating in the AlphaLab program during the Winter/Spring 2009 cycle. We love having Don as a member of the AlphaLab family and The Resumator continues to grow, attracting customers including some high-profile Web companies such as Dropbox, Posterous, 37 Signals, and Evernote.