AUSTIN, Texas, August 15, 2024—Vista Equity Partners (“Vista”), a leading global investment firm focused exclusively on enterprise software, data and technology-enabled businesses, today announced the winners of its 7th Annual Global Hackathon. The portfolio-wide business innovation competition provides an opportunity for developers and engineers to connect with peers and compete to advance enterprise software solutions with generative AI.
This year’s Hackathon was held at The University of the District of Columbia, marking the first time Vista’s annual competition was hosted by a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). The event featured over 130 participants on 27 teams representing dozens of Vista portfolio companies and included participation from undergraduate and graduate students from 12 different HBCUs. These students joined individual portfolio company teams and worked to build innovative enterprise software solutions, providing hands-on experience to strengthen their knowledge and expertise.
“The ability to bring software developers and engineers together to innovate alongside one another is one of the greatest opportunities the Vista ecosystem offers,” said Robert F. Smith, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners. “By connecting with each other – people who are in their shoes and have experienced and solved similar challenges – we can help to expand knowledge across all of Vista’s more than 85 portfolio companies.”
Mr. Smith continued, “We were thrilled to once again welcome students from HBCUs to this year’s competition and are grateful to our hosts at the University of the District of Columbia for making it such a success. Integrating these talented students into our portfolio company teams fosters an atmosphere of innovation and creativity while providing them with invaluable hands-on experience and exposure to real-world challenges and solutions – all helping to pave the way for their future success in the tech industry.”
Vista is proud to congratulate the winners of this year’s global competition in the following categories:
Bonterra: Best Overall. Bonterra’s solution used Large Language Models (LLMs) to streamline the grant review process for funders, a major challenge in the grant making space. They used LLMs to score every grant application based on a variety of data – from the nonprofit’s IRS filings to the sentiment of their news mentions – resulting in a more efficient process and faster funding to nonprofits.
PowerSchool: Peer Choice Award. PowerSchool’s team created a generative AI tool that enables educators to develop engaging, immersive and effective instructional materials at scale, customized to each student’s skills, interests and learning needs.
StarRez: Highest Customer Value. The StarRez team engineered an automated image-to-process system for property managers and their residents. The advanced tool helps streamline room setup, inspections, move-in/out procedures and billing, enhancing efficiency and resident satisfaction.
BigTime Software: Best UI / UX. BigTime’s solution offers professional service firms instant insights into risks and opportunities for profitable service delivery by leveraging generative AI to surface critical insights, suggest actions, identify issues early and propose solutions that can be carried out by AI or a staff member.
Poppulo: Most Innovative Use of New Technology. Poppulo’s solution automatically generates communications tailored to employee demographics and preferences. By leveraging engagement data to make smart suggestions, it ensures the right message is delivered at the right time, through the most effective channels.
Avalara: Best Operational Efficiency. Avalara’s workflow tool automates business tasks by using a network of generative LLM agents. Each agent brings business-specific skills to perform research from approved corporate data sources and collaborate with other agents to execute complex workflows through a user-friendly interface.
All entries were reviewed by a panel of Vista value creation and product and technology experts. Submissions were judged based on innovation and originality, feasibility of productization and deployment, potential business impact, completeness of vision and clarity of presentation.
About Vista Equity Partners
Vista is a leading global investment firm with more than $100 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2024. The firm exclusively invests in enterprise software, data and technology-enabled organizations across private equity, permanent capital, credit and public equity strategies, bringing an approach that prioritizes creating enduring market value for the benefit of its global ecosystem of investors, companies, customers and employees. Vista’s investments are anchored by a sizable long-term capital base, experience in structuring technology-oriented transactions and proven, flexible management techniques that drive sustainable growth. Vista believes the transformative power of technology is the key to an even better future – a healthier planet, a smarter economy, a diverse and inclusive community and a broader path to prosperity. Further information is available at vistaequitypartners.com. Follow Vista on LinkedIn, @Vista Equity Partners, and on X, @Vista_Equity.
