On November 1st, the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT) kicked off its prestigious Capital Conference, known for linking entrepreneurial superstars and big-name venture capitalists.

The next day. the conference continued on to the highly-anticipated Lion’s Den pitch competition.

The Lion’s Den pitch competition began with a total of 45 different startups that were each given around 15 minutes to pitch their idea and answer questions about their company in front of a five judge panel, in hopes of advancing to the official Lions Den conference later in the day.

Of those 45 companies hoping to progress to the official pitch competition, only 3 startups were invited to present in the next round: Roundtrip, Statum Health and SocialLadder.

After presenting again, this time in front of both the judge panel and the conference audience, the two winners of the competition ended up being two startups working out of Philadelphia Media Network’s Project Liberty Incubator. Together, they were granted over $1 million by the judges. Statum Health was granted a total of $250,000 from three of the five investor-judges, while SocialLadder was granted a total of $800,000 by all 5 of the investor-judges – the largest amount that has ever been granted in the history of the Lion’s Den competition!

SocialLadder Co-founder Raavi Iqbal commented on how the recent victory will help propel the startup to where they want to be as a company, stating: “We’ve been in diligence with angel groups right now…This will help us move the diligence process faster.”

After the event, PACT CEO Dean Miller praised the companies who came to present, stating that he saw “great energy from the companies pitching at the event.” Miller followed furthered those comments, also explaining that he believes “the winning companies and their diverse founding teams are indicative of a promising, more diverse next generation of entrepreneurs.”