This is a guest post in 2 parts by Misae Richwoods, a previous Golden Web Award winnerhelps start ups, SMEs and independent professionals market themselves via MRMedia Group. This is part 2.

At TechCrunch Xmas 2009, after all the visionary talks, as discussed in part 1, it was time for some pitching of companies, and even there  a trend emerged: Women are Pitching their Companies more and more!

AffectLabs, Worldeka, Techfluff, Audiobook, Globrix and...

A lot of female internet heroes were present, such as Affect Labs, co-founded by Jennie Lees, who pitched at The Next Women’s Darwinian Business event in October. She represents one of a growing number of start ups adding colour and depth to the eco-system. Karen Barber, who also pitched at The NextWomen's event earlier, was as well put together as Gok Wan show while Mark Rock spoke of how Audioboo fitted in. Sophie Cox of WorldEka, Hermione Way of Techfluff.tv, Emily Marchant of The Funding Partnership and Poppy Dinsey of Globrix all brought the glamour stakes a little higher with some beautiful outfits, yet the award for Queen of Fashion for the night had to be graced upon Helen Brown who brought out a stunning little number that quite simple was nothing other than CatwalkGenius.com!

CatwalkGenius, crowd funding for fashion designers

Helen’s pitch showcased her crowd funding innovation to help budding designers and style hungry fashionistas come together and create new fashion. In a nutshell, fashionistas back up and coming designers by buying shares in the production of new designs. When enough shares are sold to make production viable, the designer creates the garment and the backer gets a percentage of all sales relative to the number of shares in it they own.

With the investment starting at just £11, it’s inclusive enough to cater for all whether you’re Miss Prada Purse or New Look. You pay through PayPal and should the designer fail to attract sufficient funding to make that garment a reality then your money gets returned or you can invest it into another project. I’ll certainly be looking forward to seeing CatwalkGenius.com’s events for new designers when I’m at London Fashion Week next year.

By spreading the cost of production to all interested parties, CatwalkGenius solves the funding issue that holds so many talented young designers from bringing us gorgeous and unique new clothes. Couple that with its retail platform and the promise of what might be a bright future lingers on like brush of cashmere against the skin. A great video of Catwalkgenius was made by IntrudersTV at the Astia event.

Thanks to

Thanks go to Mike Butcher and the team at Tech Crunch

– who of course would be pulling their hair out if it wasn’t for those wonderful women, Rassami Hokljungberg and Petra Johansson, who kept the show running. Thanks also to Barry Vitou and Danvers Baillieu, of Bootlaw.com, for laying on such quality hospitality for everyone and Sun Start Up Essentials, UKTI and the Press Association for helping make the event happen together with everyone who came along and made the event so vibrant. Happy Xmas all!