Tom Tom Festival’s pitch night tugs at heartstrings and purse strings [Video]

Coffins constructed out of recycled coffee grounds, an artificial intelligence-powered stock trading platform built by a 14-year-old, a disposable cup that can detect date-rape drugs — the ingenuity of 11 aspiring entrepreneurs tugged on the heartstrings and purse strings of the hundreds gathered for Wednesday’s Crowdfunded Pitch Night.

Held in the Irving Theater inside the CODE Building on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, the pitch night kicked off the first night of the city’s annual Tom Tom Festival, a showcase of Charlottesville’s community of enterprising creatives, business leaders, advocates and activists. The pitch night provides a platform for a handful of local entrepreneurs to — in three minutes — win over the crowd and garner as many as possible votes from the audience, with each vote counting as a $10 donation to the startup. The night concluded with the announcement of the “top vote-getter” and grand prize winner, chosen by a panel …