In less than a week, Steve and the team will hit the road for our second Rise of the Rest Road Tour. While we put the final touches on what promises to be an epic five days, today we announced the finalists for the pitch competitions. Five winners (one from each city) will each earn a $100,000 investment from Steve and a trip to the 2015 SXSW® Startup Village® in Austin, TX for a special “Rise of the Rest” pitch competition, where they will vie for additional funding.

The finalists include:

• Madison: Beekeeper Data, CODAWorx, Fishidy, MobCraft, Murfie, Project Foundry, Stemina Biomarker and WholeTrees.
• Minneapolis:  75F, Apruve, GreenBook Network, Grumbl, Fresh Vine, Not on My Nickel, Retrace, HealthPreciouStatus, Rowbot Systems and Zipnosis.
• Des Moines: Igor, Jobsite Unite, Men’s Style Lab, Offspring, Pear Deck, Punctil, Re-App and VenueFox.
• Kansas City:  Briefcase, DayReel, FitBark, Keyzio, Leap.it, PayIt, ShotTracker, Sink Cycle, VeriQuik and Venture360.
• St. Louis: BetaVersity, Better Weekdays, Dabble, Eateria, Material Mix, MeterGenius, myEDmatch, Need/Want, SYNEK and Tunespeak.

And in case you missed it this morning, Steve joined the hosts of CNBC’s Squawk Box for an exclusive “Rise of the Rest” segment to foreshadow the upcoming tour and make the case for why more high-growth entrepreneurship in more places is an economic imperative for America.

Starting October 6^th, our second Rise of the Rest Road Tour will kick off in Madison,  then head to Minneapolis on October 7^th, Des Moines on October 8^th, Kansas City on October 9^th and conclude in St. Louis on October 10^th. In addition to meetings with business and civic leaders, we’ll be meeting with fast-growing startups, featuring live simulcast fireside chats with Steve and The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons, and hosting networking events where we will announce the winner of that day’s pitch competition. Partners joining the tour on the road include , UP Global, Google for Entrepreneurs, Salesforce.com, Engine, Startup Grind, SXSW® Startup Village® and Seed Here Studio.

 Follow the tour on Tumblr, on Twitter @RiseOfRest and Instagram.