Year’s Hottest Names in Tech Emerge Triumphant at Sixth Annual Crunchies Awards

Airbnb, Google Maps and Github among winners across 20 categories recognizing tech startups, Web and tech innovations

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Celebrating the technology industry’s key players and innovations in style, the sixth annual Crunchies Awards honored winners across 20 categories from Best New Startup to Founder of the Year last night.

“In this industry, we all move forward at a break-neck pace, all of the time”

Co-hosted by TechCrunch and partners GigaOM and VentureBeat and emceed by actor and comedian John Oliver, the annual ceremony recognized top tech industry accomplishments of 2012. San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall was a packed house of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, acknowledging the achievements of peers during the show and into the industry’s best after party.

“In this industry, we all move forward at a break-neck pace, all of the time,” said Ned Desmond, chief operating officer of TechCrunch. “At the Crunchies, we take an evening to look back at tech’s remarkable victories, and celebrate them accordingly.”

Chosen by public voting, this year’s winners included Fab, Reddit, Pinterest and Mark Zuckerberg. Full list of winners include:

Best Technology Achievement
Mars Curiosity (Winner)
Google Glass (Runner Up)

Best Collaborative Consumption Service
Airbnb (Winner)
Uber (Runner Up)

Best E-Commerce Application
Fab (Winner)
Karma/Facebook Gifts (Runner Up)

Best Mobile Application
Google Maps (Winner)
Evernote (Runner Up)

Fastest Rising Startup
Snapchat (Winner)
Stripe (Runner Up)

Best Content Discovery Application
Pinterest (Winner)
Flipboard (Runner Up)

Best Design
Paper by Fifty Three (Winner)
Square (Runner Up)

Best Bootstrapped Startup
Techmeme (Winner)
Instapaper (Runner Up)

Sexiest Enterprise Startup
Box (Winner)
Cloudera (Runner Up)

Best International Startup
Soundcloud (Winner)
Spotify (Runner Up)

Best Education Startup
Codecademy (Winner)
Coursera (Runner Up)

Best Hardware Startup
Makerbot (Winner)
Raspberry Pi (Runner Up)

Best Time Sink
Buzzfeed (Winner)
Letterpress (Runner Up)

Biggest Social Impact
Reddit (Winner)
Indiegogo (Runner Up)

Angel of the Year
Chris Dixon (Winner)
Paul Graham (Runner Up)

VC of the Year
Peter Thiel (Winner)
Jim Goetz (Runner Up)

Founder of the Year
Kevin Systrom (Winner)
Elon Musk (Runner Up)

CEO of the Year
Mark Zuckerberg (Winner)
Larry Page (Runner Up)

Best New Startup of 2012
Coursera (Winner)
Lyft (Runner Up)

Best Overall Startup of 2012
Github (Winner)
Palantir (Runner Up)

ABOUT TECHCRUNCH
TechCrunch is a leading technology media property, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products and breaking tech news. The TechCrunch community includes more than two million friends and followers on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and other social media.

ABOUT THE CRUNCHIES
The Crunchies (http://techcrunch.com/events/crunchies-2012/), founded by TechCrunch and co-hosted by GigaOm and VentureBeat, honor the most deserving startups, founders and investors across 20 categories from Best New Startup to Founder of the Year to Sexiest Enterprise Startup. Each year, community luminaries come together to celebrate a new year in tech with an award ceremony and after party.