More than 300 investors gathered to witness the proposals of nine Auckland-based tech start-ups who presented at the high-pressure Dragon’s Den-style event at Spark headquarters, each with eight minutes to state their case.

The Lightning Lab event, run by Wellington incubator Creative HQ in association with business incubator The Icehouse, is the first ever Demo Day in Auckland at Spark.

Lightning Lab has been mentoring the hopefuls over the last three months, condensing two years’ worth of business progress into the twelve weeks in preparation for the big event.

“The teams have all been involved in an intensive 12 week program, which kicked off in March,” says Auckland Lightning Lab programme organiser Mark MacLeod-Smith.

“The teams all came to us in varying states and we’ve worked with them all, providing them with $18k of pre-seed capital and advice, as well as mentoring from a series of world-class entrepreneurs and executives. All of that culminated last night when they pitched to a roomful of 300 plus investors.”

Image: The 2015 Lightning Lab Auckland Cohort 

Now that the pitching is over, the startups and the Lightning Lab team will be following up with all the interested investors, performing due diligence and finalising the investment deals.

“We’re encouraging these teams to look at this as the start-line,” says MacLeod-Smith. “These guys are here to build a great company and raising capital is just the start of that process, not the end.”

Video of all the 2015 Lightning Lab Demo Day Auckland pitches is below.

Wear it: Web app crowdsourcing clothing recommendations from girls for guys – Watch the pitch here.

Future Insight: An online tool for business analysts to find what they don’t know about their data in seconds – Watch the pitch here.

Preno: Property management application for smaller accommodation providers –? Watch the pitch here.

Tomato: An app that lets you ‘catch up’ with friends –? Watch the pitch here.

Roll: Super simple business intelligence and management software for SMEs –? Watch the pitch here.

Justly: Xero-style creation and management of testamentary docs: wills, power of attorney, advance medical directives –? Watch the pitch here.

Broker Better: Lead & referral generation for mortgage and insurance advisers –? Watch the pitch here.

Logicore: Value chain management software –? Watch the pitch here.

Designer Wardrobe: A platform to buy, sell and swap high-end second hand designer clothes –? Watch the pitch here.