ACTC at FreedomFest
We made the top 5 in the pitch competition!
The Pitch Competition
I (Mark Marasch) attended FreedomFest 2026 and pitched in the Principled Business Pitch Competition on behalf of the Anti-Censorship Technology Company.
The pitch competition began with the application of 75 founders. 32 were selected and 25 actually attended. The founders in the competition were fantastic people, with pitches across a wide variety of different businesses and business models. Many have companies that are already successful. All brought great pitches and the competition was strong. After being dropped in the second round, I rewrote our pitch and won the Wildcard round, earning ACTC a place on the main stage at FreedomFest. There, I presented in front of a panel of judges including Steve Forbes (as in Forbes) and John Mackey (as in Whole Foods) and hundreds of attendees.
The Final Five (shown here with Principled Business members Alexander McCobin and Michelle Bernier), in order of presentation, were:
Jose Padilla with LegalMente AI
Luis Hernandez with Obsequia
Shelley Gupta with BaKIT Box
Sanna Gaspard with Rubitection
And, of course, Mark Marasch with ACTC
ACTC didn’t make the top three, which were (1) Legalmente, (2) Rubitection, and (3) BaKIT Box. Congratulations to them and all that were at the event!
It was a fantastic group of founders and there were quite a few neat businesses! From a liberty perspective, Alex Yershov with Liberty Seeds would be especially relevant to ACTC followers. We’ll see about getting ACTC onto his platform, which spreads the ideas of liberty using cards showing libertarian heroes and facilitates some coordination across the liberty community.
Some other great competitors and people I really enjoyed talking with included:
Zachary Silva with Hoststreak Games
Kevin Babicz with Debloon Debate
David Craig with Sarcomatrix
Jay Cormier with Eyedaptic
Randy Tate with iFlip Investment
It was a worthwhile event and I made a number of connections outside of the pitch competition that may result in partnerships in the coming weeks.
This is only the beginning for ACTC, as we seek backing and collaboration in order to make censorship damn-near impossible!