Nvidia will hold a competition during its sixth annual GPU Technology Conference and invites young startups using GPUs to vie for a single $100,000 on-the-spot prize. The Early Stage Challenge will all take place in two hours at Nvidia's annual GPU Technology Conference, on March 17-20, in Silicon Valley.

Competitors will get four minutes to pitch their company to a panel of venture capitalists, and then another four minutes to handle questions. The VCs, together with the audience, immediately choose a winner that will receive a $100,000 check.

Last year’s winner, Map-D, is a San Francisco-based startup that uses a high-speed GPU in-memory database to bring interactivity to big data in vivid ways. It can, for example, process billions of tweets in just a few milliseconds and provide real-time visual analysis of the data.

Map-D isn’t the first startup to get a huge boost from participating at GTC. The list includes Oculus Rift (from our 2013 event), acquired by Facebook for $2 billion; Gaikai (2012 event), acquired by Sony for $380 million; and Natural Motion (our 2008 event), which was acquired by Zynga for $527 million.

To apply, complete the form here.