A young DC tech firm will compete for best startup in the world. Can it win with its plan to digitize store receipts?

Two-year-old Piper was selected as the only US startup to compete in next week’s 2014 Startup Nations International Summit's World Startup Competition in Seoul. The firm was nominated by 1776, the DC co-working space where it resides. Morgan Giddings, who comes from a sales and marketing background, launched Piper to solve the basic problem that consumers experience when they make a purchase: a three-foot long paper receipt that gets stuffed in a bag or thrown away. The five-person startup is developing a hosted point-of-sale tech platform for gathering and storing electronic receipts as a competitor to companies that offer to email receipts.

The technology captures a receipt in its original file and format and sends it to a linked cloud account. It can then be accessed from any device and linked directly to the consumer through their credit cards. The privately funded company partners with point-of-sale vendors that service merchants. Morgan, with some of her team, says it’s more convenient than email receipts because the consumer doesn’t have to give their email address at the point of sale and it works across any industry. Morgan says the product, which will be free to consumers, will be released late next year.