Pitch in Berlin v3: Startups & The Winners
Pitch in Berlin is a pitch contest that we at HackFwd run in conjunction with our Build events in Berlin. Pitch in Berlin, already in v3, took place on Saturday. The following 12 startups from seven European countries presented their product to an audience of investors, press, tech experts and other startups from all over Europe. We received nearly 90 applications so just getting invited to pitch means that the startups mentioned here are doing something very interesting.
The judging panel included Sean Seton-Rogers from Profounders Capital, Daniel Gutenberg from VI Partners (and a HackFwd referrer), Jonathan Briggs from Hyper Island, Jean-Paul Schmetz from Cliqz and HackFwd board, Michael Jackson from Mangrove Capital and HackFwd board, and Lars Hinrichs, HackFwd CEO and founder.
Winners
The variation was great but the battle for the winners was tight as well. The winner of the popular vote was ScatchApp who got a deserved spontaneous applause after their live product demo on stage. While ScatchApp was also liked by the judges, the winner picked by the jury was Hike Social Apps who showed us great traction and great ambition in the pitch, covering all the questions and issues in a clear, engaging fashion. The runner-up from the jury selection was AppHub who also demoed their awesome product live, prompting more than a few people to sign up during the pitch.
All startups in Pitch in Berlin v3
Reporting and notification platform which aggregates data from cloud services, enabling businesses to analyze data across services, communicate and discuss results, and receive notifications in one central place.
Companies are increasingly utilizing cloud services. Data from these services is kept in isolated silos. AppHub gathers all of this data in one accessible place. Users will be able to monitor and analyze correlated data from various cloud services to share and discuss with co-workers. Notifications and alerts are gathered in one place - not isolated in email inboxes of different employees.
Babelverse (www.babelverse.com)
Babelverse is the first solution for real-time interpretation, powered by a global community of human interpreters.
It will enable people to benefit from on-the-spot interpretation, in any of the world’s spoken language. Skilled multilinguals and professional interpreters alike will be able to earn money for interpreting remotely. We are first targeting events and conferences, for both attendees and remote viewers, making any live-streamed video available in multiple languages, for people who would be unable to attend, let alone understand. We ran a proof of concept for this with the State of the Union speech by President Obama in January. Our vision is a universe where everyone communicates seamlessly, while speaking their native language. We aim to do to language barriers what the aeroplane did to geographical barriers.
Buzzmart.com is a start-up online shopping marketplace that offers a people-centric approach to buying and selling online.
The website is based on the simple idea, “How to make buying & selling online fun, interactive and socially connected”. Buzzmart allows its users to list their items on the website free of charge without any fees or membership costs. Buzzmart’s aim is to create a shopping experience which is socially interactive by providing an array of tools to connect you with people you trust and build stronger connections with those you don’t. Building a safer, yet fun and interactive, online marketplace environment which does not nickel and dime you with fees is what makes Buzzmart unique for novice and experienced users alike.
Habbits live in the mobile application that manages your daily tasks. Although it may seem Habbits are made for women and kids, everybody adores them!
Application is simple to use, but rich with features. Tasks are defined by Habbit, name, action, repeating days and alert time. Each finished task creates opportunity to play with associated Habbit. Cute kitty, bunny, bear, dog and owl await you to be diligent. They will listen you talking and repeat your words in a funny way. Also, Habbits grow as you’re getting used to your tasks. But that’s not all, cute ladybug helps you cracking an egg on the playground. Play with it and find out what’s in the egg!
Hike Social Apps is a young startup providing awesome apps for Facebook Pages. Founded in June 2011 in Cologne, Germany, Hike has quickly established itself as one of the premier sources for Facebook Page enhancing apps. Known for their intuitive usability, top-notch design and advanced features, Hike apps are already utilized by over 50,000 Pages worldwide. Thanks to strong viral growth and more than 20M monthly active users, Hike is ranked in the Top 15 for all international Facebook Developers (via Social Bakers). The Facebook presence of Hike Social Apps counts more than 110,000 fans. Hike’s price structure includes Free and paid Pro subscriptions as well as a more cost-intensive model, specifically tailored for agencies.
Panoptes is the first Computer Aided multi sensor platform specifically designed for Low Altitude Remote Sensing (LARS) with small UAV (sUAV), lightweight remotely piloted aircrafts.
Panoptes enables small drones to be used for technical and scientific purposes enabling LARS by sUAV to fields such as: inspections of industrial and energy infrastructures, environmental monitoring, analysis of thermal performance of buildings, civil engineering, cultural heritage. The Panoptes hardware is formed by three distinct multi-sensor modules with optical, thermal, infrared and chemical devices that can be joined together as a single payload, controlled by an on board micro computer. Intelligence on board allows Panoptes to influence the UAV behaviour, for example identifying criticity and modifying the route during the flight.
Radiojar makes it easy to create, operate and manage web radio stations and brings new ways of social interaction. Using currently available tools & methods, web radio is a complex and costly endeavour. Amongst other things, it involves setting up and maintaining a studio (office space, hardware & software), establishing streaming contracts and paying music licensing fees. Radiojar virtualises the complicated tools used for web radio production & broadcasting and integrates all relevant services into a single web app, at a competitive price. With Radiojar, listeners can become DJs. Anyone with internet access can mix music & voice live on air. Combined with tight social media integration, this creates new ways to attract, capture and engage listeners.
Relocee combines open sources of geospatial, statistical and real estate data to make it easier to find a new home in a suitable environment without local knowledge.
Looking for a new home in a foreign city a pain: it is costly and time-consuming. There are plenty of search engines for real estate objects out there. But how could you posibly identify the quarter where you would like to live in?
The key for successful identification of the ideal location for specific personalities is local knowledge. We create software which applies data mining and data aggregation techniques to geospatial and statistical data as a replacement of this local knowledge.
ScatchApp image processing technology transfers freehand drawings into digital, editable models which can be used as input for professional software.
Even in this digital age of 2012, we still use pencil and paper to create, share and work on our ideas. We start with sketches on paper or on a whiteboard and then move them to computers to recreate them in the software we use. There is no easy way to follow this process at the moment. ScatchApp fills this gap.
We start with providing solutions to two major markets that we see the biggest potential: creating UI mock ups and business modelling tools. This technology can be also applied to other markets like interior design or mind maps.
SpacialDB (www.spacialdb.com)
SpacialDB is a backend for Web and Mobile apps with a strong emphasis on Geospatial functionality.
SpacialDB provides developers with an easy to use API to quickly import, query and update their data without needing to worry about the backend management, maintenance and scaling. The service makes it really easy for developers to build advanced Geospatial applications directly via their iPhone, Android or WP7 SDKs. SpacialDB also integrates with existing cloud hosting services such as Heroku, Engine Yard, Joyent and Rackspace for Web apps. Thus, SpacialDB is an enabling technology that lets developers create applications by providing a managed backend and custom web services that can work on any platform or device.
Unified Inbox (www.unifiedinbox.com)
Unified Inbox unites emails, social media and other channels in a single, easy to use communication and collaboration hub, creating a new standard for unifying messages regardless of their origin and final destination. Unified Inbox empowers its users to be present on all platforms anytime, anywhere and helps to remove unnecessary noise and clutter, thus reducing the time wasted on communication overload.
Solution:
- Flexibility: All messages available anywhere, anytime, irrespective of channels and devices.
- Unified Communications: One communication stream with single interface across all channels.
- User Focus: Focus on what is really important to know and do right now.
USEUM is the IMDB of contemporary art, aiming to bridge the gap between art lovers and art doers.
The chasm between artists and art enthusiasts is immense and despite the fact that there is already out there a social network specialising on all sorts of content, there is not a no-brainer network for the arts. USEUM is taking advantage of crowd-sourcing and aspires to be the platform where all this art we come across daily, in the form of a chain mail in our mailbox or a controversial illustration on a blog we read, will have a website of reference for credits and trivia. USEUM’s profitability comes from USEUM’s Gift Shop, which will disrupt the way we buy art.
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