Here’s your weekly round up of startup competitions, awards, co-working space and accelerator news.
Pitch@Palace 6.0 winners
Pitch@Palace, the initiative established by HRH The Duke of York to support entrepreneurs with the amplification and acceleration of their business ideas has announced the winner of its Pitch@Palace 6.0 programme.
Drenched LTD has beaten 11 other startups to be been named the winner after a final pitch event at St James’s Palace attended by Her Majesty The Queen, HRH The Duke of York and influential representatives from the United Kingdom’s enterprise and investment community.
Based in North Yorkshire, Drenched won the audience over with its water-saving volumiser product. Using the technology, a flow of water is transformed into a targeted molecular cone which reduces the volume of water used in the process by more than 90% against the current best in class.
Wesley Sugden-Brook, founder and managing director of Drenched, said: “As founders of Drenched, we are used to pitching our business – to investors, partners and potential customers but this was a big one for us. We are absolutely thrilled to have taken the top spot, especially considering the caliber of the competition. The Pitch@Palace process has been fantastic from start to finish. We have met some incredible mentors and made connections that are going to have a real impact on the growth of our business over the next few years.”
The Duke of York commented: “The support, interest and activity of all those involved at Pitch@Palace 6.0 has made tonight a real success. I look forward to hearing more about not only the success of Drenched, overall winner tonight, but all those entrepreneurs that have taken part.”
In addition to the judge’s winner, OfferMoments was awarded the People’s Choice award.
Renewable-energy tech offering Mobile Power LTD took 2nd place in the audience vote, with third place going to education technology startup Doodlemaths.
Connected Cities trade mission to India
Entrepreneurs and small businesses aiming to break into the multi-billion pound smart cities market in India will be taking part in a UK-India initiative in November.
Eleven successful entrepreneurs will be joining the Connected Cities Entrepreneurs Mission to India between 6-12 November.
The Mission is a joint initiative between Innovate UK, the Department for International Trade, Enterprise Europe Network, and Future Cities Catapult and will form part of a series of UK-India missions organised by DIT to tie in with the India-UK Tech Summit.
Announcing the companies at Innovate 2016 in Manchester, Ruth McKernan, chief executive of Innovate UK, said: “It is vital that UK innovators look to engage globally in developing new partnerships and market opportunities. The size of the opportunity from the Indian smart cities market is immense with £24bn investment expected across 100 cities over the next five to seven years.
“UK small businesses are very well placed to take advantage of this market, and this is why we are running our next entrepreneurs’ mission to India and the India-UK Tech Summit,” added McKernan.
The following companies are taking part in the Connected Cities Entrepreneurs’ Mission:
· SeeQuestor Ltd, London – platform for efficient review of large video datasets for law enforcement
· Cascade3d, Cricklade near Swindon – IoT Analytics platform for the healthcare sector to support people living independently with long term cognitive and mobility impairment such as dementia and intellectual disabilities
· Bronze Software Labs Ltd, Telford, Shropshire – company specialising in solving complex data problems for enterprises working in the energy, water, waste, building management sector
· Citi Logik, London – provides insight into the way people move on foot, in a vehicle or by train, using new ways of identifying and analysing demand activity
· Ignius Ltd – a London-based startup focussed on developing IoT products and solutions
· Design 4 Social Change – a London-based urban technology innovation company creating products and services combining human and machine intelligence to co-create smarter cities with cities with citizens, businesses, cities and service-providers
· NquiringMinds, Southampton – uses AI powered analytics, data sharing and secure IoT to run cities smarter: their technology is used to plan infrastructure for growing cities, to run health, social care and waste services more efficiently, and generate revenue by analysing business rates.
· See.Sense, Northern Ireland – produces patent pending sensor technology to crowdsource smart and future cities data.
· Gaist Solutions Ltd, Lancaster – providing detailed understanding of highways infrastructure via hi-tech mobile video systems and state of the art deterioration and investment modelling systems
· Briteyellow Ltd, Cranfield – pedestrian smart mobility software-as-a-service platform (SaaS) for indoor location and Internet of Things applications
· Calipsa, London – building state of the art AI algorithms to automate CCTV based video surveillance that have been done manually by people located in control rooms.
2016 Scale Up Club
Silicon Valley Comes to the UK (‘SVC2UK’) has invited 50 UK high-growth technology companies to join the 2016 ‘Scale Up Club’.
Together the firms are believed to have a combined revenue of £205m this year. This year’s club is made up of some of the UK’s fastest growing tech businesses from across a range of sectors, with an average growth rate of 47%; including Dressipi, NewVoiceMedia, Poq, Syndicate Room, and VentureFounders.
Deputy Mayor for Business, Rajesh Agrawal, said: “With our unrivalled mix of investors, talent and creativity it is hardly surprising that tech businesses and entrepreneurs are clamouring to be part of London’s tech story. These latest figures underline that London is the best place to invest in tech and how important this sector is as a driver for the UK economy.
“In recent weeks the Mayor and I have been speaking to business leaders in tech and beyond to reassure them London is open for business. Moving forward, Sadiq’s plans include the establishment of a ‘tech talent pipeline’ to ensure young Londoners have the digital skills to access employment and to encourage Londoners, especially girls, to work in tech,” he added.
Launched in 2006 Sherry Coutu CBE, Reid Hoffman and Ellen Levy, SVC2UK Scale Up Club alumni such as TransferWise and SkyScanner are now valued at over $1bn and represent some of the UK’s most successful technology companies.
Sherry Coutu CBE, serial entrepreneur, angel investor and a founder of SVC2UK, said: “I can hardly believe that SVC2UK is ten years old this year. When Reid, Ellen and I founded this initiative we couldn’t have foreseen that ten years on it would still be going and have grown into such an incredible and impactful programme that has helped so many companies achieve more, and scale up faster.
“We see from our own internal data that the UK’s tech and digital industry is growing year on year – and now combined with London & Partners data about tech growth over the last ten years this is resolutely confirmed. I am so very proud of what we are doing at SVC2UK and I wish all those included in this year’s Scale Up Club the very best in what will be a challenging yet exhilarating year ahead,” concluded Coutu.
The full list of Scale Up Club entrepreneurs can be seen here: http://www.svc2uk.com/2016-scale-up-club/
Construction accelerator
The Royal Borough of Greenwich and Impulse Partners have announced plans for a new accelerator in London for innovative businesses operating in the construction and real-estate industries.
The Accelerator, to be known as ‘Impulse London’, will be located in Royal Greenwich and will work closely with Digital Greenwich, the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s specialist Smart City innovation team.
Announcing the partnership with the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Thomas Le Diouron, Co-Founder of Impulse Partners, stated: “We are delighted to be working with the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the Digital Greenwich team. The Royal Borough of Greenwich is a leader in smart city innovation and has created a successful environment for businesses in their innovation centre in Greenwich.
“Our initiative will create new opportunities for companies from Greenwich, Europe and beyond to work with some of the leading real estate, construction and infrastructure stakeholders. We will facilitate opportunities for UK companies to work in France and as well as creating the opportunity for international businesses to locate in Greenwich,”concluded Le Diouron.
‘The Next Big Thing’
Unilever Foundry, the global platform that enables Unilever to innovate through collaboration, has revealed Fluid Ads as the winner of its search for The Next Big Thing with ad:tech 2016.
The startup has been awarded a $50k Unilever Foundry pilot. Fluid Ads was up against 14 other finalists, all selected to pitch to Unilever in front of 750+ brands, agencies and media owners.
Aline Santos, Unilever’s EVP global marketing, said: “We’re delighted to name Fluid Ads as The Next Big Thing 2016. Innovation in marketing and advertising technology is key for our business and we take pride in discovering the hottest startups in this space to partner with and develop the future of the industry together. We look forward to piloting with Fluids Ads, one of the most exciting startups that will be powering the future and paving the way for consumers and brands.”
George Dann, CEO of Fluid Ads, added: “We’re delighted to have won the Unilever Foundry’s The Next Big Thing. We are so confident in our team and our technology that we decided to build 500 different dynamic ads in five minutes despite the organisers warning that live is risky. We have been flattered by the progressive brands which have wanted to work with us in the last couple of months and now we are excited by the prospect of delivering value for Unilever. A big well done to all the Fluid Ads team that made this happen.”
That’s all for this week … see you next Friday! Got a story that you think should be included in the next Startup Weekly? Email yessi@techcitynews.com.