Next Step Challenge, the startup competition based on a partnership between the energy company SE & Scandinavian accelerator Accelerace, has just launched its latest international class of startups.
The class includes 7 startups from the US, 2 from United Kingdom and startups from Israel, Germany and Sweden, which will compete for a €250k prize.
The Esbjerg, Denmark-based accelerator operates a six-month program focused on smart energy, smart home, digital health and communication. Each company in the Next Step Challenge receives €30k in seed funding and the opportunity to win the €250k prize, free housing & office space in the Next Step City office facilities and access to its digital infrastructure.
The 12 participants for the upcoming Next Step Challenge are:
WordUp started in Provo, Utah (USA) in 2013, is a global gaming platform for language learners, where students play games that are designed to teach them a new language while engaging and having fun with others students in other countries.
ParkTAG started in May 2014 in Germany. ParkTAG can crowdsource curbside parking occupancy purely based on Smartphone sensors.
TableGrabber is a Silicon Valley based startup that provides restaurants with software that allows the restaurants to forecast their demand and allow them to change their prices dynamically to increase their utilization and maximize their revenue potential.
Insticator is a New York based company founded in 2014. Insticator is a platform that empowers the engagement of fans of TV content by syncing gamification, social validation and a reward system into one experience where users can interact around the content.
Unified Intents is a Swedish company founded in 2010 that provides users with the Unified Remote app for a computer. This app allows users to turn a Smartphone into a wireless remote control for computer, anything from video players and Netflix like apps to basic control.
iNovar is a company from Great Britain launched in 2013. They provide an app that allows users to access all of their corporate content regardless of vendor or format on their choice of mobile device with 100% data security and 0% re-engineering.
CloudGrid was founded in February 2014 in Great Britain. CloudGrid is an open cloud-based platform for energy analytics and control of electrical networks by clicking onto existing electrical wiring and enables wireless data collection and circuit control from any web enabled device.
Admetsys is a Boston, MA (USA) based company which has developed a fully-automated blood glucose control system (i.e. artificial pancreas) for hospital care.
RapidSOS is based in Boston, MA and New York, NY (USA) and founded in 2012. They deliver a service with the ability to deliver requests for help directly to emergency dispatch centers while bypassing the conventional and cumbersome phone call. Furthermore they offer a platform to distribute geofenced alerts to users on a given network.
Nwave Technologies is based in Great Britain. Nwave provides a low-power, high-range, and cost-efficient to deploy and communicate with IoT devices. The technology has many applications opportunities, the first of which to be implemented by Nwave, is a parking system. This allows users to detect and report available parking space in a city.
Voiceitt from Israel started in 2014. They provide an app that enables people with speech disabilities to speak clearly with nothing but with their own voice. The application functions as a translator of blurred speech into understandable speech.
Sentri is a Silicon Valley startup that started in April 2014. Sentri is a complete home monitoring and automation solution in one display device. The Sentri device adapts to home, and delivers personalized alerts along with a video feed of home to a smartphone.
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FinSMEs
03/12/2014