So maybe you’ve been wondering which of the teams from our 61-city hackathon series had projects so good that they’ve successfully been able to steer through the HACKcelerator program and onto the stage at Global Demo Day (hint hint, we’ve hidden a discount code for the event in this post😈) ?
We started off the 12-week program with a total of 46 amazing teams from all over the world, of which 13 made it through and will be flying to Silicon Valley for a week of extensive pitch training, mentorship and of course GDD!
These teams will have the task of impressing some major influencers in tech like Guy Kawasaki, Laura Kennedy, Arjun Dev Arora, and Craig Cannon; as well as a room full of 150+ investors. The prize pot isn’t bad either.
Up for the taking at this year’s GDD is:
- Office hours with tech mogul and investor Tim Draper
- Guaranteed interviews with 500 Startups and Techstars
- 50k guaranteed investment from Right Side Capital Management
- Qualification for the 2017 HPE Living Progress Challenge
So without further ado, let’s meet the teams that are up for the journey, challenge, and reward of participating in GDD!
automatter.io
Austin, Texas (Christy Leung, William Tran, Richard Thai)
— A web platform for companies to automate business functions for customer support, sales, analytics, and marketing. Christy, William and Richard are currently working towards 10k/mo revenue mark, partnering with SpareFoot and already has 9 paying customers! Plus, they are currently in talks with WeWork and T-Mobile!
Flico
Manipal, India (Kartik Arora, Yash Goel, Anirudh Raghunath, Rahil Patel and Amrit Ayyar)
— Flico was downloaded 2,500 times in 5 days, and currently sits at 3,700 downloads and 7,200 queries! It’s a platform that identifies information relevant to you from any media, identifying landmarks, and defining unfamiliar words that you may come across while watching a video. They have been feat. on Product Hunt, Google Chrome store, and are official partners of IBM. They are also securing $25k in service credits.
ReportTaka
Nairobi, Kenya (Peter Gicharu, James Ngugi, Bettirose Ngugi, Racheal Gathagu, Kizi Dimira)
— Created at our first ever hackathon in Nairobi, ReportTaka is a social good garbage reporting app that allows people to report unattended garbage in the area through the Android app, or Twitter handle — leaving the follow up to Report Taka. They have already incorporated with Twitter, have an Android app, and are in conversations with waste management companies such as Takataka Solutions!
#Pragma
Mumbai, India (Omkar Patil, Akshay Kale, Shubham Sunil Chintalwar)
— Pragma bans the uploading of child pornography from websites. Filtering videos on the internet manually is very slow process, Omkar, Akshay, and Shubham speed up that process by analyzing the content before it’s uploaded, and even tracks criminals using their location! Pragma is soon meeting with xHamster to see how they can best collaborate!
BareedEE
Ramallah, Palestine (Ahmad Abu-omar, Shaher Husein)
— An on-demand service which finds freelance couriers to deliver packages within a given city. In order to emphasis the use of and collect data with their technology, they currently deliver packages for a select number of clients through couriers who have recently been on boarded. They are also in talks with multiple strategic partners who will help dramatically accelerate their growth.
HypeHash
Colombo, Sri Lanka (Ravihans Wetakepotha, Lahiru Rajapakse, Shan Perera, Vimukthi Liyanage, Shameera Weerasinghe)
— HypeHash is the worlds first #Hashtag centric marketplace where buyer and seller can create and sell products for hottest topics trending on social media right now! they are already an official partner of Startup Weekend, is growing at 45%, already have done well over 8800 USD in sales and even had to bring on a new COO from Georgetown to keep up with their incredible growth! Each sale from a trend directly contributes to a trending social movement or cause instantly + packages only take 48 hours to receive locally
ByPass
Los Angeles, California (Harry Dixon, Herminio Garcia, Austin Hubbell, and Roy Lee)
— This team is an aspiring big data company focused on helping you find the safest route home. Through the use of machine learning and statistics they are building a ‘Waze’ for safety. Their app analyzes crime trends and maps out dangerous areas that you should steer clear from — making safety proactive rather that reactive and catching the eye of partners such as FindOut.
Elev8
Cincinnati, Ohio (Jeffery Gordon, Ryan Echternacht, Kristin Van Deusen, Andrew Van Deusen, Chatura Samarasinghe)
— Their product enables Amazon Echo users to quickly and easily create customized Echo apps. Elev8 has built templates for the most common Alexa uses, so that you can easily setup, download, and publish your app — no coding required.
Lustr
Sydney, Australia (Liliana Ructtinger, Angela Liang, Jeremy Vista, Sacha Pantschenko)
— Lustr is a B2C marketplace connecting shoppers to designers through recommendations, using a matchmaking algorithm based on personal style preferences. Lustr is already showing strong demand at this early stage, with 100 designers on board and 472 shoppers pre-registered.
Nomad
Silicon Valley, California (Ethan Reid, Pulkit Mahajn, Devin Mui)
— A product recognition solution to simplify the shopping experience. How do they do this? Users simply find an item they like, like a pair of shoes their friend is wearing, snap a picture, then find out where on the internet they can buy those shoes. By integrating into current retailer’s existing app’s, the team is creating a new way to shop!
Doctor D
San Francisco, California (Hou Chia, Sharmila Jesupaul, Henry Wong, Ken Katz, David Ernst)
— A mobile app catching the attention of various medical partners that empowers you to stay on top of their sexual health! Doctor D serves gay men directly, providing them with customized recommendations on HIV testing and PrEP. Doctor D also allows users to set reminders for sexual health checkups, and enables users to locate clinics in the area.
TXT MD
Toronto, Canada (Burhan Qadri, Umar Ahmed, Keeran Sivajisingam, Hamzah Randhawa)
— TXT MD diagnoses viral diseases over SMS, analyzes the aggregate data, and gets more precise with every interaction. It also improves access to general information through specialized tip streams. Working with locals on the ground, they are positioned to launch field trials in Kenya in the coming month, in order to tweak their service to best serve the needs of the population.
Sloop
Jaipur, India (Kunal Relan, Kunal Sachdeva, Namit Juneja)
— Sloop generates powerful analytic insights into a crown by using image processing with a machine learning model to detect individuals in large space. Their technology has already secured two showroom clients with an additional two in the making!
We’re so proud of all participating HACKcelerator teams for 2016 and can’t wait to see how these 14 startups do at Global Demo Day! Their hard work and dedication has been present and apparent throughout the whole program, and we are excited to see that passion shine through on November 3rd at the Brava Theater in SF.
For 75% off tickets to GDD + Startup Bash (open bar!)
