These are the 14 top startups from among 2,000 selected for IMPACT Growth acceleration programme

Of the 2,000 applicants, 39 semi-finalists were invited to attend Jury Day in Madrid on March 1st. Startups pitched in front of a jury of experts, and 14 were selected to enter the program.

THE SELECTION PROCESS COMES TO A CLOSE

IMPACT Growth’s second Jury Day took place in Madrid on March 1st as the final step in the selection process which began in September. Thirty-nine startups from all over Europe and the world attended the event, which culminated in the selection of 14 startups to enter the program and get up to €250,000 equity free along with premium acceleration. The startups pitched in front of a panel of renowned experts from IMPACT Growth partner FundingBox, ISDI, Accelerace, Kibo Ventures, DOCOMO Digital, MADE, Danone, and Ferrovial Servicios. The day also included an inspirational fireside chat from entrepreneur Brian Wong.

The second IMPACT Growth open call was launched on September 5th and after the deadline on December 12th, 2017, a record-breaking number of 2,025 startups from over 60 different countries had applied to one of the program’s four verticals: Smart Content, Smart Infrastructure and Cities, Smart AgriFood and Smart Content.

THE JURY

The juries were comprised of distinguished experts coming from ISDI and FundingBox, two of the companies leading the startup accelerator, as well as top accelerators, venture capital entities and global brands partnering with IMPACT Growth. Jurors included Nacho de Pinedo and Jorge Villabona from ISDI; Lars Brøndum Petersen and Tomasz Mazuryk from FundingBox; Peter Torstensen and Søren Lottrup from Accelerace; Jordi Vidal and Joaquín Revuelta from Kibo Ventures; Simona Torre from DOCOMO Digital; Merete Nørby from MADE; Carlos Bosch from Danone; and Carolina García and Francisco Javier Luque Cañones from Ferrovial Servicios. External advisors to the jury included Pedro Jareño of Microsoft, Borja Breña Lajas of Curve Ventures, Michał Wrzołek of MCI, and tech entrepreneur Eduardo Fernández Riveira.

MEET THE SELECTED STARTUPS

The beneficiaries per vertical are the following ones:

Smart content — supported by DOCOMO Digital:

• Absolute Zero (Denmark) — Interactive 360° live streaming enabled through self-aware VR cameras and augmented reality.
• ArtuData (UK) — Use Artificial Intelligence to find, attract and retain your high value clients.
• Chatnfly (Spain) — 100% automated travel chatbot for end users and corporates. Available on WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram and SMS. In English and Spanish.

Smart cities and infraestructures — supported by Ferrovial Servicios:

• e-bot7 (Germany) — We supercharge your customer service through the integration of artificial intelligence.
• Fueloyal (Bulgaria) — Smart IoT Platform for fleet efficiency.
• SENSEI (Portugal) — Sensei is an AI-powered real-time video recognition solution for retail providing accurate in-store analytics and insights.
• SMAQ (Spain) — Spatial Mapping of Air Quality.

Smart agrifood — supported by Danone:

• Digitanimal (Spain) — Digitanimal is a solution that increases livestock farms profits; ensuring animal welfare and traceability to consumers using blockchain.
• Pycno (Spain) — The one and only stop for Precision Agriculture.
• Skyx (Israel) — Autonomous and modular swarm of agriculture spraying robots.

Smart manufacturing — supported by MADE:

• Freesense (Denmark) — Wireless, free floating sensor particles for production optimisation in stirred bioreactors.
• Maturix (Denmark) — Intelligent wireless industrial monitoring of concrete production.
• VISTRA (Denmark) — Automated Knowledge sharing: inspect, train, assist and maintain.
• WiTraC (Spain) — WiTraC has created a wireless real time location system (RTLS) for Industry 4. 0 based on Internet of Things and Smart Sensors.

WHAT DOES IMPACT GROWTH OFFER?

In addition to the initial funding of €100,000 per startup, two of the selected startups will be granted a further €150,000 equity free each. Participants will also have the possibility of obtaining additional funding through partner Invesdor’s crowdfunding platform, as well as private financing of up to €1.5 million from the European venture capital Kibo Ventures and the European leading accelerator Accelerace.

Startups will also participate in an intensive, three-month acceleration program and will receive guidance and technological support from the FIWARE Foundation for the integration of this open-source technology into their projects. Besides, each startup will be paired with a custom-matched mentor and will be invited to international events organized by 4YFN. Finally, startups have the opportunity to develop pilot programs with IMPACT Growth’s corporate partners.

IMPACT Growth is an initiative funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme, under grant agreement No 732480, with a total of €3.6 million for its initial phase.

IMPACT Growth Team