Startups to Watch — Global 2021

Our Startup Membership launched in May 2020 and since then we have accepted 2,000 early-stage startups from 90 countries into our program.

From Saas to Renewable Tech, Gaming, and AI to Fintech, we’re excited to share some of the exciting companies who will join us for this year’s Startup Summit during the Global Conference in just three weeks.

Startup Summit is a private bootcamp-style event designed exclusively for Startup Grind members. The event (Feb 22) takes place just ahead of our Global Conference (Feb 23–25) and is inclusive of intimate roundtable discussions, hands-on workshops, and investor-led keynotes. We’ll conclude with Demo Day, giving the top 10 companies the opportunity to pitch potential investors. This year’s Summit will feature investors from Y Combinator, DCM, Union Square Ventures, Antler, Maven, Initialized, and leaders from innovative teams at Oracle, Toptal, Fiverr, Productboard, GitLab, and more.

We’re still looking for great startups to join the membership (free if accepted) and have a few slots remaining for Startup Summit. If you’re interested in applying to attend this event or join the membership, please apply here before Friday, February 5th by EOD.

AeroGuest
Travel
Aarhus, Denmark

AeroGuest enables guests to check-in and out and even pay — right on their mobile phones. At the guests’ convenience, they can also use their phone as a digital key. It’s the next level for mobile hospitality.

Bioo
Renewable Environment
Barcelona, Spain

Bioo is a Bitech company focused on renewable energy/ environment. Their mission: obtain electricity from nature by generating energy from plants’ photosynthesis. They have two current technologies: electricity by nature and plants as biological switches.

BITA
Fintech/ Finance
Frankfurt am Main, Germany

BITA is the world’s first provider of end-to-end infrastructure for indexation and systematic investing. Their platform allows institutional clients to flexibly design, backtest, calculate and benchmark investment strategies and indexes without having to rely on traditional index solutions, multiple data vendors, and complex internal tools.

CEEK VR
Blockchain
Chicago, United States

CEEK VR is an award-winning streaming service for virtual events and experiences featuring the biggest names in entertainment. CEEK’s platform records content usage on the blockchain and automatic rights owner payments via smart contracts. CEEK features exclusive Virtual Reality and live streams from megastars like Bon Jovi, U2, Lady Gaga, and more.

Watch our Founder Series for more on CEEK VR and alternatives to VC: funding organic growth through mega-partnerships.

Didimo
AR/VR
Dover, United States

Until now, the creation of high-quality 3D characters was the exclusive domain of Hollywood and AAA games, that is, large production teams of artists, engineers requiring expensive hardware and software. Today, with a single smartphone photo or scan, Didimo can create a ready-to-animate avatar, shortening the production process from hundreds of hours to less than 60 seconds. Our proprietary and customizable pipeline delivers the most lifelike 3D avatars in the market.

Watch our Founder Series for more on Didimo and company-building as a solo founder.

Instadeep
Artificial Intelligence
London, United Kingdom

InstaDeep delivers AI-powered decision-making systems for the Enterprise. With expertise in both machine intelligence research and concrete business deployments, we provide a competitive advantage to our customers in an AI-first world.

Overgear
Entertainment/ Gaming
Nicosia, Cyprus

Worldwide gaming platform with a mission to help people enjoy the game to the full. Overgear was created with one ultimate purpose: to become your best buddy in the world of MMO games. The buddy who can suggest the right person to quickly solve any task for your character or account so you can enjoy the most delightful gaming experience.

Pickmeup Technologies
Automotive
Warri, Nigeria

Pickmeup is merging everyday personal needs into an easy to use digital platform for under-developed emerging markets, starting with mobility. Pickmeup has been developed to combat the current ride-hailing challenges faced by urban & rural users. Designed with a simplistic UI for users with multi-language support, Pickmeup is an all-rounded dependable platform for customers & drivers.

Poplar Studio
AR/ VR
London, United Kingdom

Poplar is a 3D and AR creative platform that enables the creation of campaigns on-demand. They activate a new generation of the best global 3D and AR creators and provide collaborative tools that make 3D and AR production affordable and quick for marketing, advertising, and retail. The marketplace enables large brands, small businesses, and individuals to commission their AR projects from the top experts in the industry while keeping the process simple, affordable, and quick.

Promaxo
Health Care
Oakland, United States

Promaxo is a medical company that develops and commercializes customer-centric MRI systems and MRI based technologies that enhance patients’ lives and redefine the standard of care.

QueryPie
SaaS
San Francisco, United States

QueryPie is a compliance-ready database management solution that runs on a web browser. It is similar to Mode but with advanced data masking and access control ideal for PCI-DSS, CCPA, and GDPR.

Remo
Telecommunications
Hong Kong, China

Social Media and current online communication methods have become unnatural to humans. Remo’s goal is to create authentic relationships and meaningful connections in online communications, and to humanize virtual events, in a way where it feels just like attending a physical “real world” event!

Upstride
Artificial Intelligence
Paris, France

Current technology cannot keep up with AI’s growing demand for computing. Upstride is an API to improve the accuracy, data efficiency, and power consumption of neural networks. Their products boost performance with deep learning networks and easy to use API for computer vision.

Weavr
Fintech/ Finance
London, United Kingdom

Embed banking and payments into your product in days. Whether that’s for your mobile app, SaaS platform, or your back-office operations — they’ve got it covered. Weavr has partnered with carefully selected financial institutions and payments providers to offer a seamless set of services. They’ve done the hard work of finding and integrating with them so that you don’t have to.

YData
Artificial Intelligence
Lisbon, Portugal

The process of building datasets is now much faster and cheaper with automated preprocessing, labeling, and synthetic data generation. YData provides the first DataOps platform for data science teams that allows the creation of synthetic data at scale that can be used for multiple purposes.

If you’d like to get in touch with any of these great startups, reach out to us at startup.membership@startupgrind.com.

If you’re interested in applying to attend this event or join the membership, please apply here before Friday February 5th by EOD.
If you just want to attend Global, taking place online February 23–25, 2021, register at startupgrind.com/conference!