Mind the Bridge and EIT Digital have unveiled 18 top European tech startups to represent the continent in this year’s Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley program (SEC2SV).
SEC2SV is a program for future European startup unicorns (or is that Eunicorns?) to engage with big names from the United States.
The latest and most innovative tech companies from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK, will be in the Silicon Valley to engage with the US market in their respective industries.
Between them, the 18 businesses have total funding of over $60M and 1000 employees these promising tech companies cover verticals such as e-commerce, healthcare, security and storage.
Marko Turpeinen, director of EIT Digital’s Silicon Valley hub, said, “These companies really epitomize European Innovation – the next TomTom, Spotify, or BlaBlaCar – and we are convinced that their participation in SEC2SV will strengthen the two-way bridge between the European and the Bay Area ecosystems creating value and jobs for both continents.”
Mind the Bridge is a global organization dedicated to promoting and supporting successful entrepreneurial ecosystems across the world, while EIT Digital is a European educational organisation aimed at driving Europe’s digital transformation.
The CEOs from 18 leading European tech startups have been invited to San Francisco for a week of local presentations and meetings kicking off on September 12 with European Innovation Day at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
The startups
BELGIUM
AWINGU (CEO Walter Van Uytven; Capital raised: $18M; employees: 27) is a web-based platform that allows easy access to files, applications, and software thus offering a concrete solution to demands for Mobility and ‘Bring your own device’ (BYOD) trends.
FINLAND
FIRSTBEAT (CEO: Joni Kettunen; employees: 75+) is the leading provider of physiological analytics for sports and wellbeing. Firstbeat’s heartbeat data measurement with personal feedback on training exercise, has already been adopted by Samsung, Suunto and Garmin. Firstbeat has been selected by the EIT Digital Accelerator.
FRANCE
AB TASTY (CEO: Remi Aubert; Capital raised: $7M; employees: 70) a SaaS solution that helps data-driven marketers ease the process of A/B testing, personalization and re-engagement to boost conversion rates.
GERMANY
MEISTERLABS GmbH (COO: Oliver Huebler; Capital raised: $550k; employees: 21) is the publisher of MindMeister, a collaborative online mind mapping software solution & MeisterTask, a simple and intuitive task management solution.
ICELAND
CONTROLANT (CEO: Gisli Herjolfsson ; Capital raised: $2.5M; employees: 24) specializes in wireless temperature monitoring and asset tracking – currently the company provides services to pharmaceutical, food, industrial and logistics companies.
ITALY
SHOPFULLY (CEO: Stefano Portu; Capital raised: $22M; employees 125) is the leading smart shopping platform used by over 13 million users worldwide when getting ready to go shopping in their neighborhood.
NEGENTIS (CEO: Paolo Cianchi; Capital raised $5M; employees 14) is a process-centric IoE platform enabling smart operations in the cyber-physical world. Negetis has been selected by the EIT Digital Accelerator.
LUXEMBOURG
ETIX EVERYWHERE(CEO: Charles Antoine Beyney; Capital raised: $17M; employees: 47) provides IT housing services and constructs scalable data centers.
NETHERLANDS
SCISPORTS (CEO: Giels Brouwer; Capital raised: $1.5M; employees: 36) uses mathematical models and deep learning to analyze and predict the quality and potential of football players and teams. With their new innovation BallJames, they revolutionized the way how sports data is generated by transforming video footage into real-time 3D data.
ROMANIA
T-ME STUDIOS (CEO: Laurentiu-Victor Balasa; employees: 60) has developed Redraw.io, a web-based end-to-end solution for creating, publishing and monetizing themes for artists, brands, agencies, app devs. and OEMs.
SLOVENIA
VENDOTEL (CEO: Samo Omerzel; Capital raised: $5M; employees: 109) is a fully integrated Pay Phone and Vending Machine that provides a centralized inventory, a basic prerequisite for effective inventory control, demand / supply management and control over goods distribution, retail and wholesale operations.
SPAIN
BEBEE (CEO: Javier Camara Rica; Capital raised: $6.5M; employees: 55) is an affinity social network which allows users to connect with other people who share the same interests and experiences.
KANTERON SYSTEMS (CEO: Jorge Cortell; Capital raised: $3M; employees: 19) is the next Generation Enterprise Healthcare IT for Clinical Data and Workflow Integration.
SWEDEN
GLEECHI (CEO: Jaob Johansson; employees: 8) has developed the first software to generate natural hand motion. Examples include gaming, animation, virtual reality, digital showrooms, robotics and serious gaming. Gleechi has been selected by the EIT Digital Accelerator.
UNITED KINGDOM
MENIGA (CEO: Georg Ludviksson; Capital raised: $6.5M; employees: 100) is a provider of personal finance software for European banks and financial institutions.
METAIL (CEO: Tom Adeyoola; Capital raised: $19.5M; employees: 47) has 6 patents granted and thirteen pending and is a fashion technology company that allows shoppers to try on clothes online. After inputting three basic body measurements and in less than ten seconds, customers can create their own ‘MeModel’ which is up to 96% accurate of their own shape.
PCA PREDICT (CEO: Guy Mucklow; Capital Raised; employees: 58) Is best known for its market-leading address validation technology used to quickly complete your address when buying online. The company’s range of services, all delivered via the internet, are specifically designed to boost business efficiency.
STREAM TECHNOLOGIES (CEO: Nigel Chadwick; employees: 32) is the company behind IoT-X, a Connectivity Enablement, Management & Billing platform (CMP).
Broken down, 15 scaleups were selected to represent Europe in the program, based on proposals by Silicon Valley-based partner organizations focused on a EU country or region. The requirements to be considered for the SEC2SV competition is to have had at least 10 employees three years ago and to be growing more than 20% year-over-year in revenue or number of employees.
The final selection was made by a group of investors composed of Startup Europe Partnership (SEP) Investors Forum members and US investors. In addition to the 15 scaleups, three fast growing tech companies supported by EIT Digital Accelerator will join the delegation.
Marco Marinucci, CEO of Mind the Bridge, added, “We’ve already seen impressive results from the startups that participated in SEC2SV 2015. For example, JobandTalent (Spain) raised $42M in Series B after the event and Mosaicoon (Italy) raised $8 million. I expect equally impressive results from this year’s cohort.”
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