Urban-X debuts 9 new startups for Fall, Winter cohort

Urban-X has debuted 9 new startups at the A/D/O space in Greenpoint that are striving to make the world better place to live for its winter and fall cohort. This is the third edition of the incubator program, having had success with the previous two.

“We’re talking about more livable cities, designed for people,” said Micah Kotch, managing director at Urban-X, which every six months invests up to $100,000 per company for up to ten startups. With a focus on city-centric issues such as housing, local government, and transportation.

The selected startups came from all across the US, as well as locations off-continent such as France, demonstrating that city issues do not have to be restricted to where-you-know, and proves that anywhere in the world people experience the same issues, and want to do something about it.

The startups will now embark on a twenty week program which includes product development and network-building. Also included in the process is trips to San Francisco and Munich as well as the chance to work with world-class electrical and mechanical engineers.

And so, without further hesitation the startups selected to change the way we live are:

Qucit

Standing for ‘Quantified Cities’, this startup uses artificial intelligence and data to optimise the operation of cities. It works with cities and businesses to have the right team in the right place to ensure streamlined urban services such as bikesharing to balancing emergency responses on highways.

Hosta Labs

Developing 3D models created from regular pictures for design and renovation. Hosta reduce time and money it takes for architects, contractors and designers to obtain room dimensions and floor plans for renovations.

Good Goods

This startup is a collaborative retail model for shared urban spaces. Working as a service-to-service platform for emerging and established brands on a month-by-month basis, it also designs B2B and B2C experiences, gathers analytics and insights, and generates thought-leadership around prototyping interactions to support future retail experiences.

Swiftera

Supporting citizens, businesses and municipalities in aspects such as mobility, leisure, and urban planning. Swiftera provides access to recent and actionable geospatial data at a competitive cost and uses urban-imagery technology to assist customers in analyzing the past, experience the present, and be first in line to witness the future.

Lunewave

Lunewave is developing a high performance sensor system for completely autonomous vehicles. Through the use of its high frequency Luneburg Lens, which has wide applications of 5G wireless communication it has a hand in drones, robotics, and other sectors.

Blueprint Power

A company built by and for the real estate industry. Blueprint has defined it mission as one to accelerate the transformation of buildings into intelligent power nodes to join in the party of the transactive marketplace from resulting excess energy by assembling a collection of data-driven machine learning tools to automate operations, Blueprint is unique due to the fact they will reduce go-to-market risk by covering real estate customers from the get-go.

Upshift

Like Uber but giving you control of the wheel, Upshift gives customers the chance to get around the busy city by creating a platform that simply asks you to send a text and wait for a hybrid car to be delivered, totally clean, and fully fueled every time.

Roadbotics

Using machine vision and machine learning to take accurate inventory of the road quality such as identifying cracks, potholes, and debris. Roadbotics allows municipalities to automate (or semi-automate, at least) a process that has for too long been labor intensive. Its goal is to give everyone responsible for managing roadways total infrastructure transparency.

Versatile Natures

Using a patent-pending AI and IoT platform, Versatile Natures supports construction managers by providing them with real time, actionable insights, and predictions on status and safety. The AI guides, alerts, and helps construction managers accelerate project completion which will ultimately increase profitability. Versatile Natures is changing the way the world approaches construction.