CW (Cambridge Wireless) have announced 10 finalists to pitch at their annual Discovering Start-ups Competition in London, supported and hosted by Deloitte, the business advisory firm. Now in its 8th year, the competition is rising in popularity amongst the investor community.
UK Business Angels Association, Silicon Valley Bank and Cambridge Angels have joined the judging panel, Jenny Tooth OBE, Chief Executive UK Business Angels Association commented:
The Discovering Start-Ups Competition organised by CW will once again be a valuable opportunity for the investment community to meet and interact with many of the UK's emerging innovators and disrupters. The final event offering direct showcasing of the selected businesses, as well as access to vital insights from angels, VCs, corporates and seasoned entrepreneurs through panel debates and networking, makes this a very worthwhile experience for both entrepreneurs and investors.
The finalists will pitch to business leaders and experts in the technology sector including Amazon, Barclays, Intel, Google, BT and Arm Ltd. The competition is a unique opportunity for start-ups to gain exposure among technology advocates but also receive tailored feedback directly from investors.
Antony Rix, CEO, 8power Limited, winner of last year’s competition said:
It was a great event that allowed us to make links both with the investment community and with potential customers. We look forward to building on this success over the coming years.
Supported and hosted by Deloitte at their London offices for the last 3 years, Discovering Start-ups Competition is a great example of how this powerhouse is helping to transform the UKs digital economy by engaging with the start-up community.
David Cobb, technology partner at Deloitte, comments:
This is an exciting shortlist and the emphasis on technology such as AI and machine learning is a clear sign that the UK’s technology start-up scene is in rude health. The Discovering Start-ups competition never fails to shine a light on some of the up-and-coming tech start-ups of the future.
Robert Driver, CEO, CW comments on this year’s shortlist:
Shortlisting the final ten companies is never an easy task and I’m delighted with yet another cohort of quality start-ups. It’s great to be so closely involved with their journey to pitching to an elite industry panel of judges.
The 2016 finalists and winners continue to make progress; 8power Limited recently won IDTechEx Energy Harvesting Europe 2017 Award, AlgoDynamix launched major updates to its ALDX PI (‘PI’) directional market risk forecasting analytics in time for opening London Fintech Week 2017 and Focal Point Positioning raised £4million in funding to support their expansion.
This year’s finalists are:
Codeplay Software - Internationally recognized for expertise in heterogeneous systems, having many years of experience with OpenCL™, SYCL™, Vulkan™ and specialized tools for complex processor architectures. Codeplay enables advanced vision processing and machine learning C++ applications using ComputeCpp™.
Heartfelt Technologies – Solving the problem of repeated hospitalisation of non-compliant patients: those who fail to take their drugs, monitor themselves or report worsening of symptoms, and as a result incur over half of healthcare costs. We do this by designing technology that fits around their lives, without requiring behaviour change.
OneVisage SA - Swiss-based 3D facial authentication solution leader, is first to propose a comprehensive 3D facial authentication solution portfolio for mobile and desktop platforms, supporting both RGB and 3D/depth cameras.
Passive Eye Ltd - Self-powered asset tracking and monitoring platform that eliminates the entire cost and administrative overhead for battery recharging. Passive Eye reports the location of field assets for efficient marshalling and deployment.
Propelmee - Enabling L5 autonomy across multiple classes of autonomous vehicles for on-road and off-road use cases including driverless cars, last-mile delivery, and field & service robotics.
Syrona women - Syrona’s goal is to fight gynaecological cancers and STIs through early detection. Syrona is a low cost, non-invasive, at home, rapid diagnostic test with a unique value proposition.
Tangi0 Ltd - Tangi0 has created a patent-pending technology replacing all electronic sensor complications with one flexible touch-sensitive material, producing 3 dimensional controls that are ergonomic, intuitive and engaging.
Third Skin - An ecosystem of wearables to augment our sensory experiences with digital content, and put the humanity back into technology. Their mission is to empower people to enjoy the digital world like people – with freedom of self-expression, elegance and privacy.
Thyngs - fast growing technology platform business that enables marketing people to easily, flexibly and cost effectively add smartphone engagement capability to any of their physical marketing assets.
ZiFiSense - ZiFiSense is a fast-growing Cambridge-based IoT technology provider. Based on the ZETA LPWAN technology, ZiFiSense provides complete end-to-end IoT solutions to industrial customers and it has built the largest license-free LPWAN in China.
Three winners will be announced during a drinks reception and will be awarded a place in the finals of the £70k Wayra Acceleration Programme, 6 months access to Allia’s Serious Impact Incubator of choice, free CW Founder membership and a pass to the 2018 CW International Conference.
Discovering Startups is once again kindly hosted and sponsored by Deloitte, as well as IC Resources and Provence Promotion. The event has received great support from the technology community including SETSquared, St. John’s Innovation Centre, UKTN, Wayra UK, Allia Future Business Centre, IdeaSpace and Barclays Eagle Labs.
Tickets for the London Finals are available now. Please head to the CW website to register your place.
To strike up a conversation the competition, follow us on Twitter @CambWireless and tag us in your posts using #DSrupt