Semi-finalists for FutureX's Startup Summit Competition announced, with winners of Scottish EDGE and Investing Women AccelerateHER amongst those progressing.
The winner of Startup Summit Competition will receive a prize package worth over £200,000, including a fully funded place on FutureX's Silicon Valley Accelerate programme.
Finalists will pitch at Startup Summit in Edinburgh on October 30th.
FutureX announced today the semi-finalists for the annual Startup Summit Competition. The group of eight tech startups includes winners of Scottish EDGE and Investing Women AccelerateHER, with a combined investment of over £2M to date.
This year's competition is hotly contested, with the founders of Desana, who recently raised £550k in seed money, and Good-Loop, a Scottish tech for good company harnessing the value of ethical advertising to create social impact, among those through to the semi-final.
The annual award is a pathway to Silicon Valley for UK tech startups, with a fully funded place on FutureX's Silicon Valley Accelerate programme 2020, amongst other prizes, on offer for the winner.
Silicon Valley Accelerate programme takes a select group of rising UK tech leaders to Silicon Valley. There, they have the opportunity to connect with some of the global players in the tech industry and pitch to potential investors. Previous cohorts have met with executives from Airbnb, Facebook, SurveyMonkey, RocketSpace, Y Combinator,Waze, and Threshold.
In addition to the fully funded spot on FutureX's Silicon Valley Accelerate programme, the winner of the competition will receive over £200,000 in business support fromJohnston Carmichael, AAI EmployAbility, The Herald, IBM, Dentsu Aegis and STV.
This year sees the eighth iteration of the competition and a shift to include a 'tech for good' criteria. For the first time, applicants were asked to demonstrate how their innovation solves a social or environmental problem. This requirement reflects the global pivot towards tech for good and reinforces Scotland's tech industry as a leader in the purpose-driven movement.
Zoi Kantounatou, Co-founder of FutureX, said:
"It's more important than ever to use tech as a means to make a difference to people and the planet. We introduced the 'tech for good' criteria in response to that need, and we're thrilled to see the number of quality applications that are utilising technology to create positive change. We can't wait to see who will take the stage at Startup Summit to pitch for the top prize."
The semi-final will be hosted by Johnston Carmichael, Scotland’s largest independent firm of chartered accountants and business advisers, who have joined Startup Summit as a gold sponsor for a third consecutive year. Semi-finalists will pitch their ventures on September 24th, and three finalists will be chosen to go head to head on stage at on the 30th of October at Startup Summit 2019.
Shaun Millican, Partner & Head of Technology at Johnston Carmichael said:
"As ongoing gold partner of Startup Summit, it was brilliant to see this year’s fresh crop of top quality, forward thinking and socially conscious companies from across the UK submit their pitches for a place on the Silicon Valley Accelerate programme. Even those in their early stages already had that essential international mindset, and as the leading advisers of some of the country’s most innovative companies, we’re on-hand to support them with expert insights and advice throughout their growth journey"
The full list of semi-finalists for the Startup Summit Competition 2019 are:
Michael Cockburn, Co-founder of Desana: Building a global network of coworking spaces so flexible workers always have access to community and space to work.
Hannah Mercer, Founder of CensorPic: Developing software to stop the self-production of child pornography.
Amy Williams, Co-founder of Good-Loop: Harnessing the value of ethical advertising to create social impact.
Andrew Watson, Co-founder of Cohesion Medical: Improving patient outcomes by connecting citizens with health services and clinical solutions.
Diane Harbison, Co-founder of Decipher Analytics: Developing a data refinery platform to facilitate drug discovery and precision medicine approaches.
Kevin Quillien, Co-founder of R3-IoT Ltd: Bringing the Internet of Things to wherever it's needed.
Dr Elizabeth Fairley, Co-founder of Talking Medicines: Bringing medicines to life for improved insight on how patients take their medicines.
Pasquale Saviano, Founder of Photocert: Establishing and certifying the validity of pictures and videos.
The Competition final will be hosted on the main stage at Startup Summit 2019 on October 30th.
For more information, visit startup-summit.com
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