The Journal, May 2013
A shortlist of finalists has been unveiled in a contest to unearth inventive startup businesses.
Thinking Digital, the sixth annual conference exploring web, mobile, digital and technological ideas, gets under way at The Sage Gateshead next week, having sold all tickets for its main hall events.
The ideas conference begins on Tuesday, May 21, with the second annual Start-up Competition, in which chief executive Herb Kim invited digital and technology start-up companies to come forward with their business pitches.
Dr Richard Exley and Dr Stephen Price, of Northstar Ventures, Paul Smith of ignite100 and Paul Lancaster of Sage One UK have judged all the applications received from across the UK and Europe, to put together a shortlist of 10 early stage tech startups.
The 10 finalists will take part in a live pitching event at Newcastle University Business School on Tuesday, before a panel of renowned industry judges and a 500-strong voting audience, during the pre-conference activities of Thinking Digital.
The shortlist of entries includes Bubblepix Ltd, based in Newcastle, a firm allowing users to take 360° photos and videos and share them; London-based Chirp, a new way to share data using sound which the founders intend to license to brands, broadcasters and advertisers.
Also shortlisted is Newcastle-based EarSoft, which has developed technology to make any audio content accessible for almost anyone, no matter where they are or what they’re using to enjoy their sound.
Future Ad Labs of London will pitch their ‘PlayCaptcha’, an alternative to Captchas – hard to read words at the bottom of online forms – replacing them with short fun mini-games, while The Good Night Lamp, also of London, will pitch their family of internet-connected lamps.
LICUOS, of Madrid, meanwhile, will pitch their global B2B payment platform where businesses can compensate and settle their commercial debts, reducing their dependence on the traditional banking system.
The list is rounded by Omlis Ltd, of Newcastle, whose digital services can enable customers to instantly access their systems by touching the screen of their smart phone or device, PointCrowds of Oxford and London which is building a solution which allows groups of people to collectively create 3D models of things using cameras, Middlesbrough’s Spearhead Interactive which develops bespoke online 3D solutions for business, education and public sector markets, and London’s YPlan, heralded as “tonight’s going out app”.
Chief executive Herb Kim added: “Even though the digital age has been with us a while we are looking at this constantly changing software and hardware and different business models arise all the time.’’