HighTechXL has selected 14 teams to partake in the new round of the accelerator-programme in Eindhoven. The teams will start work in the programme on the Monday the 28th of November.
The final selection came after two days of Impact Finals on the 1st and 2nd of November at High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, HighTechXL‘s basis. At the Conference Center on campus the teams introduced themselves in a three minute pitch.
After that, the event moved to the HighTechXL office space on the Strip at campus. There, the teams were set to meet the mentors for talks. Eventually the winners were picked on Wednesday.
Jury
Jurgen van Eck, Senior Investment Manager with the Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM), is one of many mentors involved with the programme and represents the BOM as an investor at HighTechXL. He is also a member of the jury that decides on the final selection of the teams.
According to van Eck the jury mainly looks for unique ideas and the completeness of a team. “If the idea has been brought to market before, it becomes less interesting to us. We are looking for the ideas that end up being valuable investments to us.”
Van Eck says its important that there is a complete team with people from different disciplines. “And if they aren’t there, at least we should be able to fix that by adding one or two people to the team. Too often, there are three engineers on a team but no one with a background in business in the specific market the product is meant for. That’s a red flag to me.”
Here they are: The 14 new #hardware startups selected for HighTechXL’s Fall 2016 Acceleration Program #NLtech https://t.co/vtFcxc8tSn pic.twitter.com/8bdZlFPWBk
— HighTechXL (@Hightechxl) 4 november 2016
Teams
In total, 22 teams were invited to compete for a spot in the next round of HighTechXL. The nationalities of those teams varied, with teams hailing from East- and Western Europe, as well as South America and Asia. Eventually, the following 14 teams were selected, 6 of those teams are Dutch.
Dreamz (Poland)
Dreamz is a Virtual Reality solution for vision therapy that helps diagnose and speed up the treatment of amblyopia and strabismus in children. It consists of a headsets with hand-gesture control sensors to track hand-eye coordination tasks. Its interactive, immersive, 3D content is adapted for children who suffer from amblyopia, better known as lazy eye.
Oriense (Russia)
Oriense enables blind people to become self-reliant. The computer vision-based wearable device called Oriense helps them function independently, without needing assistance from guide dogs or people around them. Oriense employs location services and audio output to help blind people navigate from point A to point B bypassing obstacles and staying informed of their surroundings.
Crayonic (Slovakia)
Crayonic makes signing of electronic documents as easy as the traditional handwritten, pen-and-paper way, yet even more secure than current state-of-the-art digital technologies. Crayonic is a system of two sophisticated technological products: a pen which converts handwritten signatures to a secure cryptographic digital signature or to biometric digital signature, and a mobile application that is able to securely exchange, view, sign and timestamp electronic documents according to the strictest EU standards.
Sentralia Labs (Romania)
Sentralia is a system that empowers women worldwide to perform self-assessment and over-the-counter medication for non-critical medical conditions. The company’s first device focuses on fertility. It helps women analyse their cycle and identifies the best time to get pregnant.
Spinal (Azerbaijan)
Spinal is a wearable device combined with an application that helps you get into the habit of good posture. It trains your muscles and using their memory, helps you get into a habit after just 3-4 weeks of using Spinal. Spinal helps eliminate and prevent the consequences of poor posture such as head, neck, and back pain, and decreased lung functioning.
Uvisio (Germany)
Uvisio provides an affordable solution that targets skin cancer from different angles: We measure the exact amount of a person’s sun exposure time based on UV, personal risk profile, calculation of aggregated sun exposure over time. We also use predictive analytics for better prevention measures and research.
Hugsy (The Netherlands)
Hugsy is a comforting solution designed to enhance bonding between parents and their premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Hugsy is a new form of neuroprotective and developmental care for preterm babies that simulates Kangaroo Care by exposing babies to the parental heartbeat, smell, and supportive positioning while they are in the incubator.
Sustonable (The Netherlands)
Sustonable offers a sustainable and affordable composite stone made of recycled PET and quartz or marble resins. The company has developed a new continuous process and a new product that are patented. It uses twice as less raw material to produce one engineered stone kitchen countertop that weighs three times less than standard solutions.
KG Protech (Brazil)
KP Protech make quality automotive training available any time, any place by turning any car into a training center. It helps automakers, dealerships and repair garages increase profitability and improve customer satisfaction and create new opportunities for auto mechanics around the world by making technical training accessible locally at their work space whenever they need it.
Centaur (The Netherlands)
Measuring rein tension gives insight into the performance of equestrians and their horses. This can improve performance and training efficiency, prevent injuries, and improve animal well-being. Centaur’s Rein Tension Sensors measure the pressure applied on the bit and display this via Bluetooth to an app on your smart device.
Ovao (Lithuania)
In the overcrowded market of heart rate trackers, the dominating wrist wearables are not suited for swimmers. While swimming, your wrist is constantly moving and your goggles get misty, making it difficult to see. Ovao discovered that eyewear is the most convenient type of wearable device for swimmers, as it’s easy to read and perceive color-coded information in real time.
Uscoutfor (The Netherlands)
Uscoutfor is a platform that provides real-time insight to players and trainers in their performance. With a sophisticated video algorithm, we can detect behavioral patterns in sports and distribute high-value content to fans all over the world. Athletes get to show their skills, fans watch and interact with outstanding talents, clubs and scouts search on all available data.
BerkelBike (The Netherlands)
BerkelBike helps people who are physically handicapped to have a better life. The technology from BerkelBike makes it possible for spinal cord injury patients to actively cycle despite their paralyzed legs. But spinal cord injury patients are not the only ones to benefit from the bike: It can also help other groups, such as people with MS, brain injuries, or amputee patients.
RowCoaching (The Netherlands)
With Rowcoaching you can monitor several athletes at the same time. The custom tablet will show all important parameters detailed on a range of up to 700m.
The HighTechXL-programme takes six months to complete. In that time , the teams will constantly speak with mentors to prepare for Demo Day, the grand finale of HighTechXL, where the teams show their products and look for investors. Often, by then the ideas will have grown to start-ups and potentially scale-ups.
Related Posts
