This week, Vienna’s own Sektor5 hosted the Startupbootcamp Pitch Day. Startup teams defining or refining their application for the Startupbootcamp in Berlin, pitched to a group of mentors, among whom the co-founder of Startupbootcamp Berlin, Wilken Bruns, Gerald Bäck (co-founder Archify), Can Ertugrul (entrepreneur & board member Austrianstartups.com), Florian Selch, and Oliver Holle, CEO of Speedinvest. Applications for the Berlin programme, which runs from August to October, are currently open, available here, and will close on 2 June.
Photo credit: Floor DreesSlovenian Naymit kicked off Pitch Day with their presentation. Naymit is Damir Kervina and Matjaz Tercelj, two former co-workers, both heavily involved in their country’s startup community. They explicitly mentioned taking the opportunity to refine their pitch with the help of Pitch Day’s mentors, arguing that Berlin has an active venture capital and business angel ecosystem – just what Naymit needs.
Naymit helps you explain where exactly places are located. A picnic place normally has no physical address, and a (Google) map URL or coordinates won’t really help either. With Naymit, you can drop a pin anywhere on a map and name it, so your friends can find it by its exact name. Also, you can add a description and photos to the listing. Naymit is a free service, though Kervina and Tercelj plan to sell name space in the future. Partnerships with navigation services, and offering APIs are also on the road map. “Europe is not America, we don’t have illuminated signs, we have winding roads, that’s why we are more usable than Google.”
Presenting for uugot.it was Phillipp Etzlinger. The startup enables real-time subtitles for TV on all devices, using the Google Translate API. “There are 27 different countries, with 23 different languages in the European Union alone, Etzlinger said.“We want to help immigrants and travelers alike to improve their language skills while watching television.” Etzlinger speaks from experience as he learned French tuning in to a local TV station regularly during his time in Paris. The business model is a mixture of subscription and ad display. Etzlinger doesn’t know of any competitors in the field although he could imagine Apple TV and Google TV going in this direction in the foreseeable future.
Andreas Röttl (CEO) and Chris Papauschek (CTO) of miavia – the Airbnb for personal travel guides – were also present. “The total available market for digital travel information worldwide is huge, Röttl told inventures.eu. “miavia saves you time and money planning your trip by connecting you to other travelers.” Travelers who made a similar trip to what you’re planning offer travel boxes, a personal Lonely Planet. miavia’s goal is to become the biggest publisher of travel guides worldwide. With zero marketing, the startup currently has 400 registered users and 30 authors.
Photo credit: Floor Dreesstack.fm‘s Benjamin Posch claims that popular social network Facebook has become unstable and unsustainable. Stack.fm, the “social network to replace the social network”, has already received traction in the national and international press, but Posch doesn’t seem to be scared of the Diaspora-effect. “Diaspora is no viable alternative; both brands and users want something better out of a mega social network.”
Startup couple Sandro Mur and Urska Srsen (designer) pitched their BabyWatch project, a device (ultrasound doppler) to track the state of a pregnancy; it’s pocket-sized and already has CEE approval. The team has spent the last three months testing it, and are currently looking for funding – hence their participation in the Startupbootcamp rally.
Hannes Stiebitzhofer of LearningSigns took the stage a little after lunch. “Often times in your life you’ll need to memorise signs. We want to help people learn by playing a little card game.” LearningSigns asks for a fee per download of the smartphone app, and offers in-app purchases. Today, LearningSigns is focusing on the localisations of the application. The fact that the little competition they have is only web-based seems to work in their advantage. “We see an average playing time of 20 minutes, which is rather high. We hope to accelerate our growth in the Startupbootcamp programme.”
Alma Mautner is part of the Vienna office of 2tangos, while the bigger part of the team is located in Tel Aviv. 2Tangos connects people according to their skills and interests, in which an algorithm matches people in the same cities in a teacher-student situation. Upon visiting their website you can list the city you live in, as well as up to three things you would want to learn up to three you’d like to teach. So far, 450 matches have been established. Next on the road map for 2Tangos: a feedback tool and a mobile app.
Founded at the end of 2010, Startupbootcamp is now active in Amsterdam, Dublin, Berlin and Copenhagen. The accelerator has a 120-member team based in Berlin.
