The Pitches of 15 Finalists at Startup Istanbul
15 best startups are selected for the finals at startup challenge. These startups have pitched on the finals in front of a strong jury consisted of Rahul Sood, Microsoft Ventures General Manager, Jason Ball, Qualcomm Ventures Investment Director, Dave McClure, Founder of 500 Startups. Here they are!
Ankara based Startup, Connected2.me won the award at Startup Istanbul. It is a global social network with 2.6 million registered users. Daily visitors and monthly new users are 200K and 100K per month, respectively. Its unique features are -Anonymity: It allows communication without revealing your identity. -Both web and mobile: Connected2.me runs on both web and mobile platforms. Connected2.me is founded by Ozan Yerli. LIX - The smallest 3D printing pen in the world. LIX Pen is a Londan based startup which is founded by Ismail Baran and Anton Suvovor. It enables you to doodle in the air. This professional tool offers you the comfort and pushes your creativity to another level. With Lix 3D Pen you can create anything from small to big, from details to prototypes. It allows you to express your creativity on a whole new level. LIX Pen got the second award on event. Jordan based Startup, Silk Road images is founded by Riham Mahafzah. It is a provider of exclusive Middle Eastern stock photography images and digital content such as: vectors, sound effects, VAS images, and editorials. This includes thousands of images (segmented into multiple, unique categories) sourced from reputable experienced photographers & content developers from across the region. Over the next 5 years we aim to grow & expand the business to cover the Far East market. Silk Road won the third award at Startup Istanbul ZarinPal is an Online Payment Gateway and the first system which started service providing. They are also the only company which have certification of work from central bank of Iran. ZarinPal has the largest bundle of services from interconnection of banks till new channels payment like USSD. They got the mention's award at Startup Istanbul.
Slovenia based Startup, Edgar aims brands with powerful tools and access to the best creatives (brand storytellers, writers, illustrators), so that they can delight their customers with awesome stories. They believe a good story beats even the biggest of marketing budgets. Instead of spending big on traditional advertising, brands should engage their peers with great content. Edgar is founded by Damjan Obal and Marusa Novak. Egypt based Startup, Codly is a mobile application development platform that will reinvent the mobile app development. It exports UI code directly from photoshop with just one click. This saves more than 40% of the mobile app development. They have released 4 beta versions of the platform and having more than 500 apps being developed using Codly at the moment. Codly is founded by Mohamed Shaban, Abdallah Zidan, Ahmed Kamal and Haitham Yassin. Pakistan based Startup, Fori Mazdoori (FM) is a digital service that aims to change change the way labour workers find jobs. The name is a combination of two Urdu words, where “Fori” means “Instant” and “Mazdoori” loosely translates into “Labour” or “Labouring Opportunity”. FM will enable people to easily access a database of qualified labour workers which have been peer reviewed and rated by other customers through the use of smart-phone applications, Short Messages (SMS) and/or a website. FM is all set to tap into a market of 60 million labour alone in Pakistan and 100’s of million across south Asia. Fori Mazdoori is founded by Musstanser Tinauli.
Telling visual stories using short looping visual clips is on the rise with animated GIFs, Vines and short Instagram videos. Funimate aims to be the best content creation tool for this emerging form of media with a vibrant user community. Funimate was created by two PhD level mobile imaging experts, Kemal Ugur and M. Oguz Bici, who previously worked at Nokia Research Center, Finland and led R&D efforts of numerous visual technologies in the market. Funimate was featured by Apple as the Best New app at its launch and was featured in more than 100 countries as the Best Selfie app. Goodwerp is a suite of online products tailored for small-business consultancies around the world. Current tools include: project management, deals, and finance. These tools can be used as a single entity or as a whole. The benefits of running these essential tools under a single platform gives our clients the ability to receive real-time feedback on the performance of their teams, projects, and business. Goodwerp is founded by Val Sopi. Ankara based Startup, Invidyo is the next generation monitoring solution for your home/office. Invidyo records video, measures temperature, humidity and air quality, saves your data to cloud and sends mobile notifications so you can keep an eye on your home/office even when away. You can access your data from our mobile apps and share with others. Invidyo is founded by Özgür Deniz Önür, Ekin Dino and Yagız Yasaroglu. Istanbul based Startup, ÖdeAl is a complete business solution with payment module, loyalty management tool and reporting system for businesses or individual sellers who want to grow their businesses. No extra device is needed to make credit card transactions. Cost and fees for conventional POS devices are eliminated. It has also compatibility with wearable technologies. The app can be used as mobile wallet or digital POS where needed credit card details can be converted to computer-readable data via devices' cameras. ÖdeAl is founded by Fevzi Güngör.
Another Istanbul based company, Paó is a wearable device built to fit your life style. Being the versatile (smart) wearable, this tiny artifact reinvents itself to (almost) whatever you want it to be. Using sensor technology and behavioral psychology Pao is the sharpest answer to the ages old problem of slouching. Built on a 6 DoF IMU and a proprietary algorithm, Pao helps you track, maintain and transform your posture and/or competence in various activities from Pilates to playing drums, from cycling to sleep. Pao is founded by Halit Soysal. Priceshoppers is coming from France. In the Trillion dollar eCommerce market, they called themselves as a fresh alternative to often "outdated" comparison shopping sites by responding to the needs of the hyper-connected, multi channel Price Shoppers with a Meta Search Shopping Engine built SLIM (Social, Local, Interactive, and Mobile) to empower price shoppers with the means to buy & share anything, anywhere on any device. Priceshoppers is founded by Nathan Frey. StudyBud is India based Startup. It simplifies preparation and study by focusing on multi-lingual learning and skill-specific assessment. StudyBud provides the following key features to its clients, i.e., Educational Institutions: 1. Skill/Subject/Competition/Company specific assessment for better results and targeted decisioning 2. Admin Dashboard for trainer/teacher/faculty evaluation for understanding effectiveness of offline or classroom modules 3. Comprehensive Analytics with over 20 metrics including Preparedness Index, Improvement Index, Accuracy, Speed and Completion Index. StudyBud is founded by Anubhav Jain and Dhruv Bhushan. Ta3rifah is a mobile app which provides an automated customer engagement and loyalty platform through SaaS model, differentiated with advanced business analytics for businesses and geo-targeted promotions for customers to allow businesses to increase their sales through retaining and gaining customers. It aims to be the most innovative and attractive mobile loyalty platform in MENA region that allows customers to earn loyalty points and enjoy discounts when they shop or dine. Ta3rifah is founded by Ismail Issa, Mostafa Khalifa and Mahmoud Salaheldin. You can watch the final pitches of Startups on the video below: Final Pitches - 30 September 2014 Etohum Startup Istanbul