techpitch 4.5 Showcases Emerging Startup Talent

techpitch 4.5, the latest event produced by 2Pears (facilitators of peer2peer networking and collaboration specialising in creative and startup companies), was presented on May 25 to showcase nine of the UK’s most promising tech startups in a competitive derby format. These emerging companies, who had participated in a prior series of training seminars sponsored by UKTI (United Kingdom Trade & Investment, the government body charged with helping UK-based businesses flourish in the world economy), were given three minutes each to demonstrate the viability and potential of their business concepts before a panel of expert judges; the judges were led by moderator Danvers Baillieu (co-founder of event sponsor Bootlaw, a free boot camp and online resource for emerging technology, internet and digital businesses, and a senior associate of law firm Pinsent Masons LLP, Liverpool Street).

Keynote speaker Eric van der Kleij, CEO of Tech City Investment, kicked off the evening prior to the pitch round. Best known as founder of alert messaging company Adeptra, van der Kleij referred to himself as “an entrepreneur-in-residence” and explained the importance of entrepreneurship and the role of the government in championing development of startup industries (in comparison to all-too-familiar route of many fledging small business owners, funding by “friends, fools and family investment”).  The self-effacing Kleij then emphasised the importance of luck to any successful startup, calling it the most important attribute and noting that “In a tornado, even a turkey can fly”.  He also acknowledged the difficulty of obtaining funding from banks in the current economic environment and how important it is to attract and retain entrepreneurs in the UK.

The judging panel was comprised of moderator Baillieu. speaker van der Kleij and the following experts: Megumi Ikeda, Executive Director Comcast Interactive Capital, a $500 million venture capital fund; Amine Laouedj, Associate at Goetz Partners Corporate Finance independent advisors covering technology and media; Glenn Shoosmith, Founder of Bookingbug; Zuzanna Pasierbinska-Wilson, founder of Silicon Stilettos & VP Marketing at Huddle, and Grace Yusef, former banker and founder/CEO of Kyubid, an online dating site.

The participating founders of the nine emerging businesses presented an interesting mix of concepts, and all of them showed a considerable amount of knowledge and capability (though some had more chutzpah than others). The presenters were, in order:

Clickslide, a new mobile web app creation platform that works on all devices, is low in cost and claims to be virtually idiot-proof; targeted to the non-developer market.  States it has “complete API integration” (like an iPhone).

DanceToThis: an online hub for dance where users can learn, share and discover everything to do with dance. Designed to take advantage of the current national dance craze as epitomised by “Strictly Come Dancing” and their offspring, and to appeal to amateurs and pros alike.

Findababysitter.com: as the name implies, this startup – which was actually launched in 2006 as a home-based project by founder Tom Harrow – matches up prospective babysitters with parents in need of the service. Their angle?  Safety and security – making sure their childminders are thoroughly vetted.

Gigaboxx: If you follow tech news at all you know that mobile apps are super hot, and in the music business even more so. Industry leader Mobile Roadie now has a competitor in the form of Gigaboxx, which purports to offer their service at even lower cost and states that it is on the verge of signing “two worldwide deals with major music aggregators”.

Internavenue:  with the demand for interns ever growing, Internavenue offers a service to match up interns seeking placements with companies in need of their assistance. Interesting fact: Internavenue will only work with companies offering paid internships.

Marketinvoice: many companies that would benefit from an immediate infusion of cash are sitting on a pile of unpaid invoices (accounts receivable). Traditional banks will purchase these receivables, a practice called factoring. However, the conditions imposed by most banks can be onerous. Hence, Marketinvoice: they claim to offer more flexible terms targeted toward profitable companies with “poor cash-flow models”.

Minutebox: we’ve all seen the myriad of websites offering expert advice in one form or another. Minutebox leverages online reputation by buying and selling online expertise online via multimedia chat.  Users pay for time spent with the chosen expert in their field of interest.

Plancentric: a B2B cloud software management company offering a “radical approach to project planning”. Most project management software currently is task-based, but Plancentric focuses on managing resources.  Architecture is based in part upon MS Project.

Tools Of Directing Ltd:  a digital tool offering “improved efficiency in production planning,” as well as the ability to insert machine-readable metadata into scripts (which has significant commercial implications for product placement and the like). Want to be come the “Google of the world’s stories” (have to give them points for that tagline).

The upshot:  the panel found the ideas of each presenter to be worthy of merit and potentially viable. Criticisms were broad in scope, ranging from the quality of the presentation itself, to the lack of thorough market research and data to support revenue projections and the problem of differentiating one’s product in a competitive environment already well-supplied with alternatives.  At the end of the day, the judges voted as follows:

Third place: Plancentric
Second place: Minutebox
First place: Marketinvoice

The judges panel thought that the Marketinvoice business model as an almost sure-fire win if brought to market quickly and decisively.  All of the judges were impressed were Minutebox’s pitch, though there were some concerns as to whether it was sufficiently differentiated from the competition.  Several judges agreed that existing project-management software had its limitations, and thought that Plancentric was on its way to becoming profitable, particularly if it could position itself for a sale to Microsoft.

For more information about techpitch 4.5 and how to be considered for subsequent events, please visit http://www.amiando.com/techpitch.html or www.2pears.com.

Related posts:

1. Talent Scouting: Watch The Crowd, Not The Stage
2. Nokia breaking down the emerging market mobile music barriers?

Posted by Laura Grivainis Thorne on Jun 7 2011. Filed under featured, Industry Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.