It’s been an eventful week in more ways that one. But before Darling announced the new £750 tech fund on Wednesday, UK entrepreneurs in the sector were showcasing the fruits of their labour at two fantastic events – Seedcamp and TechCrunch’s inaugural Geek n Rolla.
Here are just a handful of the companies that caught our eye over the course of the two events:
UK-based companies made a splash at the London mini-seed camp event at NESTA on Monday. The day was crammed with almost 100 mentors and 20 business teams – and packed with entrepreneurial competitiveness.
Smartphone apps made a big impression, with Vouchacha – a location-based, on-demand mobile discount voucher application – recognised early on for the most impressive presentation. Free to users, retailers are only charged if a customer downloads an offer or voucher onto their mobile device. Ben Brown and Matt Collins had to choose between attending the Star Trek premiere or Seedcamp drinks and pizza in Mayfair after the presentation – we know which we’d choose.
We liked shoot-and-search application, Plink, too. The start-up offers technology which can accurately find matches of photographed images in a fraction of a second, so if you take a picture of a DVD on your smartphone, Plink will link you to a trailer. Similarly, a photograph of a painting will lead you to a Wikipedia article. Very handy.
But the winning UK teams were really something: CityOdds Ltd, a fixed-odds financial betting company; GymFu, an app that uses iPhone motion-detection and social networking to promote fitness; and Timetric, a platform enabling statistical data analysis all wowed the crowd. These winning teams made presentations and answered questions from Seedcamp’s investment committee yesterday – you can get updates on the committee’s final investment decisions at: http://blog.seedcamp.com/.
The aptly named Geek n Rolla – so-called for its transformation of ‘nerdy’ developers into hella cool web superstars – provided a veritable feast of coders, designers and internet gurus all under one roof – London’s RIBA HQ.
We were particularly impressed by:
Hubdub – the company gives users virtual dollars with which to bet on the outcome of particular news events. Co-founder Lesley Eccles gave a great presentation on the company’s experience of launching their product to an American market while based in Edinburgh.
Huddle – Number 15 on our Startups 100 list last year, we’re pleased to report the astonishing success of this online network of workspaces allows small businesses and entrepreneurs to manage projects, collaborate online, share documents and work together without being in the same office. Co-founder Andy McLoughlin gave a rousing talk on the importance of hiring a great team for your start-up.
BookingBug – an online booking and reservation platform which allows businesses and service providers to list their services online and manage appointments and reservations. You can also embed the BookingBug widget on to your own website. The company’s Glen Shoomith pitched the idea to a panel of angel investors including former Dragon Doug Richard.
Of course the above-mentioned companies are just a small taste of the tech talent on show at the events, and from what we saw this week the new £750m will be money well spent if just a fraction of it goes towards entrepreneurs like these.
