SAN FRANCISCO, July 31st, 2018 - Cleverciti (smart cities), OptioPay (Fintech) and PiWik PRO (Martech) were selected to join the 4th edition of “Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley”, the premier program for future European Unicorns organized by Mind the Bridge with the support of the European Commission Startup Europe, Startup Europe Partnership and EIT Digital.
Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley (SEC2SV)
In total, 13 European Tech champions were selected to attend this program. The companies come from 8 countries, with combined revenue of over $75M and around 1000 employees all together. They cover multiple verticals such as Mobility, Cleantech, Cybersecurity, Smart Cities, Internet and Fintech, and will spend an entire week, September 9-15 participating in workshops, mentor sessions, presentations and business meetings in Silicon Valley.
The week long program is built around the flagship conference, European Innovation Day (EID), held on September 11th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
“SEC2SV - commented Isidro Laso, Head of Startup Europe at the European Commission- is the flagship initiative of the European Commission to build bridges among innovation ecosystems in EU and US. We look at this initiative as a super connector that will be mutually beneficial in reaching out to new markets for the startups and in generating diverse deal flows for investors in both regions”.
“EIT Digital congratulates the three EIT Digital Accelerator companies on having been selected for this program and looks forward to further boosting their US market expansion.” Says Eric Thelen, Director EIT Digital Silicon Valley Hub.
“This year’s cohort shows very well how much the European startup landscape has changed in just 4 years - Marco Marinucci, CEO Mind the Bridge commented- Compared to last editions, we can see promising businesses coming from new emerging Eastern Europe economies like Hungary, Albania and Poland in addition to the ‘traditional’ ones like France or Germany. The European Commission keeps playing its key role to strengthen the Innovation Economy of Europe and our data confirm this trend: the Scaleup Europe ecosystem last year registered a +28% growth in scaleup population and a +36% growth in capital raised compared to the prior year. These numbers translate to more than 1,200 new scaleups born in Europe and $22B in new capital invested in 2017”.
The 2018 edition of EID will focus on some of the most relevant topics in tech:
- GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) Privacy, Data Storage/Transfer
- ICO’s (Initial Coin Offerings) and Crypto Currencies Regulations
- European Economy of Innovation in Silicon Valley
- Cities and Transportation
Among the confirmed speakers for this year are: Vivek Wadhwa, author and opinion leader, Tim Draper, Partner, Draper Associates, Peter Arvai, CEO and co-founder, Prezi, Pēteris Zilgalvis, Head of unit, DG Connect, European Commission, Kristin Schreiber, Director COSME programme, DG Grow, European Commission, Sorin Moisa, MEP, European Parliament, Adam Sterling, Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Business, Sabrina Ross, international privacy and security expert, and more.
Full list of invited companies for SEC2SV 2018:
Agorize - France - 2011 - SaaS
Agorize is an open innovation platform that connects people looking to scout for technology solutions for hackathons or innovation challenges. The platform is open to a wide audience such as students, new graduates, data scientists, programmers, startups and corporate employees.
agorize.com/en
Clairy - Italy - 2016 - Cleantech
Clairy is the most unique Air Purifier on the market that addresses pollution in the most polluted air environment, the home. Clairy uses phytoremediation to purify air indoors in a non-intrusive and sustainable way. Clairy also comes with sensors to monitor air pollution and gives users data to view on a mobile app.
clairy.com
Cleverciti - Germany - 2012 - Smart Cities | EIT Digital Accelerator
Cleverciti Systems turns the daily nightmare of searching for a parking space into a predictable, stress-free experience by using disruptive technology and big data. They have developed a new cost-effective and smart on-street parking system that uses sensor and wayfinding technology mounted to lampposts. This results in less congestion on city streets and reduced carbon emissions and other pollutants in city centers.
Other verticals are shopping malls, airport and corporates with large parking areas, seeking to offer better service to their customers.
cleverciti.com
Codecool - Hungary - 2014 - Cybersecurity
Codecool has created a 12-month course designed to teach users mainstream programming languages and skills, allowing non-technical professionals to transition into developer roles in just a year. Codecool also serves employers by providing a marketplace for companies to search for and contact developers who have gone through the Codecool sessions.
codecool.com
Fudo Security – Poland – 2012 – Cybersecurity
Fudo Security is a leading security vendor specializing in Privileged Account Management. With offices in the US and Europe and over 100 partners in 35 countries, it’s one of the most innovative and fastest growing security vendors in the world. Several hundred customers mostly from finance/insurance, telco, energy, oil&gas and the public sector are already using Fudo Security’ products.
wheelsystems.com | fudosecurity.com
Gjirafa - Albania - 2013 - Internet
Gjirafa, Inc., is the fastest growing Internet Services company in the Balkans. Gjirafa is an OTT media services and an e-commerce platform for the Balkans built on top of an Albanian language specialized search engine.
gjirafa.com
Movinga - Germany - 2015 - Mobility
Movinga is a vertically integrated logistics tech company for customers and medium-sized moving companies. As a professional full service provider Movinga offers logistically optimised moves for private individuals and companies, goods transports and courier services. Pricing is done on a case by case basis and is nearly always lower than competitors.
movinga.de
Muving - Spain - 2017 - Mobility
Muving is transforming urban mobility with an electric scooter sharing platform offering eco-friendly and cost effective alternatives to urban commuting. Available to customers via the Muving app, scooters are located and reserved and highlight the positive environmental impact of each ride. Pricing is based on per minute rates. Muving is the leading platform in Europe currently in 12 cities including Madrid, Sevilla, Barcelona, Granada, Cadiz and more. The scooters are dockless and completely electric, serving as a green and flexible mobility option for urban areas.
muvingusa.com
OptioPay - Germany - 2014 - Fintech | EIT Digital Accelerator
OptioPay is an online payment processing platform. They offer software with flexible payment options, including gift cards for employers to pay employees allowing companies ease of operation by increasing flexibility, integration and diverse ways to pay employees.
optiopay.com
Partnering Robotics - France - 2007 - Robotics
Partnering Robotics has produced the DIYA One robot, designed to monitor and maintain indoor atmospheres and encourage worker wellbeing. The robot is equipped with a variety of sensors that generate actionable environmental data on indoor pollution.
partnering-robotics.com
Piwik PRO - Poland - 2013 - Big data / Martech | EIT Digital Accelerator
Piwik PRO has developed a marketing suite package that allows customers to deliver optimized marketing campaigns and manage a database in the most sensitive and secure environments. They have taken the challenge of user privacy and data stewardship and built a full stack solution for marketing that complies with all regulation and privacy concerns.
piwik.pro
Smarp - Finland - 2011 - Big data / Martech
Smarp is a SaaS solution companies can use to empower their employees to discover and share content created by the company such as blogs, events, and job listings, to their social media networks. Employees can measure the impact their content has on their network and improve their thought leadership and influence, while employers benefit from greater visibility and evangelism through their employees.
smarp.com
Uberall - Germany - 2012 - Martech
Uberall brings together local businesses and customers by ensuring companies are found across all popular directories, mobile apps, maps, and GPS devices with consistent profiles such as photos, descriptions and other data points. They also facilitate better communication with customers through real-time notifications of reviews or messages on the various platforms.
uberall.com
The participation in the program is by invitation-only and restricted to high level policy makers, senior corporate executives and investors, and the delegation of the most promising European scaleups.
About EIT Digital
EIT Digital is a leading European open innovation organisation that brings together a partnership of over 130 top European corporations, SMEs, start-ups, universities and research institutes. EIT Digital invests in strategic areas to accelerate market uptake of research-based digital technologies and to bring entrepreneurial talent and leadership to Europe. EIT Digital is a Knowledge and Innovation Community of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). EIT Digital headquarters are in Brussels with co-location centres in Berlin, Budapest, Eindhoven, Helsinki, London, Madrid, Paris, Stockholm, Trento and a hub in Silicon Valley.
For more info: www.eitdigital.eu | @EIT_Digital
About Mind the Bridge
Mind the Bridge is a global organization that provides innovation advisory services for corporates and startups. With HQs in San Francisco (CA) and offices in London, Italy and Spain, Mind the Bridge has been working as an international bridge at the intersection between startups and corporates since 2007. Mind the Bridge scouts, filters and works with 2,000+ startups a year supporting global corporations in their innovation quest by driving open innovation initiatives that translate into curated deals with startups (namely POCs, licensing, investments, and/or acquisitions). Mind the Bridge publishes curated reports on the status of the scaleup ecosystems in different geographies, as well as M&A and innovation market trends in various verticals. Mind the Bridge has strong partnerships with entities such as the London Stock Exchange and the European Commission, for whom it runs the Startup Europe Partnership (SEP) open innovation platform.
It is the organizer of the Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley (SEC2SV) and Startup Europe Comes to Israel (SEC2IL) missions and the European Innovation Day conference.
For more info: www.mindthebridge.com | @mindthebridge
About Startup Europe
Startup Europe is the initiative of the European Commission that aims at building a "Startups and Scaleups Continent" by connecting local ecosystems across Europe. The main activities of Startup Europe are focused on the one hand on helping startups to scaleup all across Europe and internationally and on the other hand on democratizing the "Lean Startup Phenomenon" so that every citizen in Europe has a fair chance to start and grow a startup in Europe.
Startup Europe is implemented in two ways: first via H2020 projects and second via providing political support to grassroots initiatives of the startup community in Europe. SEP is the open innovation platform supported by Startup Europe via H2020 project SEP 2.0. In addition Startup Europe manages the One Stop Shop for startups in Europe where all information about EU support for startups can be found.
For more info: startupeuropeclub.eu | @StartupEU
About Startup Europe Partnership (SEP)
Established by the European Commission as part of the Startup Europe initiative in January 2014 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, SEP is the first pan-European open innovation platform dedicated to transforming European startups into scaleups by linking them with global corporations and stock exchanges.
SEP is led by Mind the Bridge, a global organization based in Europe and Silicon Valley, in partnership with innovation foundation Nesta, the European Investment Fund/ European Investment Bank Group, London Stock Exchange Group, EBAN, the European Startup Network, and The ScaleUp Institute.
By participating in the SEP program, global companies have access to the best technologies and companies with the goal of initiating business partnerships and venture corporate investments. Scaleups are exposed to qualified sales/strategic opportunities as well as funding options either via venture capital, private placements, or IPOs.
For more info: startupeuropepartnership.eu | @sep_eu
