LIVE: Discovering Startups 2011

The winners of Discovering Startups 2010, some of which have since secured major investment

This is a historical event. A report on the winners of Discovering Startups can be found here.

Following months of preparation and anticipation, the day has finally arrived. Cambridge Wireless’s flagship entrepreneurial competition, Discovering Start-ups, will see 20 teams pitch their companies and ideas to 25 judges and potential investors.

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Startups

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LeapLog
Cambridge
LeapLog is a web application which allows friends to collaboratively plan, create and share trips.

The startup has developed a common interface for members of the travelling group to discover and share information, and help organise details like travel dates, destinations and activities. It plans to generate revenues as an affiliate of booking providers, and says that other revenue streams are also possible.
Twitter: @Leap_Log
People: Ben Bonetti, Robert Hoff

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Handy Elephant
Cambridge
The only UK startup to win a place on the Citrix Startup Accelerator, Handy Elephant has developed a productivity app for professionals who have to maintain a large number of relationships across multiple channels.

It describes its app as a personal assistant that tells users who they need to follow up with, when the best time is to get in touch, and which channels will be most effective.
Twitter: @HandyElephant
People: Ben Wirtz

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app damon
London
Recently winning funding from The Downing Enterprise Competition, app damon has developed a mobile app recommendation engine.

With the user’s permission, the platform scans the user’s interaction on social networks to determine their interests and then recommends suitable apps. Users can also share, review and recommend apps to their friends. It will generate revenue from app affiliate referral fees from Apple’s iTunes and by charging app developers advertising fees.
People: Carl Davis

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Ellexus
Cambridge
Many processes in the hardware and software industry require tasks to be automated using scripts. Many scripts can work together to form complex flows.

Ellexus’ software, Breeze, helps engineers design, understand and debug these flows. Breeze provides a dashboard from which to edit and run the scripts. The company says its technology wins over alternative solutions because it accelerates script development, promotes collaboration and works with a company's existing flow without modification.
People: Dr Rosemary Francis

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TeqniHome
Wokingham
Intriguingly, TeqniHome says it plans to roll-out a ‘completely new next-generation communication product along with a key service targeting residential and business users.’ With products and service based on five pending patents, the startup plans to target ‘three major multi-billion pound’ markets.
People: Dr Siva Vakeesar

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AppSherpas
Cambridge
Developers of illumiEye, described as mobile image discovery technology. The product is aimed at publishers, retailers and advertisers to provide a connection between the printed page and online media. The reader scans an image in an article or advertisement and they are automatically linked to rich, multimedia content.
Twitter: @appsherpas
People: Graeme Gibson

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Talking Eye
Norwich
The company has created 'MyButler’, what it says is the world’s first and only mobile telecoms intercom/doorbell monitoring device that includes two-way talk.

MyButler enables consumers (whilst anywhere in the world) to communicate with visitors to their home front door and enhance security using real time voice-to-voice and visual communication through mobile networks.
People: Helen Haywood

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Games for Life/ BioDigital Health
Stevenage
Developers of computer games to help children suffering with ADHD, Games for Life is conducting research linking electric brain potentials to eye tracking. Collaborative projects in telehealth, medical applications & robotics are underway, as well as the UK’s first attention-memory training iLab.
Twitter: @Gamesforlife
People: Ian Glasscock

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Qiqqa
Cambridge
Founder James Jardine won two pitching competitions in a matter of days earlier this year, while a side project for the SVC2UK appathon won a trip to Silicon Valley so he must rank as one of the favourites today.

Qiqqa, pronounced “quicker”, is software that helps researchers manage and extract the most relevant information from their research materials. Combining innovative tools with powerful natural language processing, Qiqqa lets researchers cope with the avalanche of papers and information that their research involves. Qiqqa Premium brings additional features, expanded web storage, group collaboration, and no advertising.
Twitter: @Qiqqa
People: James Jardine

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TribalOS
Barcelona
TribalOS is a cloud based collaboration suite aimed at business users. Users can store, share, browse and publish files and the platform also includes a suite of communication tools, including email, chat and videoconferencing.
Twitter: @TribalOS
People: Jaume Olive Morente

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Voyage Manager
Cambridge
Voyage Manager’s Travel Manager is a web based travel tracking, management and security service that provides businesses with a platform for managing and monitoring employee travel. It is accessible from any location by web, SMS and mobile phone.
Twitter: @VoyageManager
People: John Scott

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Advanced Balance Systems
Cambridge
Walkasins is a wearable medical device that helps reduce the risk of falls in people with balance problems by up to 50%. One in three over 65 will sustain a fall-related injury at great personal and economic cost. Walkasins works by providing vibrotactile biofeedback to augment or replace impaired balance sensation and is a new approach to solving the problem.
People: Joshua Wies

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Skrybot
Cambridge/Warsaw
Skrybot is developing a wide spectrum of speech recognition products, ranging from specialist dictation software for legal and medical purposes, through general dictation, automated telephone call centres, to complex server ASR systems.

The technology currently supports Polish and English and the company is looking to enter to other EU countries in the next stage. Developing open source speech recognition technologies also.
People: Leslaw Milosz Pawlaczyk

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Sunfish Energy
St. Asaph, N.Wales
This startup has developed unique concentrated solar power plants that generate process heat and electricity at very high efficiencies without the need for feed in tariffs.  The company says its modular technology harnesses the very latest in advanced solar cell design, low cost optics, heat extraction, fast field assembly and efficient transportation.  

It is fully scalable for utility, industrial and commercial installations such as hotels, factories, mine sites and remote communities.
People: Luke Robinson

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Savage Minds
Winchester
Savage Minds has developed FUTS, smartphone trial management software for operators and manufacturers. FUTS organises trial devices and users; measures user engagement; assesses device performance; judges software reliability and captures user feedback accurately.
People: Mark Terry

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Psonar
Cambridge
Founded by former venture capitalist, Martin Rigby, Psonar helps music fans to find, enjoy and share music. In light of competition from Amazon, Apple and Google's cloud service, the company has recently pivoted to a pay-per-play model.

Psonar’s web app allows users to play any track for one penny (or one cent or one eurocent), bypassing the need for subscriptions or adverts and works on all modern smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers.
Twitter: @Psonar
People: Martin Rigby

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Proxama
London & Norwich
Founded in 2005, Proxama develops near-field communication and contactless technology. With the recent acquisition of Cambridge-based proximity marketing company, Hypertag, Proxama says it is now in a unique position to offer expertise in all areas of proximity and mobile marketing.
Twitter: @Proxama
People: Neil Garner

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Blu Wireless Technology
Bristol
Blu-Wireless Technology is a fabless semiconductor company developing low cost multi-Gigabit WiFi products for next-gen consumer electronics devices.

The product will allow mobile operators to offload cloud based video data from their networks by the “near instantaneous syncing to portable platforms with very low battery usage.” The company says it has demonstrated >2Gbps data transfers to its now “highly excited” Japanese customer base.
People: Ray McConnell

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Mindings
London
Founded by London-based multimedia specialist, Stuart Arnott, Mindings aims to keep families connected through an Android mobile app that enables anyone to share meaningful moments with their family members, anything from good wishes to a reminder of a doctor’s appointment. The phone sends personal captioned photos, text messages, calendar reminders, Facebook content and much more instantly on to a digital photo frame.
Twitter: @MindingsStu
People: Stuart Arnott

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Jasper Apps
Cambridge
The main product from Cambridge mobile app developer, Jasper Apps, is My Vacation, a travel app for the iPhone and iPad that allows user to create a personal travelogue from the palm of their hand, helping preserve memories of travels through photos, videos and journals.
The core idea is that by making it easy to build a travelogue during the trip on devices that are always at hand, it tackles the most common case of merely uploading a bunch of unsorted photos at the end of a trip.
The travel journals can then be viewed in an interactive presentation and shared in multiple ways.
Twitter: @Jasper_apps
People: Tony Short blog comments powered by Disqus