Startup Europe Awards

StartUp Europe Awards recognizes the best European startups in 10 categories

  • The President of the European Parliament has opened the final ceremony of StartUp Europe Awards 2016 at the European Parliament.
  • This initiative is organized by the StartUp Europe Accelerator by Finnova Foundation
  • Robocamp, Tespack, INZMO, Windcity, NeuronGuard, VyzVoice, CityCrop, TempBuddy, Waynabox and APSU have been awarded as the best startups in Europe in the 10 different categories.
  • The “Best Public Administration for startups Award” has gone to the Lisbon City Council, the Consorcio Zona Franca de Vigo and the Central Denmark Region; they have been recognized for their effort in supporting entrepreneurship in their respective territories.

 

The StartUp Europe Awards initiative, promoted by the European Commission, supported by the President of the Committee of the Regions and implemented by the StartUp Europe Accelerator by Finnova Foundation, have recognised for the first time in a collaborative and inter-European way the best startups in Europe in 10 categories, in the so-called “Eurovision for startups”.  The President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, opened the final ceremony of StartUp Europe Awards 2016. “We should cultivate good ideas and help them to grow. We need to invest more in digital technologies and create a genuine European single market where our young companies can develop”, assured Tajani.

StartUp Europe Awards presents a prize methodology for startups at local, regional and national level, fostering the open innovation and the collaboration between the different actors of the European ecosystems, through the private-public partnership to support entrepreneurs. “Besides, it creates a network of contacts that will allow to inspire and give visibility to all the local startups so that, by using this network, they can scale their services and products at a global level”, has stated Juanma Revuelta, the Director of Finnova’s Startup Europe Accelerator.

The European winners of StartUp Europe Awards 2016 according to the 10 categories are: Robocamp (Creative Category), Tespack (Energy), INZMO (Fintech), Windcity (Green), NeuronGuard (Health), VyzVoice (ICT), CityCrop (Smart Cities), TempBuddy (Social), Waynabox (Tourism) and APSU (Water). Ekuore (Health), Human Surge (Social) and APATEQ (Water) have received the Extraordinary Awards, a special prize created to recognise the effort of those startups whose score was very high and got very close to the final recognition.

The startup Audified Reality from Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) won the “Best European Neighbour StartUp Europe Award”.

Waynabox received a European acceleration ticket of 10,000 € from Amadeus Company, to continue their internationalization in 2018, delivered by Elizabeth Aston, Senior Adviser, Industry Affairs.  “Amadeus continually invests in innovation with a total bugdet of over 4 billion during the last 10 years. Innovation is about doing things differently – having a different business model, a different approach to customer service and this is what Waynabox does” stated Aston.

The startup APSU also received a European acceleration ticket of 10.000 € for presenting their project to different European calls as LIFE or EUROSTARS. The award has been delivered by Rafael Páez Santana, Counsellor of innovation and Employment from the Cabildo de Fuerteventura.

The Commissioner of Investigation, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas, delivered the award of ICT Category to VyzVoice. “I want to create the kind of environment where the entrepreneurial spirit can flourish […] Entrepreneurs are the stars, we’re there to help and support them”, said Moedas in his motivational speech.

The Vice-President for Communication of the European Economic and Social Committee, Gonçalo Lobo Xavier, who handed in the award for Fintech and Tourism categories, considers “StartUp Europe Awards a very interesting way to promote entrepreneurship and the quality of the work developed in Europe. We have very good examples of solutions that can change peoples’ lives for the better and this is a huge achievement when we talk about innovation, science and entrepreneurship: to address the citizens!”

StartUp Europe Awards delivered the recognition to the “Best Public Administration for the Startups”, a pioneering prize which aims to recognise the best programmes or public services supporting entrepreneurs and innovation in municipality, province and region categories.  The winner in Municipality category is Lisbon City Council; in the province category is Consorcio Zona Franca de Vigo and in the Region category is Central Denmark Region.

These awards were delivered by the first Vice-President of the Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz who stated “the European Committee of the Regions encourages cities and regions to implement entrepreneurship-friendly policies through our European Entrepreneurial Region (EER) initiative. We actively promote and support efforts to create smarter EU cities and regions”.

The president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, delivered the award “Best Media Partner” to the TV Program Emprende of Spanish Television (RTVE) for their commitment to the dissemination of the entrepreneurship and the startups.

Finally, the Ambassador of Spain in Belgium, Cecilia Yuste, handed in the award to Jesús Brotons “Brainiac Beats”, winner of the Music Contest Award, for creating the music for StartUp Europe Awards, representing the values of union, community and entrepreneurship.

The winners of StartUp Europe Awards will obtain great visibility all around Europe thanks to the Media Partner Alliance of StartUp Europe Awards formed by 21 media members. The startups will also have access to a programme of mentoring (information in internationalization, European funds like SMEs Instrument of 50.000 € to 2, 5 million € of non-refundable subsidy, international communication, legal barriers to innovation, etc.), through the StartUp Europe Accelerator of Finnova Foundation, which will allow them to boost their projects and to make them more viable worldwide.

StartUp Europe Accelerator is the unique accelerator specialized in European opportunities funding, which helps the entrepreneurs to internationalize their business through European projects.

Thanks to the initiative StartUp Europe Awards, the winning startups will be able to participate in business missions focused in internationalization in India, Africa, LATAM and Silicon Valley.

To close the ceremony, the president of the organisation “Mind the Bridge”, Alberto Onetti, presented the last report of “Scaleup Europe” by Startup Europe Partnership (SEP).  This report includes new data about Scaleups and capital raised in Europe, plus a comparison among regions, countries and sectors. The maturity of the EU scene, the potential impact of Brexit, and recent growth ends the report, along with a survey of the largest verticals present in Scale-up Europe, and which countries these verticals are most represented in.

The StartUp Europe Awards ceremony organized by the Finnova Foundation was carried out with the support of the “Hablamos de Europa” program, a meeting point for Spanish citizens to talk about the European Union and share their experiences.

About StartUp Europe Awards

StartUp Europe Awards is an initiative that seeks to identify and recognise local models of success which become an example to other entrepreneurs, to the public administrations for developing custom-made programmes to stimulate its growth and to the investors for approaching local ecosystems.

“From the Commission, we want that entrepreneurship generating growth and employment is not only present in a few cities or regions. Thus, more people can benefit from the impact” assures Isidro Laso, Head of StartUp Europe’s Sector – European Commission.

More than 20 local events and 14 national awards have been celebrated under StartUp Europe Awards´ frame in 2016, with 91 startups winners and 84 that made it to the final. 21 media partners of the whole Europe, as The Independent in Ireland or Emprende TVE in Spain, they have helped to give visibility to this initiative. 9 members of the European Parliament have come together in the StartUp Europe Awards as ambassadors, supporting the local events with their presence and following closely the progress of the startups.

StartUp Europe Awards is an initiative promoted by the European Commission and it is supported by the President of the Committee of the Regions, several members of the European Parliament as Ambassadors and implemented by the Finnova Foundation in collaboration with Startup Europe.

 

 

INFORMATION ABOUT THE WINNERS

INFORMATION ABOUT STARTUP EUROPE AWARDS 2016 WINNERS

 

STARTUPS BY CATEGORY

Creative:

Robocamp
Country: POLAND
www.robocamp.eu

RoboCAMP enhances STEM education using LEGO robot building and visual programming. RoboCAMP Lesson plans, developed by psychologists and engineers, are an innovative way of developing children’s creativity using LEGO bricks and science. We encourage children to observe the world and to work together to find novel solutions to problems encountered in everyday life. The course consists of a series of small projects that use mathematics, physics, mechanics and basic programming.

 

Energy:

Tespack
Country: FINLAND
www.tespack.com

Tespack is a company specialized in the future of wearables, focusing on the most important part of technology: energy generation on-the-go. We have launched our first product line, Tespack Smartpacks, so you would never lose your power again. Simply collect your energy from the sun, store it in one of our powerful mobile chargers and charge all your devices, even laptops, on the move. Our products are currently available in retails stores such Intersports in Finland, Scandinavian Outdoor Store, Microsoft Store and Vodafone online store in the Netherlands. We work closely with bigger brands and companies such as TomTom and our products are currently being used and tested by military special forces and the UN. We also cooperate with universities in Amsterdam, Helsinki and London.

 

Fintech:

INZMO
Country: ESTONIA
www.inzmo.com

INZMO is an insurance app providing fast and easy access to all everyday insurance products – insure your commute or even next trip. INZMO provides you any personal insurance cover in seconds.

 

Green:

Windcity
Country: ITALY
www.windcity.it

Our vision is “Variable Geometry for Variable Wind”, and we pursue it through our patented disruptive energy conversion concept which allows us to maximize production in any variable wind. Thanks to Windcity’s simple mechanics technology, we are able to harvest up to 80% more energy compared to competitors.

We contribute to a shift towards the Circular Economy by recovering and exploiting a relevant yet so far underestimated  class of wind, that of variable wind. Our arms are designed to adjust the blades’radius and inclination, allowing our turbine to work in complete autonomy without the need of any additional energy source.

Windcity turbines are particularly suited for urban and suburban areas, where wind streams are disrupted by cities’ orography while, at the same time, being generated by vehicular flows. By recovering such wasted resource into energy.

 

Health:

NeuronGuard
Country: ITALY
www.neuronguard.com

Neuron Guard is a life-saving medical device with the aim to revolutionize the treatment of brain damages and improve the life of patients, with also a significant reduction of healthcare costs.

The Acute Brain Damage is one of the most emerging challenges of modern Emergency Medicine. We have to act soon because after just 8 minutes a portion of the brain is irreversibly compromised. Early on-site treatment is the key to protect the brain.

The solution is composed by a cooling/warming collar powered by a smart control unit (the size of a small briefcase). The collar transforms the neck into a natural heat exchanger. It is quicker to act on brain tissue but can also function as total body temperature adjusting device if required. The control unit collects all the data of the treatment and transmits them to the Emergency Response System. We are the only NON-INVASIVE DEVICE capable of both COOLING and WARMING.

 

ICT:

vyzVoice
Country: LUXEMBOURG
www.vyzvoice.com

vyzVoice mission is to revolutionize the relationship between people and their connected device data by providing a highly secured cloud-based application infrastructure to manage their connected things. Our infrastructure is based on powerful analytics and real-time data empowering our customers to make thoughtful and smart decisions.

vyzVoice provides flexible and intuitive solutions suitable for any user in any market. We, as a team, work together with our customers to define the best applications enabling them to take out the most valuable and actionable insights from their data. vyzVoice is committed to provide high quality standards, first class services and embedded security to its customers.

 

Smart Cities:

CityCrop Automated Indoor Farming
Country: Greece
www.citycrop.io

CityCrop is a venture aiming at modernizing and democratizing farming, as key to a healthier and greener living. The team’s vision is to bring fresh and healthy eating in every household by developing the first fully automated indoor garden, based on the technique of hydroponics. The CityCrop device and mobile app allows users to grow fresh and healthy food all year long as well as control and monitor their crop with just a click of a button.

Twitter handle: @CityCrop

 

 

Social:

TempBuddy
Country: Ireland
www.tempbuddy.com

TempBuddy’s award-winning real-time workforce software enables staffing companies get their best people to the right place at the right time.
TempBuddy’s multi-award winning workforce management software is designed to get the best people to the right place at the right time, paid promptly and accurately using smart mobile technology. Our revolutionary SaaS recruitment software integrates real-time availability, scheduling, deployment, time capture, pay and bill and compliance into one intuitive tool. The US patent-pending mobile worker app and recruiter platform have been developed to simplify the entire process and experience, helping improve productivity, achieve growth and cut costs. Our game-changing platform and worker app have already been adopted by users in over 310 cities across 3 continents, and by over 30 UK recruitment companies.

 

Tourism:

Waynabox
Country: SPAIN
www.waynabox.com

Waynabox is the startup winner in TOURISM Category from Spain that has revolutionized the tourism industry through a new experience focalized on the emotions. To begin, you must go to the website, indicate the number of travellers, and choose the leaving airport and the number of days of your trip. Also, you have the possibility of deleting the cities that you do not want to visit. Two days before flying, they will reveal your destination, flights and housing and they will deliver an exclusive trip guide.

Our desire is to offer emotions and we realized that the best way to do so is through surprise trips. That’s why our mission is to revolutionize the traditional way of travelling and offer to all you young spirits a new and surprising plan to break your routines and live a great experience.

 

Water:

APSU
Country: SPAIN
www.apsu.es

APSU is the startup winner in WATER Category from Spain. It is a company and a project that develops water technologies, where with just equipment it is possible to warm and to decontaminate water by an efficient way. The challenge of this initiative is to take care of the health by prominent energy efficiency, dissolving also in the process salts and limes of water, doing this use an intelligent application. Nowadays, they work in the development of prototypes of this technology.

 

Best European Neighbour Startup

 

Audified Reality
Country: MACEDONIA
A project for creating special glasses that will enable the visually impaired people to recognize objects that are located around them.

 

 

Extraordinary StartUp Awards

A special prize created to recognise the effort of those startups whose score was very high and got very close to the final recognition.

 

SOCIAL

Human Surge
http://www.humansurge.org/en
 

HumanSurge seeks to improve the quality and timeliness of humanitarian response through enhanced surge capacity of humanitarian responders, professionals and organizations, to the ultimate benefit of affected populations. HumanSurge is driven by social impact, not by profit.

HumanSurge will bring together experienced humanitarian professionals from various disciplines on a single platform where they can signal their immediate availability for deployment in emergencies, thereby enabling organizations to complete specialized response teams overnight. HumanSurge is created by individuals committed to social causes, dedicating their time and resources to develop new solutions that will unite and empower humanitarian professionals, in order to improve the way in which humanitarian aid is delivered in the future.

 

WATER

APATEQ
http://www.apateq.com/
APATEQ provides oil-water separation systems for oilfield operators as well as compact wastewater treatment plants for special and demanding applications and pre-treatment systems for industrial wastewater. Our technical team gathers members, each with decades of experience in water and wastewater treatment or global product industrial manufacturing and commercialization

 

HEALTH

EKuore
https://www.ekuore.com/
eKuore is a technologic company that designs, develops and markets medical devices (mhealth), that connects health to new mobile technologies. Since company´s foundation, in 2012, have been developed the first wireless electronic stethoscope eKuore Pro for medical field and the stethoscope eKuore Vet for Veterinary field. eKuore´s purpose is to continue developing mHealth devices that revolutionize the sanitary teleassistance field, which allow of the patient to be controlled and monitored in quick and easy way and a low cost. Other future Project of eKuore is developed a Negative Pre-Diagnosis Platform, which will allow to help health professionals to detect when the patient has a cardiac anomalies.

 

OTHER SPECIAL CATEGORIES:

 

Best Media Partner Award:

Emprende TVE
SPAIN
www.rtve.es/emprende

Emprende TVE helps entrepeneurs to improve their business and get presence in the media.

 

 Best Public Administration for startups Award:

 

  • Municipality: Lisbon City Council

PORTUGAL
www.cm-lisboa.pt
LISBON MICRO-ENTREPRENEURSHIP is an important part of a global strategy of supporting local entrepreneurship as a dynamic engine of the city´s economy. We found that there were o­ffers for a younger target, but lacked social responses to other public who wanted to have new professional opportunities and install a small business.

 

 

  • Province: Consorcio Zona Franca de Vigo

SPAIN
www.viavigo.es

BUSINESS ACCELERATION PROGRAMS VIAGALICIA. This Program allows identify and channel all the resources and tools of the ecosystem (public and private), with the objective of making them available to the goals of the entrepreneurs, to accompany them in their validation, implementation, ­financing and maturation.

 

  • Region: Central Denmark Region

http://www.centraldenmark.eu/english/centraldenmarkandmidjutland/

The Game Hub Scandinavia project is the successor of Scandinavian Game Developers that won the Regio Star Awards 2015 in the Smart Growth category. The project created 53 new companies and more than 200 jobs in the partnership. Besides, in Denmark alone, it attracted around 60 million DKK in external investments, as a municipal guarantee convinced a local building society and local developers, that the infrastructure around the incubator would be a worthwhile investment opportunity. The Game Hub Scandinavia project has set an even more ambitious goal: from delivering actual change to becoming “the pebble that starts the avalanche”. One of the indicators of success in the project has been to create 398 new jobs, 100 new companies as well as establishing business and educational business relationships with China to open up the Chinese market to the game developers of the project incubators.

 

BEST MUSIC AWARD

Brainiac Beats

http://www.brainiacbeats.com/

 

SOCIAL NETWORKS STARTUP EUROPE AWARDS 2016

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StartUpEuropeAwards2016/

Twitter handle: @StartUpEUAwards

Hashtag: #SEUA16Final