Yesterday, the ABC Accelerator organised the second Demo Day event this year, where the best 8th and 9th generation start-ups were presented to potential foreign investors, entrepreneurs and the media. The largest accelerator in the region selected 12 start-ups for two generations out of 660 entered companies; coming from 7 different countries, 9 best start-ups presented themselves at the Demo Day event. All the companies also joined a multiple-award-winning programme.

The selection of 9 best start-ups, coming from the pool of 660 entrants, represents international start-ups, whose products proved to be successful on the market, who created constant income and who already during the implementation of the programme received higher investments. A new approach and a new plan to implementing the programme in working with start-ups is based on concrete market work, acquiring pilot projects and entering into first business agreements. The companies were evaluated on the basis of tough evaluation criteria for determining company value and have in the scope of the acceleration programme and under a watchful expert eye of acknowledged managers from the field of economy, as well as experts improved their business model.

Key success stories of the 8th and the 9th generation of companies that have entered the level of increase growth and are now ready to present themselves on the market:

• together, they have acquired over EUR 1.1 million investments,
• pilot projects have been agreed upon,
• over 60 business meetings and sales presentations with known buyers have been organised,
• they have acquired a direct connection with innovation centres of the largest partners: BTC, Triglav, Telekom, Petrol and EnaA.com,
• weekly, they co-operated with 20 most renowned managers from the field of economy.

The Demo Day is an event that provides start-ups with funding strength, development and enables their breakthrough onto the international market. At the same time, it is an opportunity for investors to invest their means into the most innovative globally oriented companies.

“We are proud to see this year’s start-up groups most internationally represented ever. We were joined by start-ups from Korea, USA, Croatia, Poland, Italy, Russia and Slovenia. All solutions have a high potential to grow on the global market, which makes them attractive for investors and investments,” explained Grega Potokar, Head of the ABC Accelerator. “Even though the Slovene market is small, every year ABC manages to attract start-ups from all over the world, one of the main reasons being the co-operation with strategic partners, e.g., the BTC Company, Triglav, Telekom, Petrol and EnaA.com, for which we are indeed very grateful,” added Andreja Satran, Programme Director at the ABC Accelerator.

Presenting their innovative solutions at the event were the following start-ups: the Slovene Chess Raiders and Sileo, the American-Korean Stratio, the Croatian Beyond Seen Screen, VeeMee, Red Sky, Transfer hero, Authland and the Italian Plus Advance.

Short presentations of all 8th and 9th generation start-ups:

Chess Raiders, a mobile chess app that with its gaming contents addresses school children, as well as chess grand masters. It gives its users the opportunity to play against grand masters and get feedback from world chess clubs. The team includes two chess grand masters and a member of Outfit 7, the first Slovene “Unicorn”.

Sileo, an Italian-Slovene company producing the first solar photovoltaic roof tile in the “marsigliese” style. A combination of high technology serving as the art of space design is intended for the most demanding buyers who know how to combine a high life standard, the relationship to beauty and the care for the environment. They attracted great interest among the architects and cultural heritage custodians.

Stratio enters the market with a camera that can “see” inside and enables the recognition of the suitability of foodstuff, fruit, the purity of water, milk and counterfeit drugs or expensive alcoholic beverages with a single shot in a matter of seconds. The broad possibilities of use have already attracted several hundred buyers from laboratories, universities and state institutes, as well as the USA army and across the world.

Beyond Seen Screen enters the market with a solution that enables a mobile device to recognise video contents basically accurately to the shot, as well as to gain access to basic data, additional contents, applications or promotional messages. Marketing agencies see them as the holy grail of video marketing. The company itself, however, wishes more and abides by the quick growth of the included film and video contents database which it wishes to offer to the global market as the video version of Shazam.

VeeMee, a smart food-tagging system is designed to reduce food waste in logistics. The platform offers new tagging solutions and food packaging options and gives detailed information on the source. With its solution, VeeMee solves the problems of the entire food transport logistics.

Red Sky, hardware for a substantial increase in the quality of life of the blind and the partially sighted. The system helps the blind navigate around quickly-moving objects and across uneven terrain. The growth potential is outstanding and at the moment, they are co-operating with IRIS – the Slovene Centre for Education, Rehabilitation, Inclusion and Counselling for the Blind and Partially Sighted, the British RNIB – the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and SAVH – the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped. They also received a $ 200,000 investment from the largest healthcare capital fund, the Singapore HealthXCapital.

Transfer Hero enables companies and agencies to significantly reduce costs in reserving specialised taxi transfers with electrical vehicles from and to an airport. With an obvious advantage over the competition, they are entering into new agreements rapidly, both with end-users and taxi services at the airports across Europe. A friendly navigation system leading the passenger from the plane to the taxi is merely another bonus point.

Authland is a platform that offers information on small tourist destinations and enables a quick discovery and a reservation of unique gastronomic experiences. Its focus is on wine shops, oil-extraction plants and small gastro-service providers. Authland is launching a market niche and is co-operating with the most renowned Croatian hotels.

Plus Advance offers a dynamic system of discounts in B2B billing. The platform is completely automated and is already generating income in the juncture of the maximum offered and received discount. At the moment, they are co-operating with Italian retail titans PAM and Coal.