StartupYard Accelerator

Will Your Startup Fail in the Next 6 Months?

Why Do Startups Fail?

For every reason you can think of, and many more you can’t. If you’re starting a startup, the deck is stacked against you. If you’re not too early, you’re too late. If you don’t grow too fast, you’re growing too slowly.

Some of the smartest, hardest working founders fail. Brains and work ethic can’t always save you.

Okay, Now Give me the Bad News

90% of startups fail. That’s a fact of life, but it’s not a law of nature. Startup death is unrelenting, but not random.

The truth is, after 51 startups at StartupYard, and 29 companies accelerated since we took on a global focus, we’ve seen that there is one thing that kills startups dead faster than anything else.

It’s the failure to answer one simple question:

Where am I going to be in Six Months?

That may seem like an easy question. But it isn’t.

Startups that ask themselves this question, in a searching and honest manner, tend to do better –much better- than those that don’t.

Startups that survive don’t always know the answer to the Six-Month Question. But they do ask it. And they ask it all the time.

The Six-Month question is so important because failing to think about the consequences of your short term decisions is the fastest and easiest way to make stupid mistakes. It is the best way to waste your own time and energy.

If I take this decision today, whatever it may be, where will I then be in six months?

Everything You Do is a Choice

Acting is a choice. And failing to act is also a choice. When a door opens, you either go through it, or you close it. So ask yourself what will happen if you do either.

Consider someone who’s thinking about applying to StartupYard. This founder is faced with 3 possible answers to the six-month question.

  • Option One: Apply and Be Rejected

    • Total time invested: 2-3 hours (8 hours for finalists)
    • Potential risk: Minimal.

      1. Damage your ego
      2. Waste a day
    • Potential benefit: Meet and get feedback from the region’s leading investors, and top StartupYard mentors
    • Side benefits:

      1. spend 2-3 hours building a compelling application for any accelerator (not just StartupYard), and getting qualified feedback. Good for use with other investors as well.
      2. Learn how accelerators work. Make contacts with investors and mentors you can use later.
    • Where you’ll be: either on to your next venture, or continuing to use the feedback you gained by applying.
  • Option Two: Apply and Be Accepted

    • Total Time invested: 3 months
    • Potential risk: Minimal.

      1. Maybe launch slightly later than planned (but with a better strategy).
      2. Be forced to focus on the business instead of the product.
      3. Injured ego due to challenging feedback. A few unproductive mentor meetings (unavoidable).
    • Potential Benefits

      1. Make partnerships and sign customers you wouldn’t have access to otherwise (at least not this early).
      2. Get in-depth feedback from top industry mentors on your product before launching.
      3. Launch with the support of influential corporate partners.
      4. Gain investment faster than you could have on your own, with more founder-friendly terms and better positioned investors.
    • Side Benefits: Grow personally and professionally in a challenging environment, and force yourself to apply discipline to your business plan and product/market positioning.
    • Side Benefits

      1. A perk package worth over $1m, seed investment of €30K, and possibility of follow-on funding.
      2. Access to StartupYard’s mentor network for the life of your company.
      3. PR benefits of taking part in one of Europe’s best regarded accelerators
      4. A strong negotiating partner in StartupYard, that can help you get the best possible terms from future investors.
      5. A community of fellow founders who can become your support network for years to come.
    • Where you’ll be: Hopefully launched, funded, and growing. StartupYard startups who have raised funding since 2013 have secured, on average, €400K after the program. Over half of our alumni have been either funded, or acquired.
  • Option 3: Don’t Apply

    • Total Time Invested: 0 Hours
    • Potential Risk:

      1. Pass up all benefits of options 1 & 2.
      2. Increased risk of not closing investments and dying early
      3. Increased risk of launching the wrong product – or focusing on the wrong market.
      4. Increased costs of starting up (both in time and money).
      5. Be forced to deal with investors who are not a good fit for your vision; who don’t offer friendly terms.
    • Potential Benefits:

      1. Launch slightly earlier. Maybe.
      2. Nobody bothers you.
      3. You are in total control.
    • Side Benefits: None
    • Where you’ll be: Unknown. Statistically, likely dead.

And Then What?

Perhaps my breakdown is slightly skewed in our favor. But this comes from a depth of experience.

The six-month question is a vital part of what StartupYard does for our founders. The program focuses founders on achieving results that they can build upon. Constantly, they are challenged to answer: and then what?

You launch the beta: and then what? You close this investment: and then what?

Startups that have joined StartupYard after pondering option 3 have been some of StartupYard’s most successful to date. Companies like Rossum.ai, Neuron Soundware, and TeskaLabs all initially suspected that the program would be a waste of their collective time and energy.

Each has subsequently become a major proponent of StartupYard and of acceleration in general.

Where were they after 6 months?

TeskaLabs joined TechStars and raised a seed round for their IoT security platform within 6 months of attending StartupYard. They now have active customers like O2 and is a Cisco Solution Provider. The company is now based in London.

Neuron Soundware won Vodafone’s “Idea of the Year” within six months of attending StartupYard, and closed partnerships with Siemens and other major industry players. They raised seed investment less than a year later.

Rossum.ai raised investment on the final day of the StartupYard program, and were named (along with Neuron Soundware), among Forbes’ top 10 Czech startups in 2017- less than six months after joining StartupYard.

Do You Know Where You’ll be in Six Months?

If you know what you’re going to accomplish in the next six months, more power to you. I hope you do well.

But if you’re like most founders, you don’t know. You don’t know what your options are going to be; what opportunities you will have 6 months from now. You probably don’t have a reasonable, reliable way of checking to see if those plans are realistic.

And if you don’t, then ask yourself again: what can I do about that? What decision can I make today that will change that uncertainty?

I have one suggestion: apply to an accelerator. StartupYard closes our applications for Batch 8 on Friday night (June 30th), at Midnight.

Hurry up – it’s not too late.

You can now apply for StartupYard Batch #8.

  • Robots
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • VR/AR
  • IoT
  • Cryptography
  • Blockchain
Applications Open: Now
Applications Close: June 30th, 2017
Program starts: September 4th, 2017
Program ends: December 1st, 2017

Ouibring, StartupYard

SY Batch 7 Alum Ouibring Gains Investment – With a Twist

Good news often comes all at once. Yesterday we announced that Neuron Soundware had raised €600,000, and StartupYard has raised €1 million in a record breaking investment round.  Today we’re able to announce that Ouibring, a StartupYard company (Batch 7) that helps travelers and shoppers to bring joy into each other’s lives by bringing rare items home with them from abroad, has also raised seed investment.

StartupYard, Ouibring

OuiBring Founder and CEO Joel Gordon, signing a deal with Busyman.cz

The Details

The seed investment comes from the Czech incubator Busyman.cz.

Since joining StartupYard in late 2016, Ouibring has quickly built a following of more than 60,000 Facebook fans. Filip Major, the founder of Busyman commented: “Ouibring has the potential to change the global consumer goods logistic system as UBER is changing the way people move”.

The investment will power global expansion, as Ouibring connects more of the 30 million flights carrying almost 1 billion travelers each year with shoppers all around the world.

Ouibring connects shoppers who need help sourcing hard to find products, and travelers with spare luggage capacity to create a win-win situation. On Ouibring’s platform it’s possible to order hard-to-find goods from your home country, or discover new items that travelers can then bring with them when they visit a city near you.

Ouibring, Startupyard

The Twist

Busyman.cz has acquired a minority stake in Ouibring using a digital commodity, “Crown,” which is a “non-pre-mined” digital currency.

Crown has a market cap of more than $13m USD, processes hundreds of transactions per day on its blockchain and provides powerful security features. As part of this deal, Ouibring will move its client-to-client transaction settlement onto the Crown blockchain, making every transaction easily trackable, efficient and transparent. Ouibring also aims to emit its own token of exchange on the Crown blockchain.

“Our customers care about security and compliance. Using the Crown blockchain to create unique new features will help make Ouibring even more reliable and easy to use for our customers” says Joel Gordon, CEO and founder of Ouibring.

About Ouibring:

In our interview with him earlier this year, Joel told us the story behind Ouibring as a new online shopping experience:

 

” The idea for Ouibring came from experiences gained living and working abroad for the last 15 years. The fun and excitement when a special package delivered by a friend arrives is the inspiration for Ouibring’s tagline – ‘Bring a little happiness’.

As any expatriate knows, living abroad can give you a special appreciation for things that those at home just take for granted. You look forward to that time when a friend will bring a special something you’ve requested from your home. That’s a magical feeling, as if you’re the only person in the world that has what you have. We wanted to capture that feeling, and make it something anyone could enjoy. A special moment of joy only for them; an experience no one else is having.

At the same time, we can give others the chance to make a bit of money, and reduce waste by sharing their spare luggage capacity.

One story I really like is how even a small, generic item that is plentiful in one location can provide a whole lot of pleasure and luxury when it appears in an unexpected context. When a Ouibringer arrived with three massive bags of Monster Munch Pickled Onion and delivered them to a travel blogger living in Bangkok. They really made her day.” 

Joel GOrdon, Ouibring, StartupYard

 

What’s Next for OuiBring

CEO Joel Gordon moonlights as a user of his own product: here he delivers some treats to customers in Thailand.

Ouibring has already attracted hundreds of shoppers and travelers from around the world. The company is continuing to explore alternative approaches to shopping and fulfillment for adventurous people everywhere.

So, to celebrate this big step for the young company, why not jump over and order something for yourself, or sign up to bring a little happiness into someone else’s life?

You can now apply for StartupYard Batch #8.

  • Robots
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • VR/AR
  • IoT
  • Cryptography
  • Blockchain
Applications Open: Now
Applications Close: June 30th, 2017
Program starts: September 4th, 2017
Program ends: December 1st, 2017
Apply to Startupyard

6 Years and 59 Startups Later: Here’s Why StartupYard Works

This week our CEO Cedric Maloux and I sat down for a conversation about the struggles and the excitement of recruiting and working with amazing startups together for the past 4 years as MD, and his 6 years as a mentor.

 

StartupYard last year announced our largest fundraise so far, of about €1 million for up to 20 new startups in 2017-2018. How did we get here? What have we learned? Here are the most interesting exchanges that came out of our discussion:

Hi Cedric, every week during the StartupYard program management meetings, you ask founders one question: “What are you struggling with right now?” I think it’s fair to start with the same question here:

Sleep! [Laughs].

I have two sources of stress when it comes to every StartupYard round, and this is now going to be my 5th time going through it. The biggest stress is Demo Day. Like a parent or a teacher watching their kids take the next big step in life, our whole team works very hard to make sure our founders and startups look great, professional, in control, and ready. But when they go out on that stage, our hands are off the wheel, and they are on their own. That’s a big scary moment for me, and for the founders. I don’t want them to feel that they’ve failed themselves.

The other stress is right now. We are looking for startups, talking to startups, trying to get the right startup founders to apply for our next round at StartupYard. We will invest in up to 20 companies in the next 12 months. I am always slightly panicked at the idea that we’ll miss one, or that one won’t find us, and will miss an opportunity that can really help them to succeed in business, and hopefully in life. I get real joy from making a difference in people’s lives, so I have that fear that I won’t do all I can.

What specifically are you afraid will happen, or not happen?

We can make the wrong choices. We have in the past – though not often, thankfully. StartupYard takes a big risk in trusting people we barely know, to be strong and committed and honest and open enough to go through a really demanding experience. It is very humbling. And I know we aren’t always right about people. We invest in founders, but you don’t really know someone until you spend every day, all day, with that person. Sometimes we’re not sure, and they turn out to be just amazing. Other times we are sure, and it turns out we were off.

So I’m stressed right now about those decisions, and knowing that later is too late.

So what helps you sleep at night, knowing that you’ll never be able to perfectly predict who will apply, and how they’ll perform?

Luckily we surround ourselves with really great advisors and investors. We have a great selection committee, who really get what we’re trying to do. They serve as a check against our biases and assumptions. We have been very lucky, but we also work very hard to remain humble, knowing we will make some mistakes.

In some way, every investment decision we make at StartupYard is a bit crazy from a normal perspective. We invest our time and money into people we have met maybe twice or three times. It takes a lot of faith. Among investors, accelerators like StartupYard are the ones with the least actionable data, KPIs or traction to judge in a startup. We have to believe our hearts and our noses. We have to trust in our experience and instincts more than other investors, who can point to solid numbers to tell the story. We go on much less.

Hearts and noses?

Yes. If you’re investing in a later stage, it’s all about numbers and trends. We can see trends, but we have very little in terms of numbers. So we also have to really understand people to make the right choices. I say our hearts and our noses, because our hearts are for people, but our noses are for opportunity. If we believe in someone, and we believe that there is an opportunity in what they’re doing, then that is enough for us.

Central Europe Accelerator

What makes you particularly fitted for a role like this?

I think a person can’t imagine what it takes to go from an idea to a profitable company unless they’ve done it, and experienced it themselves. I have done that multiple times in my life.

And unless you’ve experienced the opposite, which is failure, you probably think somewhere in the back of your mind that it can’t happen to you. I’ve also failed, publically. The last time one of my ventures was mentioned in Wired, it was in the context of the company going out of business.

So I know what that’s like to be notable enough to be in Wired, but still to fail. I have a deep technical background (I studied AI at University in the 1990s, when it wasn’t cool), and I’ve had a long career in sales. If a founder can’t sell; to employees, to co-founders, to investors, and customers, then he can’t make his ideas a reality.

So sales is not just about closing deals?

No. It’s about everything. Selling is essential. I’ve sold customer-facing services. I’ve sold B2B products to big corporations. I’ve sold my own company. Selling is an art. As we say, “telling isn’t selling.” You have to be able to not just talk about your ideas, but sell them.

Also, I learned a lot from running online businesses during the 2000 Internet bubble and the 2008 financial crisis. These things taught me the hard way about discipline in the fundamentals of business.

What was your hardest lesson through those experiences?

Cost understanding and control is at the heart of your company. You can only control one thing: your costs. Revenue projections, cost control: these are the things that get you through a crisis. It’s all about planning. Not your revenue, or development time, or investors, or customers. Just costs. Knowing when the money will run out. So financial hygiene is a top priority.

You’ve run companies. You’ve sold one company. So from that background, if you were starting a tech startup today, would you apply to an accelerator, even knowing everything you know?

Short answer, yes I would.

Long answer, I do have a few tech businesses on the side that I have started with other people, and with one, I’ve been encouraging the CEO to apply to an accelerator (though not StartupYard because it’s not in our area of focus). That should tell you what I think about accelerators, and not just about StartupYard.

If I was starting a business, I would go to one tomorrow, because no matter how much experience I have, I am limited by my own capacity as a human being. One thing that I’ve learned over the years, is that success doesn’t come from what you know, but from who you know. Your network is a vital ingredient for success.

A great startup has these things:  a hard problem to solve, a great solution, a clear value-proposition, a strong sales/marketing team, perfect timing, and great connections. You cannot be in control of every one of those things at any one time. You can however always work on your network. An accelerator connects you with people who help you seize opportunities and move fast when the time is right. Your connections help you discover weaknesses, and also opportunities. Knowing you need help is a strength, not a weakness.

Speaking of networks, StartupYard has quite a few corporations on its mentor list. Why do you focus so much on corporates during mentorship?

It’s a good question, and one we are asked a lot. Startups even tell us they would like to meet more people who are more like them. Usually when you meet a mentor, like at a competition or in a conference or at an incubator, or many other accelerators, they tend to be investors, or entrepreneurs.

It’s actually relatively easy to get a meeting with an investor or an entreprepreneur, which is why it’s easy to convince them to mentor startups. But, if you’re a B2B startup looking for early traction, you need to go door to door, talking to customers. And most of the time doing that, you’ll meet low level people.

What we decided early on, was to incorporate high-level corporate decision-makers, not just a lot of people, but leaders and C-level executives. The people who aren’t so much in the internal politics of their corporations, but are in a position to make things happen for startups. And we have many concrete examples of that working really well.

If the Chairman of the Board at a bank invites one of our startups to talk to his executives, that’s a meeting where people will be paying attention. It will have results. Not long ago, our mentors at Microsoft brought one of our startups to meet Satya Nadella, CEO at Microsoft, in Redmond. You won’t be able to name many early-stage companies who can get that meeting.

Yes, I was genuinely surprised when that happened too. The engagement from Microsoft was extraordinary. What do you think the corporate people get out of being startup mentors?

As it happens, those heads of industry share many of the qualities of startup founders. Ambition, drive, vision. So they love to be exposed to young founders and interact with them, not just about ideas, but about ways of working and thinking. The CEO of a global corporation told me a while ago that it’s his job to know what’s going on outside his company, because they are under constant attack from startups. You have to know your adversary.

We sometimes call corporations “dumb and slow,” but it would be a mistake to think that the people running them are either dumb or slow. Often the people at the top are thinking very far ahead, and when a startup is looking for the right stakeholder, the top is often the best place to start. Outside of our program, our founders would just never get meetings with such people. Even if they did, it would take years to get them all, and by then it wouldn’t matter.

I feel very proud of our mentor group. One mentor told me recently, that it was an honor to be included. That just made me feel very proud. We have spent years developing StartupYard as a platform, but we can’t rest on our achievements. We have to keep improving and building that network ever round, or it dies.

You said you can’t rest. What is your biggest difficulty when it comes to talking to founders about acceleration?

I would say we see two types. There is the founder who really understands the value accelerators can bring, and is eager to join. The other is the one who is more defensive; defensive of their ideas, of their priorities, of their sense of control and sometimes pride as well.

They may see joining an accelerator as a risk rather than an opportunity: that they risk wasting time. But often I think it’s just that they risk giving up control. Startup founders can be control freaks, as everyone knows, and we ask people to give up some of that control in order to grow, and that is a hard thing to ask of people who have always performed at a high level in their lives. Even the tiny amount of control we want them to give up can seem like a big, big change.

But if you’re so concerned about making the wrong choices, that you don’t act, then you risk never making decisions at all. Our biggest challenge is to show skeptics that the accelerator is called an “accelerator” for a reason, and it is not to slow them down or take up their time. That interrupting their process and refocusing them can actually save them time, and not waste it.

All our alumni will confirm this to you and in fact, they often talk about the empty period after the program. Once a founder told me he wished the program never stopped. And this was a startup which already had some revenue, but had skyrocketed with us.

You have to be a bit smart and a bit arrogant to start a business, but you need to let your intelligence prevail, and admit when you need other people. We all start as fools in life, and the only people who are doomed to remain fools are the ones who refuse to admit this, and don’t let themselves be questioned.

Some founders will tell us that all they need is cash.

That’s true. But when you ask them: “If all you need is cash, then why don’t you already have it?” They start telling you about their real problems – the reasons investors aren’t giving them money. It’s usually because they haven’t earned it yet. They don’t have enough data, they don’t have enough traction, or they don’t know how to sell to the investors.

You are absolutely right, and in an environment where cash is king, it’s sometimes difficult to explain to these people that to deserve cash you need to go through some steps.

What we find is that the act of just applying to StartupYard, and answering very specific questions about their business can help founders to realize what they don’t know. Even just forcing yourself to really answer these questions, you can begin to see that there are a lot of areas where you can grow and learn more.

So you need to bring people down a bit to build them up?

Yes. The acceleration process is challenging not just intellectually, but also emotionally for some people. But if you want to really run a global business, and meet your potential as an entrepreneur, that is the kind of challenge you will have to face, one way or the other.

We aren’t here to judge people and their ideas. The projects we look at are very early stage, and the people running them have a lot of room for mistakes and wrong roads. Our job as an accelerator and the job of our mentors is to support people who are taking these creative risks, exposing them to dangers and opportunities. We prepare them for taking good risks, and being aware of the dangers they will face.

Over the past 5 years, I have repeated certain things over and over again through every program. One of them is: “be careful, about what might happen if…”

To you, what is the biggest misconception about what StartupYard does for founders?

What I think some founders don’t expect is that the mentorship process, and the whole acceleration program, is aimed not just at their business, but at them as people. It would be waste of their time, and ours, if we spent our energy trying to make people into something they don’t want to be. So we pay very careful attention to discovering, with our founders, what it is in their hearts that they really are passionate about and want to do and to become.

So it’s not just about business for you?

There is a saying: “just business, not personal.” But I think this is very misleading. Growing a global business is all about who you are as a person. If you do something that is true to who you are, and who you want to be, that is infinitely better, for everyone involved, than if you’re just trying to make money. You can make money in a lot of ways, if that’s what you want. We want to help people to become their best selves as founders, and that means finding in them that special energy they possess that no one else does, and helping them to tap into it.

The biggest successes in business don’t think “It’s just business.” They know it’s about more than themselves or this one goal. It’s about relationships and it’s about being true to who you are.

Any last words?

Apply to StartupYard! Applications close June 30th, so I hope anyone who recognizes themselves in what we’ve talked about will consider applying now.

I can’t wait to be impressed.

You can now apply for StartupYard Batch #9.

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • VR/AR
  • IoT
  • Cryptography
  • Blockchain
Applications Open: Now
Applications Close: January 31st, 2018
 

Apply to Startupyard
StartupYard Accelerator

StartupYard Closes €1 million Funding Round; New Follow-On Fund

In a week of big fundraising news for our alumni, StartupYard has some news of our own. We can now reveal that StartupYard has closed a €1 million round that will power two cohorts of up to 20 startups, as well as a new follow-on fund, to allow StartupYard to make seed investments in our best performing startups.

Record Breaking

This is not only the largest round of funding StartupYard has ever secured, but it is also the largest such crowdfunding-based investment in Central Europe to date. We partnered with Fundlift.cz, to offer a private placement to qualified investors. Our Fundlift campaign contributed the majority of funds, and private investors pledged the rest. Fundlift, backed by Roklen as a licensed securities broker, previously assisted StartupYard in raising a smaller investment in 2016.

The fund, which was ultimately supported by nearly 100 private investors on the Fundlift platform, will be dispersed to up to 20 startups in two rounds of acceleration in 2017/2018. The amount raised will also allow StartupYard to invest further into selected companies from the current StartupYard portfolio.

The news comes as StartupYard has celebrated a number of high profile fundraises among its portfolio startups, most recently €600,000 invested in the machine learning startup Neuron Soundware by J&T Ventures, and a seed round investment in another AI startup, Rossum.ai, from Miton, on StartupYard Batch 7’s DemoDay in February this year.

“4 Years ago, StartupYard set about putting high tech Central European startups on the world map, and we are very proud of what we have accomplished in that time,” said StartupYard’s Cedric Maloux, who has served as CEO since 2013, “the growing confidence and enthusiasm among Czech investors is a testament to the hard work of our alumni and to the intelligence and forward thinking nature of the tech community in Central Europe.” Under Maloux, StartupYard has increased the pace and scope of its activities in Central Europe, recruiting startups from 16 countries, and has increasingly focused its efforts on high-tech startups, in the fields of AI, Machine Learning, AR/VR, IoT, Big Data, Cryptology and most recently Blockchain technology.

Fundlift’s Biggest Campaign to Date

“After two successful fundraising rounds with StartupYard, we are delighted by the enthusiasm of trend-setting investors on our platform. Approximately 100 investors were invited to participate in the round and many more expressed their strong interest,” remarked Radek Musil, CEO at Fundlift. “They have shown us definitively that the Czech investor community has a strong appetite for cutting-edge technologies, and faith in StartupYard’s track record of smart choices among startups,” he added.

Applications for StartupYard’s nearest acceleration round, Batch 8, are almost due, on June 30th. Now those startups that apply will have the additional opportunity of seeking follow-on funding beyond StartupYard traditional seed investment. 

Introducing the StartupYard Follow-On Fund

“It’s important that we are able to offer early-stage startups financial resources when they need them most,” Maloux explained, “we’re looking for companies working on technologies and products that are unique, and difficult to replicate, so access to capital is key for these founders to be able to develop their operations and reach the right customers as soon as possible.”

StartupYard’s next two rounds, dubbed Batch 8 and Batch 9, will take place over the course of 2017/2018, with Batch 8 applications closing June 30th, and the program set to kick off in September 2017.

You can now apply for StartupYard Batch #8.

  • Robots
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • VR/AR
  • IoT
  • Cryptography
  • Blockchain
Applications Open: Now
Applications Close: June 30th, 2017
Program starts: September 4th, 2017
Program ends: December 1st, 2017
Apply to Startupyard

Pavel Konecny, Neuron Soundware, StartupYard

SY Alum Neuron Soundware Closes €600K Investment from J&T Ventures

We are very pleased to announce that Neuron Soundware, or 2016 Alum, and winner of “Vodafone Idea of the Year 2016” has closed an investment from Prague-based J&T Ventures, of €600,000 to grow their team and expand their sales to capitalize on early traction with clients like Siemens.

The story broke first on Euro.cz this morning.

Congratulations @startupyard alum @NeuronSW on exciting progress, and fundraising €600K to expand operations! Share on X

The Details

Pavel Konecny, Co-founder and CEO of Neuron Soundware, made the announcement today in Mlada Fronta, together with Adam Kocik, Managing Director of J&T Ventures The investment will help Neuron Soundware to beef up its team, refine its technology, and expand its customer reach to include aerospace manufacturers, rail operators, and automotive companies.

Neuron Soundware, founded in 2016, joined StartupYard the same year. There the founding team, a group of AI experts led by Konecny, conceived of a device which can listen to heavy machinery, and over time, learn to recognize mechanical issues and predict when the machinery is likely to fail. Since attending StartupYard, they have developed a device employing high-end sensors used in aerospace, and audio processing software that can be plugged directly into heavy machinery and can warn of future mechanical problems. The company announced a cooperation with Siemens in 2016, and was invited to join the Airbus Innovation Lab the same year.

“We are continually impressed by the Neuron Soundware team’s technical prowess and ability to attack very complex problem sets with novel approaches and technology,” Kocik commented on the investment, “this technology is going to be even more essential as the IoT [Internet of Things] matures. Neuron Soundware will help to make machines safer, more efficient, and longer lasting.” The investment, a cooperation between J&T Ventures and a private investor, will be used to refine the engineering of Neuron Soundware’s physical devices and software, and to support its outreach to large industrial machinery firms, where demand for the technology is already growing.

Neuron Soundware, StartupYard Accelerator

According to Konecny, the technology, based on “deep neural networks,” learns from the sounds machinery produces, and can detect patterns too faint or complex for a human to hear, diagnosing issues with machinery well before they become catastrophic. Konecny says of the technology: “Sound is a rich source of data, and also quite universal, which is why mechanics and engineers rely on it so much. But a human cannot listen to 100 airplane or diesel engines for 1000 hours each, and make sense of it all. A machine can do this, and when one engine fails, it can apply that learning to all it has already heard, thus greatly enhancing our ability to detect and prevent future problems.”

“When Neuron Soundware joined us for our 6th program [out of 8], their approach to understanding sound had never really been tried before,” commented Cedric Maloux, our CEO, “leveraging StartupYard’s mentor network, locally and abroad, they were able to very quickly prove that there was a huge need for this kind of technology.” The company notes that future applications for machine learning and sound reach beyond machine maintenance, to product testing, autonomous navigation, green energy solutions, and even security. “Sound is everywhere,” remarks Konecny, “and we’ve just started to see how we can use it to understand more of how everything works.”

About Neuron Soundware:

Neuron Soundware is a deep tech startup, exploring the use of self-teaching, constantly learning neural networks in a wide range of audio analysis and audio manipulation applications. Since 2016, Neuron Soundware has focused on technology to monitor and diagnose industrial equipment to predict failures and increase efficiency. They include Siemens and a number of other leading industrial and transportation equipment manufacturers among their clients.

About J&T Ventures:

J&T Ventures is a Venture Capital fund based in Prague. The fund invests up to €500 000 in technology firms at the seed stage in CEE region. Since 2014, J&T Ventures has been invested in 11 growing and promising innovative startups with the goal to contribute to their dynamic growth and value creation. The fund focuses mainly on B2B sector with a particular interest in FinTech, IT (Big Data Analytics), IoT/IoE & Smart City IoT and Retail.

 

You can now apply for StartupYard Batch #8.

  • Robots
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • VR/AR
  • IoT
  • Cryptography
  • Blockchain
Applications Open: Now
Applications Close: June 30th, 2017
Program starts: September 4th, 2017
Program ends: December 1st, 2017
Apply to Startupyard
Innovation Nest, StartupYard, CEE Allstars

StartupYard Podcast Ep. 3: Chris Kobylecki of Innovation Nest, Krakow

In late May, StartupYard took part, along with two of our alumni (BudgetBakers and Claimair), in a private conference for Central European Startups we called “CEE AllStars.” Put on with the help of Google’s Campus Warsaw, and led primarily by the team at the VC fund Innovation Nest (who co-authored an article with us a few months back about the Polish startup scene.

Cee AllStars

The unique event was put together by a group of accelerators and early-stage investors from Poland, Estonia, Czechia, and Germany (as well as a few other locations), in order to provide a refreshing alternative to for-profit startup conferences in which startups normally compete with a great deal of noise to talk to investors. This event had a 1:1 investor to startup ratio, and every single startup had to be personally recommended to attend by one of the organizing investors.

I sat down with Chris Kobylecki, of Innovation Nest, to talk about the event, and about his take on the Polish tech ecosystem and more. Here is our interview:

(Apologies for the audio quality here: the interview had to take place in a busy venue, but I did my best to make sure our voices were audible).

 

StartupYard is a GAN Accelerator. What Does that Get You?

You probably know that StartupYard is the oldest and leading Seed Accelerator for technology startups in Central Europe. What you might not know is that StartupYard is also a member of the exclusive GAN: The Global Accelerator Network.

GAN: The Global Accelerator Network

GAN is an invitation-only network of the leading technology accelerators in the world, including TechStars (all campuses), NUMA, StartupBootCamp, and MuckerLab.

GAN is more than just a network: it offers a package of perks and free services to member accelerators and their startups, that vastly reduce the early-stage costs of starting up. In the past, our startups have used GAN perks to do everything from cloud hosting, to email management, and much more. If you can think of it, there is probably a GAN perk that covers it. And all those services, our startups get for free.

What StartupYard Members Get from Gan

$34M in Perks – In the last year, GAN startups received $34M in free or reduced cost services they needed to get off the ground successfully. But more than just free credits, partners like Sendgrid offer credits as well as guidance for any GAN company in setting up and establishing an impact email strategy

$400K invested – GAN Ventures, the investment arm of GAN, provides seed stage funding and has made investments in four GAN alumni companies so far this year.

20+ Corporate Partners – GAN founders have exclusive opportunities to connect with large enterprises for business development opportunities.

Access to global locations – No matter where your startup is based, if you need a place to work or take meetings, the GAN Exchange gives you access to GAN program offices around the world.

Mentorship from the best minds in the industry – Mentors are a key part of a startup founder’s success. GAN startups benefit from more than 13,000 mentors throughout the GAN community.

A community of entrepreneurs – No matter where you or your company are based, you’re surrounded by a community of more than 5,000 startups who have launched their business in a GAN accelerator.

Update: StartupYard in Bucharest: June 6th, Partnering with Bucharest.ai

Update: June 1st, 2017:

We’re pleased to announce that StartupYard will partner with Bucharest.ai to reach out to AI specialists and enthusiasts in Romania ahead of and during our visit on the 6th. Bucharest.ai, a part of the CITY.AI project, will speak about the current state of AI in Romania, and give insights and inspiration to potential founders of AI companies in the region. 

A Talk from Alexandra Petrus: 

We are witnessing a nascent playfield where innovators are building amazing products that address unthinkable human problems.  During this talk, we’ll see the Current State of AI: AI beyond the hype, bold predictions and why build an AI product. This talk will take place immediately following a presentation by StartupYard (more info below)
About City.ai
CITY.AI is a community of 23+ cities that share discoveries in applied AI and connect you to international peers. City.AI powers Chapters throughout the globe. The local communities bring unique contributions, perspectives and are bound by the purpose of collaborative knowledge in the field of Applied AI. By increasing transparency and collaboration, we aim to enable more people to better apply artificial intelligence.
About Alexandra: 
Alexandra Petrus is an experienced operations and product leadership professional, with 6+ years of international startup experience who focuses on new technology products and services. Currently contributing to the fintech & ecomm world through products @2checkout; she ran Products @Reincubate – the app data company, helps build the Bucharest City.AI Chapter as an Ambassador and is igniting her hobby and passion that are the emerging technologies & how to contribute to a better life and environment experience through the side projects that she runs (#healthtech).

 

Are Romanian deep tech startups, those working on AI, Machine Learning, advanced Cryptography, Blockchain, and IOT applications, competitive yet on the global stage? That is what the StartupYard team will explore during a day of workshops and networking at TechHub Bucharest, on Tuesday, June 6th, 2017.

Are you a Romanian entrepreneur with a love of technology and a potentially killer idea for a global business using AI/ML/Blockchain/IoT or something else? StartupYard is your stepping stone to the wider world. Find out more, and sign up for one of the workshops or presentations below:

WHERE: TechHub, Bucharest 

Agenda:

14:00-15:30: Making it Real: Storytelling and Positioning for Deep Tech Workshop with Lloyd Waldo
16:00-18:00: Office hours with StartupYard
18:00-19:00: From Genius Idea to a Global Business: Creating AI Startups from ScratchPresentation with Cedric Maloux

About the Events:

Office Hours with StartupYard:

Looking for feedback, advice, or connections in a specific domain, or on your ideas generally? We’re here to lend you a hand. You can sign up to meet the StartupYard team for a private 20-minute session on June 6th. No obligations whatsoever.

 

Making it Real: Storytelling and Positioning for Deep Tech.

In this spellbinding workshop, Lloyd Waldo, creative marketing veteran of dozens of startups, will show entrepreneurs how early stage companies can apply practical storytelling skills to convince their earliest stakeholders (including cofounders, investors, customers, and employees), of the power of a new idea. Learn to instinctively transform ideas from dry descriptions and speculation into compelling narratives, that put you in control of the conversation. Learn how simple positioning and framing devices can help you to achieve greater clarity in your ideas, and persuade others to believe in what you do.
Hosted by StartupYard Community Manager Lloyd Waldo , 14:00-15:30, Tuesday June 6th at TechHub Bucharest.

 

 

cedric maloux startupyard

StartupYard Managing Director Cedric Maloux

Presentation: From Genius Idea to a Global Business: Creating AI Startups from Scratch

Cedric Maloux has been an internet entrepreneur almost since there has been an internet after graduating in 1992 as an Engineer in Artificial Intelligence. He started his first major online venture in 1996, and sold it in 2000. He’s been starting new ones ever since reaching millions of users around the world. StartupYard, which Maloux runs as Managing Director, helps technically sophisticated developers and makers turn their ideas into real, growing businesses. In recent years, we have helped launch a series of high tech startups including TeskaLabs, Neuron Soundware, Cryptelo, Chatler.ai and Rossum.ai. Find out how these startups went from a brilliant idea, to companies serving clients all over the world with cutting edge technologies. –Hosted by StartupYard MD Cedric Maloux. 18:00-19:00, Tuesday June 6th at TechHub Bucharest.