Demo Day Batch 11: Full Video and Snapshots

Wednesday night, February 19th, 2020, the Batch 11 startups pitched to a crowd of over 200 investors, StartupYard mentors and community members, corporate executives, and journalists, among others.

You can see the whole Demo Day, including opening remarks from StartupYard CEO Cedric Maloux in the video that was streamed lived on Facebook.

Watch Demo Day Batch 11: As it Happened

Pictures from the Event:

Scroll to the right to see all the photos.

Demo Day Batch X: Full Video and Snapshots

Last night, November 29th, 2018, 6 of our Batch X startups pitched to a crowd of over 200 investors, StartupYard mentors and community members, corporate executives, and journalists, among others.

You can see the whole Demo Day, including opening remarks from StartupYard CEO Cedric Maloux in the video that was streamed lived on Facebook. By the morning after the event, it had been viewed nearly 700 times already.

Watch Demo Day Batch X: As it Happened


Pictures from the Event:

Scroll right and left to see about 70 event photos, including all the startups and founders.

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.

 

Polish AI/ML Geeks: Let’s Meetup in Krakow, June 8, 2017

We’re very pleased to announce that StartupYard will partner with Krakow’s largest Artificial Intelligence meetup, for a June 8th event, where AI founders will have the opportunity to pitch StartupYard, and learn more about how StartupYard can change the course of a deep tech company.

The Krakow Artificial Intelligence Meetup

For this event, StartupYard partners with the Krakow Artificial Intelligence Meetup. Run by AI entrepreneur and friend of StartupYard Tomasz Weselowski, the meetup was founded in August 2016, and has attracted over 700 members since then, running 3 events so far.

Sign up for the biggest AI Meetup in Krakow: June 8th

About The Meetup:

StartupYard’s management team will give a presentation on workshop aimed at AI specialists and ML geeks, on the benefits of acceleration, and building a global business, among other topics. There will be a list of other speakers announced shortly via the meetup group’s meetup page.

Here are the presentation and workshop:

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. He started his first major online venture in 1996, and sold it in 2000. He’s been starting new ones ever since. 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, 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.

Sign up for the Presentation

 

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.

 

StartupYard will be at Startup Safary Budapest: April 20-21

We’re pleased to announce that StartupYard will take part in Startup Safary Budapest, April 20th and 21st, 2017.

What is Startup Safary?

Budapest turns into a startup exhibition for 2 days

For two days only, most of the tech community of Budapest opens its doors, and takes part in a broad series of meetups at dozens of locations around the city. This year, an estimate 3-5,000 people will participate.
As an attendee, you can register online and pick from the program sessions you want to attend. This way, you create your personal schedule, which you will follow during the event, traveling around the city and visiting various offices.

 

StartupYard Events

From Genius Idea to a Global Business: creating AI startups from Scratch

20/04/2017 17:30 – 18:00 – thehub.hu, 1061 Budapest, Paulay Ede utca 65.

21/04/2017 TBA Mosaik, 1136 Budapest, Pannónia utca 32.

StartupYard 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, 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.

 

Office Hours with StartupYard

20.04.2017: 13:00 – 16:00 – thehub.hu, 1061 Budapest, Paulay Ede utca 65 

21.04.2017: TBA – Mosaik, 1136 Budapest, Pannónia utca 32.

This is your chance to meet the management team of Central Europe’s leading seed accelerator for tech startups, and find out how we can help you turn your experience and knowledge of AI, Machine Learning, IoT, Blockchain, or Cryptology into a globally scaleable business. Come to find out about our program, pitch us an idea, or make a connection.

How do I meet the StartupYard team in Budapest?

There will be a few opportunities. First, we warmly invite you to join our workshops at TheHub and Mosaik, where you can hear about real-life examples of startups that have been through our program, and what they have accomplished as a result.

You can also sign up for our office hours. Because this event is happening under the umbrella of Startup Safary, you should sign up directly on their platform, and you will need to purchase a ticket on their website (tickets are just 8 Euros, and go toward organizing the events).

We will update this post when we have times for our appearances at Mosaic on April 21st.

We look forward to seeing you!

Petya Lipeva, Puzl Coworking

Exclusive Interview: Puzl’s Petya Lipeva on the Bulgarian Tech Space

On April 11-12 2017, StartupYard will be visiting Sofia to meet with Deep Tech startups, and offer two workshops – one on turning an AI idea into a global business, and the other on storytelling for Deep Tech startups.

Before our next official visit, which is to be StartupYard’s third in beautiful Sofia, I talked to Petya Lipeva, Chief Navigator of CowOrKing by Puzl, one of Sofia’s hottest tech startup spaces, about the tech scene in Sofia, how it’s changed in recent years, and what we can expect in the near future from Bulgarian startups. Here is what she had to say:

Hi Petya, first why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself, and your path to becoming Chief Navigator at Puzl?

Hey StartupYard-ers! My name is Petya and I’m the Chief Navigator at Puzl CowOrKing – a coworking space for IT professionals and IT startups in Sofia, Bulgaria. I joined the team a month after they opened the first space.

My background is in PR and marketing for a Bulgarian tech company in the CG industry. For a few years I was traveling the world and I needed to settle down, so I tried to do some freelancing work. However, being a freelancer is quite a lonely experience for a person that is used to working with big crowds.

I was considering relocating to France or Italy when I found out that two guys opened a new shared space in Sofia and they were looking for a person to run the space. I met the team for a lunch and this was the most random job interview that I ever had. It was a couple of days before the start of a big CG conference that I was organizing and my phone was ringing all the time. Meanwhile we were speaking about anything but my role in the team. It’s amazing how you click immediately when you find your people!

Petya Lipeva, Coworking by Puzl

What makes Puzl CowOrKing, aside from any other workspace in Sofia, a special place?

First of all Puzl CowOrKing is the first industry focused coworking space in Sofia. We created the space to help IT companies and professionals to grow and develop together. The amazing industrial design is complemented with different areas to foster efficiency, collaboration, and creativity both for companies and individuals.

We started with one space in October 2015 and a few months later in May 2016 we opened a new floor that we created specially for early-stage startups. In the beginning of April 2017, we’re opening another floor with 10 dedicated offices for small startup companies. The idea is to have different areas so a team could start with some desks in the area for the early stage startups and move across the different zones as the team grows and develops.

Do you have some success stories from your own alumni you’d like to highlight?

Yes, we do have quite a lot of success stories! I’d say that the whole community of 250 professionals is one amazing success story.

We have quite a lot of starting companies that are funded by different funds and accelerators. We have a few examples of individuals who are starting alone and growing a team of 10 people. My best success stories however are the collaboration stories – I love seeing how companies and professionals in the space start working together and find it valuable to exchange experience and resources.

StartupYard is about to make our 4th visit in as many years to Sofia. What would you say have been the most profound changes about the city and the tech ecosystem there in the past decade? What can we expect when we visit next month?

I would say that about 10 years ago in Bulgaria only a few people had heard the word ‘startup’  and the entrepreneurship ecosystem basically didn’t exist. However a decade is quite a long period and the ecosystem is thriving now.

Last year Forbes Magazine named  Sofia  one of the top 10 destinations for starting a business. Only three years after the first venture capital funds Launchub and Eleven started; they have already about 200 start-up companies in their portfolio. Recently we also witnessed one of the largest exits in the region, with a value of 262.5 million USD after acquisition of Telerik by Progress Software.

Quite a lot of organizations are working on organizing entrepreneurship events and trainings and the country is definitely showing a great progress and could show a thriving and interesting tech ecosystem.

What are, in your view, the biggest strengths of Bulgarian tech people, engineers, and thinkers?

I’ve noticed that the engineers in Bulgaria have amazing tech skills – they are talented, dedicated and passionate about their projects. They are real problem-solvers and quite interesting people – there are some quiet ones, loud ones, crazy ones, real inventors, thinkers, and players.

To you, which have been the most interesting and inspiring successes in tech to come out of Sofia or Bulgaria in the last few years?

The most inspiring success to come out of Sofia is Chaos Group – the company that develops the rendering plugin for 3D computer graphics software applications – V-Ray. Chaos Group founder Vladimir Koylazov received an Academy Plaque at the 2017 Academy Awards. The award, presented by the Academy’s Scientific and Technical Awards Committee, recognizes V-Ray’s role in bringing realistic CGI to the big screen.

Another great success is the above mentioned largest exits in the region by Telerik. We have quite a lot of interesting starting tech companies and I’m sure that we’ll see many more great stories in the upcoming years!

What kinds of things do you think we can expect from Bulgarian startups in the near future?

I’d say that we’ll see many exciting products and services coming from the Bulgarian startups and I’m sure that we’ll see many teams growing worldwide. I’m sure that soon enough I’ll be saying proudly “he/she used to work in Puzl CowOrKing”.

Bulgaria is a relatively small economy. Does this force Bulgarian startups to think bigger? Does it have a negative impact on startups looking for their first customers and their first investor?

Yes, Bulgaria is a small economy but it’s a great floor for product testing before going outside the boundaries. The small economy is definitely pushing the startups to grow bigger and to find bigger markets. However, I don’t think it has impact on finding customers and investors, as nowadays we’re all easily connected and because of the thriving ecosystem in the region. It’s easy to access many resources outside the country.

How would you rate the local and state government’s involvement in the tech ecosystem? What are they doing right, and what are they doing wrong?

The local and the state government is not much involved in the tech ecosystem although they are trying a lot. It takes time – the administration in Bulgaria is quite slow in picking up new trends and the tech ecosystem is still something that they don’t completely understand and relate to what’s happening in a starting company. I think the administration needs to attract a new generation of people in order to start helping out the tech ecosystem.

KB & StartupYard Hackathon Produces 11 Projects, 3 Big Winners

This past weekend, over 50 developers, founders, idea makers, and designers got together at StartupYard’s homebase, Node5, and hacked for 48 hours (actually only 47 hours – we lost an hour to daylight savings), using data provided to attendees by Komercni Banka (KB), for our first ever joint Fintech Hackathon. The Hackathon focused on the swiftly approaching Open Data mandate for European banks, PSD2. KB provided anonymized customer usage data, of the type that the PSD2 standards are most likely to require that banks make publically available via API.

Winners were those who provided feasible projects that might have the highest impact on KB, or any bank’s ability to provide better customer experience in a rapidly changing landscape, contributing to “The Bank of the Future, Wherever You Are.” 

11 Projects

In total, the hackathon produced or advanced 11 projects in Fintech, ranging from VR, to personal finance applications. Attendees were also mentored by nearly a dozen experienced mentors from StartupYard, KB, and the fintech industry. In attendance were KB’s Deputy Director of IT, David Svejda, KB’s Head of Innovation Monika Drobna, and of course KB’s CEO Albert Le Dirac’h.

Reception of the results from the KB team were overwhelmingly positive, and in addition to the 3 official prize winners, 3 teams from the 11 were also invited to apply to the next round of acceleration at StartupYard, Batch 8. 

3 Big Winners

The weekend saw 3 outstanding teams walk away with prizes of 10,000 CZK, 6,000 CZK, and 4,000 CZK per team member. In addition, the winning team will get the chance to pitch the KB board of directors personally this week, and will have a chance to join C-level executives from KB for a private lunch. Here are the winners:

1st Prize: Paystory

Billed as “Payment History 2.0,” paystory showed off a prototype of a data platform that will help banks and their customers get fine-grained details from merchants and online retailers about their transactions, including keeping track of warrantees, receipts, invoices, and product information.

2nd Prize: Blocknify

Comprised of members of two StartupYard alumni (Personal Finance Manager BudgetBakers and Investment Intelligence Platform Decissio), Blocknify promises to make verifying the authenticity of a contract as simple as scanning it with your smartphone. With a combination of public blockchain and QR codes, Blocknify allows signatories of important contracts to feel secure in the knowledge that they are always signing exactly what they’ve agreed to.

3rd Prize: SDK Finance

SDK Finance an existing fintech company, took 3rd place for its use of data provided by KB to create an open API platform for PSD2, the standard by which all European banks will, starting in 2018, be required to allow 3rd party platforms to access certain transactional and account information.

 

Special Prize: VRTheBest

Though the team was not selected as cash winners, KB designated a Special Prize for the members of by far the most speculative and futuristic team to participate in the hackathon: VRTheBest. VRTheBest, in just 47 hours, mocked up an entire virtual bank branch, and a handful of very futuristic tools, inside a 3D environment using an Oculus Rift developer kit. Though the project was considered to be reaching too far into the future to merit a win, KB chose to single out the team for their outstanding work, and stunning presentation.

 

Bulgarian Tech Ecosystem

StartupYard Visits Puzl CowOrKing in Sofia, April 11-12, to meet Deep Tech startups

We’re excited to announce that on the 11th and 12 of April, StartupYard visits Sofia, Bulgaria, to meet with Deep Tech startups, entrepreneurs, and others with ideas for businesses built around AI, AR/VR, cryptology, blockchain, IoT, and related technologies.

Our visit will be at Puzl CowOrKing, one of Sofia’s most exciting startup workspaces.

This is the first of 5 visits to Central European capitals this spring, with an eye to attract brand new startups to StartupYard Batch 8.

 

DEEP TECH FOCUS

The focus of StartupYard Batch 8 will be “Deep Tech.”

Deep Tech means companies working on technologies and products that are unique, difficult to replicate, or are exploring areas of innovation where the barrier to entry remains high, and the problems scientifically complex and difficult, such as Robots, AI, IoT, VR/AR, and Cryptography.

Today, the barrier to entry for globally scalable startups is lower than ever. However, there are still tremendously complex problems left to solve. In years past, our focus on the Data Economy has shown us that there is a growing need for novel approaches to the way people work, communicate, do business, participate in the economy, and understand the world around them.

Deep Tech solutions seek to develop never-before-possible opportunities to profoundly alter the way everyone, not just the tech industry, works, thinks, and sees the future. Deep Tech companies work at the edges of possibility for emerging technologies, and so have the potential to disrupt and change whole industries overnight.

 

 

Taking the time to apply costs you only a bit of your time, and is the first step in the StartupYard selection committee and investors getting to know you and your team. There is no risk in applying, so why not start today?

StartupYard “Training Days”

April 11th and 12th in Sofia will be StartupYard’s first visit to one of 5 cities, including Budapest, Bucharest, Vilnius, Krakow, and Sofia. Unlike a typical roadshow, where an accelerator gathers early-stage startups to show off their pitches, StartupYard will instead offer workshops for Deep Tech engineers and idea makers in these different cities, about how to turn a high tech concept into a real business.

These “training days” will include a series of workshops and open hours with the StartupYard management team (myself, and our CEO Cedric Maloux).

Workshops

From AI to a Real Global Business- April 11th at 16:00, Puzl CowOrKing

cedric maloux startupyard

StartupYard Managing Director Cedric Maloux

Do you have a Deep Tech idea that could potentially become a tech startup? This is your ideal chance to find out what it takes. StartupYard CEO Cedric Maloux will walk attendees through the process of turning AI and other Deep Tech startups into thriving businesses, from proving their concepts with real-live pilot customers, to signing their first paying clients, and gaining venture investment.

This workshop will go into detail about how StartupYard has guided startups like TeskaLabs, Neuron Soundware, and Rossum, from idea phase, to seed investments and onto the market.

 

 

Deep Tech Positioning- April 12th, 10:00, Puzl CowOrKing

StartupYard Community Manager Lloyd Waldo

In this workshop, StartupYard’s head of communication and community Lloyd Waldo (that’s me), will show would-be entrepreneurs how early stage startups in Deep Tech can use practical storytelling skills to convince the earliest stakeholders (including cofounders, investors, customers, and employees), of the power of a new idea, by transforming it from dry description and speculation into a compelling narrative, that puts you in control of the conversation.

This workshop will include hands-on strategies for positioning that will provide entrepreneurs with the toolset necessary to construct a persuasive and powerful story about themselves, and their vision of the future.

 

 

Open Hours, April 12th, Puzl CowOrKing

Do you have a Deep Tech idea and a great team that you think is worthy of funding and acceleration at StartupYard? Are you ready to take the next step and run your own Deep Tech company? Now is your chance to meet the StartupYard management team, and tell us something about it.