PwC Startup Collider has chosen 12 technological startups from the European region, which have a chance to conquer the world!

The 12 most promising startups coming mainly from the Central and Eastern Europe region are starting to accelerate under the second edition PwC Startup Collider program. The selected startups will receive support in business development and an opportunity for international expansion alongside one of the strongest global brands.

Program Objectives

The Startup Collider Acceleration Program is implemented under the auspice of PwC, one of the strongest and most recognizable global B2B brands, present in 157 countries worldwide. The objective of the Program is to support and promote innovative technological startups with the focus on Central and Eastern Europe and to help them develop in new markets.

Participation in the program provides young companies with the opportunity to establish direct cooperation with PwC's experts, mentors and decision-makers as well as CEE customers, and there are thousands of them in Central and Eastern Europe alone. The business potential is enormous.

As part of the Startup Collider, we are looking for innovative startups that will become our business partners with whom we will really develop a new joint product – says Beata Cichocka-Tylman, PwC's Director responsible for innovation and R&D. We give the opportunity to scale through our network of contacts and relationships, translating into often very large market players. In addition, we add our knowledge of development and sales of professional services and their scaling - she adds.

Nearly 300 applications from 30 countries

The two-month recruitment for the PwC Startup Collider accelerator, which ended on December 10, 2017, was directed to startups which already have a product or service ready to launch on the market and are focused on development of their business globally. Nearly 300 startups from 30 countries across the Europe, the Middle East and even both Americas entered the project.

The most prospective 12 startups, whose applications have been accepted by PwC’s experts, are eventually from 5 countries, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and one from Spain and Great Britain.

Next steps

Startups selected to participate in the program will take part in a three-month long intensive bootcamp, which consists of four weekly sprints in Warsaw and remote workshops. During this time, innovative entrepreneurs will meet with PwC’s experts and representatives of various business units. Demo Day, which is the scheduled to be held in April 2018 in front of investors and potential clients, will complete this stage. Then, the startups will pass through the stage of entering the market, during which PwC will support them in finalizing the concept and first sale.

Apart from the possibility of gaining professional, substantive knowledge, for startups it is a time of intensive networking with various groups of the environment – both in Poland and abroad – says Magdalena Kwoska, Project Manager of the PwC Startup Collider program. Building business relationships also includes one of the factors that can contribute to the market success of the startup, so we also place a lot of emphasis on this issue – explains Magdalena Kwoska.

Finalists qualified to the PwC Startup Collider acceleration program offer solutions used in sectors such as Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, FinTech, IoT, CyberTech, E-Commerce, and VR/AR.

List of finalists:

AlphaBlues is an AI based chat-bot solution, which focuses on understanding human written free text and extracts meaning from it. The AI engine is processing the text, deduces what it refers to and creates most appropriate answer based on the own knowledge base. The product can process and respond to chats from a variety of channels, i.e. Facebook and allows to connect to most CRM and customer support platforms.

Aplazame is an instant credit risk-free solution for online purchases. It’s a simple, secure and flexible over time payment method integrated at the ecommerce checkout. It simplifies financing to boost sales, increase the average order value, improve conversion rates and reach more customers.

Apzumi Spatial creates a set of AR tools enhanced by AI, that make industrial processes more precise and effective. The company combines the understanding of the industrial needs, experience and AR functionalities into complex but flexible solution. The most common areas for improvements include educational processes, support for assembly line workers, logistics or prototyping.

bNesis helps in choosing the best scoring systems and combining them into single credit analyzing platform, which can analyze data from customers’ accounts, increasing the credit scoring accuracy rate by 5-7%. Allows banks to analyze data from payment, banking, eCommerce and social media accounts of the credit applicant with the help of multiple scoring systems working simultaneously.

Cyberus Labs is a developer of a universal, multi-factor, user authentication platform that is simple and secure. The system blends key security features that prevents phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks – most frequent hacking methods.

d'Tective offers a solution based on advanced cleaning and machine learning, which collects tender data from across thirty EU markets, in order to produce high-quality matching of potential tenders - based on the history of given company, its competitors etc.

Edward.AI uses conversational interface combined with machine learning algorithms to fill out the information in CRM automatically and draw conclusions about their customers. Edward.ai works on top of current data, integrating seamlessly into existing processes to help manage sales customers and pipeline.

HousePrice.AI is built around using Big Data and Machine Learning. It generates fast, objective and quantifiable real-time valuations. The solution is cost effective for clients and enables them to creatively manage the valuation information rather than simply collating it. Variables can be customized to incorporate social, environmental or macro/micro economic data. Houseprice.AI recalibrates its variables to ‘learn’ from real data, automatic valuation updates triggered by new inputs.

Mint Cloud is a loyalty-marketing platform utilizing advanced OCR and Machine Learning algorithms, encouraging customers to visit stores more often and spend more. Thanks to the technology of processing fiscal receipts, the application allows to receive loyalty points after scanning the receipt with no POS integration needed. End-consumer app automatically saves expenses and controls the budget plus it offers promotions that match individual customer profiles.

TakeTask offers a solution for large and medium companies with geographically dispersed labor force that helps to complete their tasks by providing effective task management application for employees, as well as for external communities. TakeTask’s task management and training application utilizes smartphones to receive tasks from the head office and report the current stage of works, leading to higher effectiveness, flexibility and scalability.

Talkin' Things offers an NFC-based global smart packaging system that provides effective protection against brand-related threats. Integration of the NFC tag with product packaging enables brands to protect against counterfeiting or refilling, while also communicating and interacting with consumers on important product information.

Vintom is a service that provides consumers attention for ~60 seconds through personalized, individual videos. Its customers use technology to automate processes of selling to their own client base. Thanks to using a video personalization technology, the communication with the client happens in a direct and engaging way.