10 winning deep tech scaleups you need to know about right now

Every year, EIT Digital, Europe’s leading accelerator, conducts the EIT Digital Challenge competition to identify innovative ‘deep tech’ scaleups. Generally, the EIT Digital Challenge looks out for best scaleups in five technology areas: Digital Industry, Digital Wellbeing, Digital Cities, Digital Finance, and Digital Infrastructure.

This year again in Brussels at the EIT House, the accelerator has selected ten best deep tech companies in the sixth edition of the EIT Digital Challenge scaleup contest 2019.

Notably, a record number of 279 scaleups from 33 countries applied, representing a 40% growth with respect to 2018 and the highest country variety in the 6-year history of Europe’s flagship deep tech competition in digital.

Then selected 25 finalists presented their innovative digital solutions to juries composed of tech specialists, investors, c-suite level executives of European technology corporations, and EIT Digital experts. After a thorough examination of the market and internationalisation potential of each competitors’ business model, the judges selected ten winners in five categories representing EIT Digital’s strategic focus areas. Let’s take a look at the winners in detail.

Digital Industry:

1st place: Oculavis (Germany) 

Established in 2016 and headquartered in Aachen, Germany, Oculavis has developed software for industrial machine builders to enable them to assist their customers remotely. Installed in the cloud or locally, the software has an interface where you can see a live video filmed with a smartphone, tablet, or glasses connected. Everything is enhanced augmented reality, a translation tool, easy access to the technical documentation of the machine, and can order spare parts if necessary. Focused on Germany so far, Oculavis now has broader ambitions for expansion, especially in France.

2nd place: Wonderflow (Netherlands)  

This Dutch-Italian company specialises in Customer Feedback Analytics and offers Europe’s leading solution to turn the Voice of the Customer into actionable insights. With AI-based technology and Natural Language Processing (NLP), this platform allows clients to process customer feedback from over 200 different sources in over 13 different languages.

Digital Tech:

1st place: R3 Communications (Germany) 

Founded in July 2015, Berlin-based Reliable Realtime Radio Communications (R3) develops ultra-reliable real-time communication systems that are predominantly used in industry 4.0 and IoT applications. R3’s proprietary technology called EchoRing circumvents the problems of common wireless communication systems (deficient transmission reliability, latency, and co-existence). It supersedes the expensive, inflexible, and complex use of cables in a vast number of scenarios. 

2nd place: QuoScient (Germany) 

Frankfurt-based QuoScient is a fully automated cybersecurity platform built by operators for operators and provides customers across all industries with its technology QuoLab & expertise against digital threats of all kinds. This platform raises efficiency and effectiveness in cybersecurity operations by allowing to detect, predict and counter more threats faster

Digital Wellbeing:

1st place: Mecuris (Germany) 

This Munich-based Medtech scaleup provides orthopedic technicians with an easy-to-use online platform for customisable and 3D-printed orthotics and prosthetics – which the company is able to deliver within days. Mecuris solution platform aims to co-create orthoses and prostheses with orthopedic technicians that are tailored to patients. These products can be further styled individually (color, texture, ornaments, logos, etc.) to enrich the wearers’ life as an expression of their personality.

2nd place: SidekickHealth (Iceland)

SidekickHealth was founded by two practicing physicians, Tryggvi “Thor” Thorgeirsson, M.D., M.P.H., and Saemundur “Sam” Oddsson, M.D., to predict and prevent lifestyle-related diseases (chronic disease). The company’s approach combines gamification, AI, and behavioral economics for a uniquely engaging experience that removes barriers to behavior change and expands the possibilities of health and well-being. Notably, this platform also helps diabetes prevention programs and chronic disease management programs lower operational costs, improve outcomes, and increase value-based reimbursements.

Digital Cities:

1st place: Cerbair (France)

Cerbair claims to be a French leader in anti-drone systems and was created to counter the intrusion of malicious drones and the threat they represent to sensitive sites and events. Based on French-made radio frequency and optical technologies, Cerbair provides Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) solutions for usage in critical infrastructure.

2nd place: LORIOT (Switzerland)

Founded in Switzerland in 2015, LORIOT is a global IoT company, already present in more than 120 countries on five continents. It provides one of the most powerful, complete, and secure solutions in the market as well as tailor-made end-to-end solutions for IoT applications. LORIOT’s global LoRaWAN infrastructure and software ensure high availability and low-latency access to a wide range of supported LoRaWAN gateways and sensor devices used for SmartCity, SmartBuilding, SmartFarming, SmartAgriculture and SmartFactory applications, guarantee integration with popular third-party platforms and provide outstanding security standards.

Digital Finance:

1st place: Zelros (France)  

Zelros was founded in 2016 by Christophe Bourguignat (CEO), Fabien Vauchelles (CTO), and Damien Philippon (COO), three serial entrepreneurs who are experts in Data, Machine Learning, and Digital. It is an end-to-end AI business platform that integrates standard scenarios for sales and claims. The company has also opened its office in Munich, Germany, recently. 

Zelros’ AI solution covers two critical processes for insurers, firstly, Augmented sales: assisting advisors in better serving their customers by offering bespoke products in a demanding regulatory environment and secondly, Claims automation: facilitating the lives of claims managers by reducing processing times.

2nd place: Minna Technologies (Sweden) 

Launched in 2016, Minna Technologies is a Swedish fintech scaleup aiming to make subscription management easy. With this platform, users can manage any subscription with just a single click, which means that you can cancel your phone subscription or gym membership with a single click. The company is an FSA-regulated open banking partner to several top tier banks in Europe, and its award-winning subscription management products have saved more than €30 million on behalf of its users.

EIT Digital Accelerator: The prizes!

The ten awarded companies will join the EIT Digital Accelerator that was just recognised as one of the five World Top Public Business Accelerators and the program with the best pan-European reach, and as Top 4 European Accelerator brand in the Startup Heatmap Europe report. In addition, the first place in each category receives a €50,000 cash prize. So, basically, the ten best companies received prizes totaling €750,000, including international growth support by the EIT Digital Accelerator that was just recognised as a World Top Public Business Accelerator.

Image credit: EIT Digital

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