ELEVATE – Our Accelerator for AI & Machine Learning Startups
Hi, I’m Kathi and I have the best job ever – no offence. Yes, I’m hyped! Why, you wonder? Because I just came out of a session with 10 brilliant people from all over the world, who happened to still share the same level of excitement and enthusiasm as they did this February when we kicked off Batch #5 of ELEVATE. Yes, I’m talking about the founders of the four startups we are currently working with.
A group of people that give me, personally, immense joy and appreciation for what I get to do every day. But it’s not only me who loves the time we get to spend with the startups:
Working with startups from our acceleration program ELEVATE is an integral part of what we do at TheVentury. Our accelerator for AI & Machine Learning startups helps us to keep up to date on the newest technologies and gives us a chance to pass on our experience in building hypotheses-driven companies. Plus, it’s so much fun, we wouldn’t want to miss it for the world – the crazy times included!
Today, we’re happy to introduce our newest additions to the ELEVATE family to you. Our Batch #5 startups and the amazing people behind them. We’re proud to have picked a bunch of passionate, hard-working and all-around great people to be part of this year’s batch and cannot wait to introduce them to you. So, without further ado: meet our Batch #5 startups!
Midibrain
Country: Austria
Michael Krautsieder, the genius behind Midibrain, and a musician himself, has made it his goal to make the process of creating and producing music easy and intuitive, without having to get into the depths of music theory.
The first app of the Midibrain series, Chord Progression Generator, has been built already by Michael, who is not only a musician, but also a developer, and has 110K downloads so far. Currently, he is working on the second app in the Midibrain family – also a tool for music producers. You can find out more about that one at our Demo Day. 😉
Michael is not only one of the newest additions to the ELEVATE family, but also to our office, as he moved into the space two months ago as well. And we have to say, we really enjoy having you and your getting things done attitude around, Michael!
Oh and also: he is looking for a CMO/Co-founder who is just as excited about music producing as he is and who will take over the business side of things. Interested? Find out more about it here.
Avasa AI
Country: UK
Who of you has ever struggled with the process of finding a new home? When Mayank, one of the founders of Avasa AI asked our team this question for the first time, every single person raised their hands. And that’s exactly what the fantastic people behind Avasa AI are helping with: the stress and hassle of apartment/house hunting.
Over the past year, Avasa AI has supported hundreds of house-hunters with their hyper-personalized home search that focuses on the tenant’s needs. On this quest, they are now going another step: empowering HR departments to support their new graduate employees and expats in finding homes fast and easy. This ultimately improves employee productivity and mental well-being.
The team behind Avasa AI knows what they are talking about – the idea was born out of Mayank’s frustration when he was first house-hunting in London. A couple of months later, when he was thinking of the idea for Avasa AI, he called Octavian, one of the real estate agents from his home search days, the one who was most helpful and asked him to start a company together. The team is complemented by Rajnish, who Mayank met on a flight 11 years ago and who does not only have 35+ years of experience in building tech products and businesses but is also an angel investor. A truly experienced dream team, I would say!
We love having them around, even if it is currently only through video calls. I would also like to add, that my heart warms up every time I see how Mayank is passing his experience as a founder on to the other startups in the Batch and getting collaboration going.
Detectolabs
Country: Russia
The team behind Detectolabs have developed a powerful image recognition software that helps retail and restaurants to understand their customers better and create personalized offers for them, ultimately creating sales opportunities for them. A Google Analytics or Hotjar for offline retail, so to speak. With the same technology, they also help retailers manage their stocks, avoid empty shelves and thus cut losses in real-time.
The cool thing about this solution is that it can make use of the existing cameras that are installed in stores already. And, we know what you’re thinking, of course it’s 100% GDPR compliant!
Time to introduce the super smart people behind the product to you: Alex, who is at the forefront of anything business and customer interviews. Honestly, after all the interviews he has done with people in retail and hospitality, I don’t think there is anyone who has deeper insights into the industry than him. And then there is Ilya, the ambitious and clever tech partner in crime. Supported by Irina, a tough business developer and financial wizard, they are working hard every day to make Detectolabs bigger and better.
Just like Avasa AI, we can’t have them around at the moment, due to the distance and the current situation. However, our weekly calls are always a highlight for us, seeing the progress they are making every single week and throwing a couple of jokes in every now and again – for example about my bad Russian. We are truly impressed how seriously the team is taking feedback and how they manage to strike a balance between taking advice and running with it but also thinking it through and deciding what makes sense for them. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for you!
Rotable
Country: Austria
Rotable is working on a SaaS-solution for the HR & clinical rotation management in healthcare facilities. What does that mean, you ask? They are basically saving hospitals and their doctors and HR professionals a lot of time on the rotation scheduling of doctors in training.
And when I mean a lot, I really mean a whole lot. Because hospital groups spend up to 216 hours a week reworking their rotation scheduling in their excel files. Rotable’s SaaS solution will do this automatically and thus free up doctors time to enable them to focus on the important things: their patients.
Team rotable knows how much time, effort and brainpower go into rotation scheduling, because Lisa, one of the founders, has been the one to do exactly this across nine hospitals at the same time for years. So, she decided to change it with her dream team: Yannick, a mastermind when it comes to making things look great and David, the guy behind the algorithms. We certainly love having you in the office with us – usually – and beating you at UNO or foosball. 😉
Oh, this might be interesting for you too: rotable is currently hiring software developers – if you want to be part of a determined team with a mission, you should definitely check this out. Bonus point: the rotables are really great at Karaoke, so fun times are definitely included – I’m speaking from experience here!
Coming up – remote reunion in May, before our Demo Day in June!
We cannot wait to reunite with our teams in May and work intensely on their growth strategy and their pitches and prepare for our Demo Day on June 18th, 2020. Which reminds me: stay tuned for Demo Day announcements & updates soon! 😊
Find more information about Demo Day, how to access it & how to get in contact with the startups here: https://demoday.theventury.com/
