Guest post by Aaron Dubin and Juriaan Bensoussan*
During HTIA 2012, for the first time ever, 18 startups from three of Israel’s all-star startup accelerators (DreamIt, The Junction and Microsoft Accelerator) gave five minute pitches to a full house of technology enthusiasts and the like. We were fortunate enough to be among the crowd and bear witness to Israeli innovation at its finest. Here is a short description of the accelerators and their startups. Be sure to scroll all the way down to read about our favorite startups at this landmark event.
Microsoft Accelerator
The Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure at the Microsoft Israel R&D Center is a 4-month accelerator program aimed at helping out early-stage startups that are doing big things in cloud, Internet, and mobile. Microsoft provides its startups with the best workspace, top mentors from the Israeli and global high-tech community, and all the tools they need to create the most successful startup.
ModuBiz is a unique back-office, cloud service platform. The service plugs into any type of app and automatically generates a robust back-office application in no time, saving companies from the time and expense of developing it themselves.
Evento is a pure end-to-end event promotion and ticket purchasing platform over social media networks. With Evento, event owners can increase ticket sales through social engagement on Facebook. Evento helps them to expand awareness beyond their core ticket sales.
Evolero empowers conference organizers to fully utilize today’s social web for their conferences. Evolero allows organizers to easily setup and manage an event website that replaces the flat, static registration site with a live showcase of the network of people, content and connections that their event generates.
Twtrland is a simple way to understand people by the content they share online. For users, it is a place to discover new people and understand their audience. For businesses, it is an easy path to identify and connect with opinion leaders in their space. The site serves 450,000 visitors a month.
AppsFlyer is a mobile marketing platform application that allows app-developers, brands and advertising agencies to track and optimize their user acquisition funnel
RotaryView enables online shop owners to show a rotating 360° view of their products in less than five minutes. Unlike other solutions, RotaryView does not require any special equipment, and can be implemented in a matter of minutes through a simple mobile phone app or a camera.
MediSafe is developing a mobile-health (mHealth) platform and app for safe medication consumption. MediSafe helps families get healthier, together.
The Junction
The Junction is an open house for entrepreneurs, uniquely creating a “pay-it-forward” acceleration model. It is led by serial entrepreneur turned VC Eden Shochat, and is sponsored by Genesis Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm, as part of its collaboration with the entrepreneurial community. Any active entrepreneur (regardless of his/her idea) is welcome to join, be a part of, and work at The Junction.
Scoreoid is the ultimate server platform for game developers. It was developed by game developers for game developers.
WeTrip is Pandora for travel. We personalize travel information according to the user’s travel history and real time social-driven information. Find travel activities and friends around you, Check out hot places in your location and share unique experiences.
Vidit is a revolutionary service that allows users to recreate events using crowd-sourced videos. Vidit collects videos taken by many people in a single event, and using a unique video synchronization algorithm, synchronizes and edits them into one video that depicts the event from its beginning to its end, from the users point of view.
Alum.ni offers an online solution for universities and professional networks to increase online engagement in their alumni communities.
A new way of sharing videos and tagging friends in them.
Frimper brings video to online dating, mixing a unique psychological matching algorithm with real-life experiences.
Live video tweeting, mobile-to-mobile.
DreamIt Israel
DreamIt Ventures, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators, launched DreamIt Israel to help early-stage Israeli companies access the U.S. and global markets. Companies selected for DreamIt Israel spend the first month in Israel, and then travel to New York City to join 10-15 other companies for three months as part of DreamIt NYC.
Bazaart is building the next level of e-commerce on tablets. Using unique, patented technology, Bazaart re-creates the beauty of paper catalogs, while adding advanced personalization and interaction layers. Bazaart is essentially the first ever Pinterest-driven, user-generated, 24/7, live fashion catalog.
Cubiez is an app platform and marketplace for the PC. Cubiez takes the things you love about the smartphone and brings them to the PC. Getting content on your desktop should be as easy as clicking a button. In this day and age you should be constantly connected to your main interests no matter what you do, the same way you are on your mobile phone. We designed Cubiez to do just that.
Teamalaya develops and markets corporate gamified solutions. Their products are online web applications used for team building, onboarding, company events and holidays.
Weesh is a mobile app for couple communication. Weesh brings romantic couples closer together through discovering and sharing experiences.
Our Favorites:
A few companies from the Demo Day deserve special mention due to their innovative technology and solid pitches. Weesh’s clever spin on the traditional “social network” is one that is sure to strike an emotional chord with any audience. The app’s intuitive UI and its seamless integration with Facebook make it an entertaining new way for couples to interact. Also, Vidit was a hit across the board at HTIA 2012. The company is helping to pioneer the new field of crowd-sourced video, and has managed to turn a very complicated process into a completely automated and ridiculously easy to use app.
WeTrip is another startup with a powerful idea as it addresses a huge, real need that no one has yet managed to fully solve. Its smart blend of social travel and recommendations may finally be the solution that travelers have been waiting for. Finally, Bazaart blew everyone away with their flawless pitch, compelling imagery, and almost addictive value proposition. It’s no surprise that they’re already working with some big brands in fashion, including Juicy Couture and Paul Frank.
* Aaron Dubin (Philadelphia, USA) and Juriaan Bensoussan (Netherlands) are the co-founders of www.ebrain.com, a new online English editing service for correcting English mistakes in your documents, presentations, CVs, and more. They are graduates of the Raphael Recanati International School at the IDC Herzliya, and have degrees in Business Management, Finance, and Entrepreneurship.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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