ReadWriteStart

Seedcamp Finalists Announced for Third Annual European Startup Event

Written by Jolie O'Dell / September 10, 2009 3:05 PM / 3 Comments

This post is part of our ReadWriteStart channel, which is a resource and guide for first-time entrepreneurs and startups. The channel is sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark. To sign up for BizSpark, click here.

Twenty-one entrepreneurial teams have been selected to participate in Seedcamp Week 2009, a London-based, startup-focused event now in its third year. Seedcamp also selectively funds (and subsequently accelerates) around 5 startups each year; to date, 14 teams have received funding.

Read on for a full list of the finalist startups and details on a few of the teams competing for their share of this year's investments.

Here are a few of our Seedcamp picks:

Shout 'Em is a co-branded microblogging service with features that allow for photos, attachments, and community-building. The team likes to think of their product as the Ning of microblogging.

The concept behind Vooices is fascinating: It's a phone-controlled, multiplayer, real-time application for public-space screens and online games. It works on any phone, on any network, in any country, and requires no downloads. Check out the sample apps on their homepage, and developers, take a look at their API.

Boxed Ice's sole public product is Server Density, a hosted service that allows users to monitor servers and get e-mail or SMS alerts when things go wrong. Users can check up on CPU load, memory usage, and processes. The company just rolled out an update that moreover allows for server grouping and user permissions.

Brainient went dotcom-era retro chic with their company name, but the concept is totally 2.0. This startup is all about helping users manage, analyze, enhance, and monetize online video. Veevid, a video publishing and management platform, and Layered Brain, a product focusing on generating revenue from online video, are two of their offerings.

Codility is a tool that allows non-technical folks to screen job candidates for programming abilities. It's a testing system that's ideal for small- to mid-sized businesses or recruiters.

PlugIn SEO is essentially a "paint-by-numbers guide to SEO" for site owners that takes its users through such basic building blocks as organic rank tracking, keyword taxonomy management, descriptive URIs, and blogging for search engine optimization.

Comufy is a browser-based social utility that combines short status message services such as Facebook with chat programs such as AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, and Skype, as well as email. Users can establish groups and even control the way others can contact them. Registration is now closed, but this is one program we'd like to test drive.

The Loc8 team is working on location-based mobile apps. They claim their bespoke applications can be up and running in just a few days, and they created a custom application for the renowned Edinburgh festivals that allowed iPhone users to find out what shows were happening near them and get directions to those venues.

But wait! There's more! Check out these teams, too:

World on a Hanger is a software development shop creating tools for building small- to mid-sized fashion labels.

Erply is billing, accounting, point-of-sale, and inventory software.

Pearl is a browser-based enterprise tool that purports to handle and help users manage info on everything from jobs and sales to websites and customer service.

Kukunu is a travel-related startup in stealth mode.

Joobili is a travel-related startup that shows users the best time to visit a particular destination.

Teachable is a by-teachers, for-teachers directory of resources for the classroom.

Advertag is in super-stealth mode, but we'll go out on a limb and guess that it's an advertising startup, maybe even one based on context and, I don't know, tags?

VouChaCha is a location-based mobile app for coupons or vouchers.

YubiTech is a smartphone app development utility that aims for ultimate OS and device agnosticism.

We couldn't read the text on the site for Amman, Jordan-based Talasim, but if any of our intrepid readers can, we'd love to know what it's all about. Put it in the comments!

Patients Know Best is all about patient-managed healthcare.

PetsIcon is a startup about dog health.

And last, we have Wondergraphs, a startup so stealthy that we are truly left to wonder what the heck they might be up to.

Microsoft BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. Click here to apply.


Comments

Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteStart posts

  1. Talasim

    Before talking about Talasim, Seekcamp Week is meant not only for Europe it's basically for EMEA.

    Talasim.com is a Jordanian-based user-generated content platform for articles, images, and videos. Talasim is not very common word in Arabic yet it means that it's strange/unknown/weird. Talasim content is more about fun and exciting things, not just any content.

    Talasim started as a blog for Jeeran.com (Jeeran is hosted blog service similar to wordpress)when the traffic started picking up, they teamed-up and started designing and developing this website.

    With respect to Seedcamp, Talasim is representing Arabs at this stage.

    Check my article about Talasim News:
    http://interactiveme.com/index.php/2009/09/talasim-team-joins-top-tier-seedcamp-finalist/

    Cheers,

    @tarekkassar

     Posted by: tarekkassar Author Profile Page | September 10, 2009 3:38 PM



  2. Hello this is the executive content manager from Talasim.com, I am sorry for the missing English info in our website, for it is under-construction at the moment...

    Here is a summery about talasim.com:

    Talasim is a comedy community for Arabs online, a first of its kind in the Arab world. Providing original content from its team and visitors, the concept began as a blog and was transformed into an online community by its founders early this year.

    Today, Talasim enjoys a network of loyal and interactive fans. With content from more than 25 countries, the success of Talasim is derived from its unique propositions,
    original humor content only. It has distribution channels to mobile operator's, newspapers and magazines.

    Posted by: Hala des | September 11, 2009 4:58 AM



  3. Nice overview of the Seedcamp teams.
    Thanks for putting ShoutEm on the first place :)

     Posted by: Viktor Marohnic Author Profile Page | September 14, 2009 5:13 PM



Leave a comment

Optional: Sign in with Connect Facebook   Sign in with Twitter Twitter   Sign in with OpenID OpenID  |