Today we held our second ever Vator Splash London event, which featured keynote fireside chats from Techstars founder and CEO David Cohen, as well as Julia and Kevin Hartz, the founders of Eventbrite.
But we didn't forget what Splash is still all about: getting excellent startups up on stage in front of VCs and entreprenuers!
This time, we had a total of 6 companies competing against each other for the top spot, and, in the end it was SilkFred that won the competition!
SilkFred is an e-commerce platform that is a one stop shop for independent fashion.
It powers an online marketplace, connecting fashion forward shoppers with the hard to find brands of the future. It also provives e-commerce solutions by powering custom websites for brands and designers to get to market directly.
SilkFred also provides pop up shops that give customers the opportunity to ‘touch’ products and engage with brands. It has hosted pop up shops all over the world and placed 50 brands on shop floors in cities that include Paris, London, Hong Kong, Munich, Ibiza and Barcelona.
We should also say congratulations to for winning the People's Choice award, EduKit!
EduKit is an online platform that will help young people by evaluating their needs and identifying programmes run by charities and social enterprises that can help their personal development.
The company helps schools to raise attainment levels by connecting them with programmes run by charities and social eTnterprises that help young people. To do this, it is developing an online platform to evaluate student needs, match them suitable local programmes and measure the impact of the programme on their grades and behaviour.
And let's not forget the rest of our finalists!
LyteSpark is a fast, flexible video conferencing platform that’s easier to use and better quality than Skype, with no downloads or complicated signups.
It does this by combining video with other tools and services greatly enhances the ability to interact and operate in a connected yet distributed global economy.
LyteSpark is entirely browser based. There is no compulsory login; guests may participate in a video conference without being forced to log in or even enter a password. The user interface can also be customised and personalised according to individual taste.
Gitoon is a publishing platform that empowers its audience to both contribute creative works and decide what’s good enough to be published, creating a high-quality-only original content resource. The company wants to revolutionise self-publishing by eliminating the connections factor from the equation of success.
Gitoon is the first premium quality magazine assembled without editorial engagement.
LoYakk creates branded Community Apps for Enterprises and the App runs in the LoYakk Cloud.
LoYakk has created an innovative Mobile Engagement Platform that is one of the first that allows brands/enterprises to seamlessly mix their national messaging payload with hyper-local messaging and services created by local employees of the same firm.
Brands can now offer their own Location-aware Community App (powered under the covers by LoYakk) to their end-users, and engage consumers with location-awareness like never before - all while leveraging their existing social media investments.
7write is monetizing the demand for faster and easier “all inclusive” e-publishing by providing an automated and scalable platform to supply the services required by authors and content producers.
These services are live and available to authors through its SaaS product suite and also to content publishers through it open API.
We should also give a big shout out to our judge: Nic Brisbourne of Forward Partners; Scott Gallacher of The Aston Group; Laurence Garrett of Highland Capital Europe; Christian Hernandez Gallardo of White Star Capital; Emma Lloyd of BSkyB; Stefan Glaenzer of Passion Capital; Ezra Roizen of Ackrell Capital; and Simon Menashy of MMC Ventures.
(image source: india-forums.com)
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Startup/Business
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Because Your Story Should Be Told
Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th Century, making publishing more accessible. Just like Johannes Gutenberg we created 7write to make sharing information online easier.
Publishing online is time-consuming and expensive - formatting for ebook and POD is complex, marketplaces are restrictive, tools and services are in their infancy and book marketing services are innefective.
There is an increasing demand to solve these problems as the e-book market grows.
"Even though growth in printed books is flat or declining in most markets, it is being offset by a rise in revenues from e-books, which will account for 22% of all books sold around the world in 2017, up from 9% in 2012." - PwC
7write is monetising the demand for faster and easier “all inclusive” e-publishing by providing an automated and scaleable platform to supply the services required by authors and content producers.
These services are live and available to authors through our SaaS product suite (7write.com) and also to content publishers through our open API (beta).
We have both self published authors and publishers paying for our live online services. The API will be available for open Beta in July.
Were a team of Aussies who travelled half way around the world to start 7write. We founded during the SBC 2013 and raised 250k before demo day. Since then we have found our product market fit, developed the infrastructure required to automate publishing services, published books and collected royalties for paid clients.
We are located in Amstedam and London.
Startup/Business
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LytesSpark is a fast, flexible video conferencing platform that’s easier to use and better quality than Skype, with no downloads or complicated signups.
Video conferencing has become a mainstream communications tool for individuals and business. Customers are becoming more sophisticated demanding smarter, more flexible solutions. The existing products are archaic, putting technology in the way of usability.
LyteSpark provides a fresh and simple way to communicate with video – without complexity.
Intuitively combining video with other tools and services greatly enhances the ability to interact and operate in a connected yet distributed global economy.
Startup/Business
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LoYakk has created an innovative Mobile Engagement Platform that is one of the first that allows brands/enterprises to seamlessly mix their national messaging payload with hyper-local messaging and services created by local employees of the same firm.
This is a huge problem facing enterprises in many markets in this mobile era, and unsolved by Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Jive, etc.
Brands can now offer their own Location-aware Community App (powered under the covers by LoYakk) to their end-users, and engage consumers with location-awareness like never before - all while leveraging their existing social media investments.
Clients that have started using the LoYakk platform include:
Political parties - for Voter and Volunteer engagement
Digital Agencies - next generation engagement solutions for Brands
4 & 5 Star Hotels - for Next Generation Concierge Services
2nd Tier Celebrities - for Fan engagement
Sporting Organisations - Fan, Volunteer & Partner engagement
Charities - Supporter, Sponsor & Partner engagement
Service provider
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Ackrell Capital is an investment bank founded by senior technology investment bankers and entrepreneurs. We are headquartered in San Francisco, and have a network of partners throughout the U.S. and in key international markets. Our bankers provide each of our clients with:
As a registered broker/dealer and a member of FINRA, we offer a broad range of financial advisory and capital raising services.
Startup/Business
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Gitoon is a publishing platform that empowers its audience to both contribute creative works and decide what’s good enough to be published, creating a high-quality-only original content resource.
Startup/Business
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EduKit’s Innovative Education Marketplace helps schools identify and measure the impact of life-changing programmes for pupils from low-income backgrounds.
Youth Service Providers spend over £350m per year on ineffective marketing to schools. The EduKit opportunity is to increase pupil take up on these vital programmes, and be the place where a significant proportion of that £350m is spent annually.
EduKit's innovative custom built online platform will:-
EduKit has no direct competitors as typically no direct competitors as there is currently no online site where schools can locate support for pupils. Instead, schools:
- Use internet search engines to arbitrarily look for support
- Depend on word of mouth
- May see marketing materials from providers or attend events or exhibitions, although these typically have a very low conversion rate
- Unaware that support exists, simply do not offer pupils external support and / or make do with the wrong type of support.
But now, for the first time, schools are able to search a database of a thousands of programmes for pupils with endorsements from other senior staff in schools who have used the services before. We enable schools to build up a picture of how pupils progress during each type of intervention not just at their own school, but also at schools across the country. This approach has gained huge support from teachers and industry experts and we recently won an innovation award from the Department for Education.
EduKit is a unique concept that will revolutionise procurement for schools in the same ways Just Eat, Air BnB and Uber have revolutionised their respective sectors.
EduKit can be replicated in any country with acute social inequality and a large, fragmented youth support sector. Markets of immediate interest include US, South Africa, Brazil, Canada and Australia.
EduKit is a disruptive, scalable, global opportunity that will generate significant returns for investors whilst also increasing outcomes for all pupils from all backgrounds.
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Emma has over 20 years experience in the communications and entertainment sectors working as a management consultant for PWC, MD of start-up, Movio and senior executive at BSkyB.
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Advisor-to and commenter-on emerging ventures
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