Hi, Everyone,
Below you will find some basic information about the 16 finalists at our recent Pitch Fest, sponsored by Blumberg Capital, and hosted by Shiluvim. The first three are the winners, who were each awarded a very unique prize - every startup’s dream - a Due Diligence Process with Blumberg, which has already begun. The remaining 13 companies are listed in alphabetical order. Contact details have been provided. As you will see, these exciting startups cover a wide range of industries, reflecting the nature of our group. Over the coming weeks, we will be dedicating individual posts to each of these companies, as well as to many others among the 65 who applied to present.
All the best, and see you at our next event!
Arlene Marom
Qmerce is a social e-commerce platform that promotes products, services and fun elements using simple casual games, providing tools to create a new content pack which integrates the user on a new level. With Qmerce, sellers can create a tournament and decide on the number of competitors, time frame, and the game to be used for the competition. Buyers can enter the game by paying a fraction of the original cost, and receive the product by getting the highest score in the game. The Qmerce platform, which currently exists mainly as a facebook application, will move into mobile and other platforms. Qmerce – You are the Game.
Contact: Moti Cohen, motiboti at gmail dot com
QleeQ is the Internet’s Intelligence Agency. QleeQ offers an award-winning, patented, free and open-to-use website that deals with 24x7 live streams of data and information, and provides the fastest way to the Internet’s Intelligence. QleeQ harnesses the web’s answering power, specializing in Intangible Subjective Wisdom. Users can enter a natural language sentence and get a response. Everything is done automatically, instantly and in a friendly manner. QleeQ is not based on keywords or SEO, not biased by Ads or PR, does not rely on unknown friends, and enables people to stay in their comfort zone.
Long-Term Mission: To become the Internet’s Credibility Authority. Short-Term Mission: Sense the Internet for Wisdom on any issue while enabling users the fastest way to sum-up the Internet
Contact: Dan Schamir, info at QleeQ dot com, www.QleeQ.com, http://QleeQ.blogspot.com, www.QleeQ.mobi
Nooly has developed an accurate, minute-by-minute weather forecast. The Nooly iPhone/Android application is able to predict the exact minute it will start to rain, the rain intensity, when the sun will come out and how cold/hot it will feel on one’s body. The Nooly system is currently the most granular and most accurate (3 to 10 times more) compared with any other available solutions, covering more than 13M locations (compared with 30K available today). Nooly offers a simple API that enables any LBS provider to include accurate forecasts with its application, e.g., predict traffic and navigating based on expected snow on a highway; adjusting school, work or other social activity, based on the exact time it will start to rain; etc.
Contact: Yaron Reich, yaron2010 at gmail dot com, www.nooly.com
Corbomite games is building a platform for the creation and porting of adventure games to mobile devices, and a one-stop-shop for the distribution of adventure games on mobile devices. The store will be similar to existing 3rd party app stores and will feature the regular game catalog, and provide social network connectivity and an independent game recommendations and review system that utilizes social networks. The store will also allow the introduction and purchase of expansions, add-ons, game episodes, and subscriptions, and will include in-house games, ports of existing games from other platforms, 3rd party games developed specifically for this platform, and user generated content.
Contact: Oded Sharon, oded at corbomitegames dot com, www.corbomitegames.com
The challenge of alternative energy is the storage of the power. H2EnergyNow, a new company in Beer Sheva, Israel, is dedicated to solving this problem. They have taken one of the world’s most plentiful resources - water - and have split the Hydrogen out of the water molecule through a patented technology that utilizes radio waves, capturing and storing this perfect energy carrier. This technology, which is over 4 times more efficient, will enable alternative energy to evolve, supplying energy 24/7, and helping to break our dependence on oil. “What a wonderful time we live in where the choices we can make today can truly change the world that we and our children live in.”
Contact: Sonya Davidson, sonyadesigns at yahoo dot com, http://h2energynow.com
HotVisitor adds live communications to places which traditionally just show a phone number or email. Just one click on HotVisitor’s “Hot button” establishes an immediate text and voice chat connection to the person behind an email, PDF file, classified ad or website. Two minutes to setup, no software installation and no training is required. HotVisitor has solutions for businesses, Internet directories and marketplaces, and for very small businesses and individuals. It’s just the simplest way to connect you with your customers!
Contact: David Gibor, david at hotvisitor dot com, www.hotvisitor.com
Most customers enter online shops without knowing exactly which product they plan to buy. Purchase decisions have become increasingly difficult due to the dramatic increase in the variety of products. Technical specifications contain dozens, sometimes hundreds, of values and features. This huge knowledge-base has immense impact on the users’ purchase decision, but he is unable to comprehend most of it on his own. ineze bridges the gap between user needs and product information, helping the shopper make easy, knowledge-based decisions, without actually having to know anything technical. Simply type-in (ineze is google-like “free search”) anything you want your product/service to be (example: “best night-shooting camera”, or “fastest, most economical car” or, “cheapest hotel near San-Francisco”) and the results exactly match your priorities.
Contact: Gil Rozenberg, gil at ineze dot com, www.ineze.com
InFormat is developing an indoor searchable navigation system that connects to the consumers' personal smart-phones. It will provide the consumer with an interactive map and direct them to the products that they need - while delivering promotional messages for other goods based on related need to the product they are searching for, the consumer's physical location in the store, or to products that the retailer needs to move out. The backend of the system will provide retailers with a diagnostic package enabling them to understand how customers traffic the stores and the impact of the messaging on sales. The tool will improve the consumer experience by guiding them directly to the specific products that they desire, increasing value through mobile coupons, allowing them to research product alternatives while in the store, and identifying the location of the customer service staff.
Contact: Jon Feinberg, yehudaf at informat-innovative dot com, www.informat-innovative.com
Inphodrive offers an innovative mobile Internet service, delivering verbal Internet access to
the driver behind the wheel via 3G Smartphones. All the content is delivered via audio, leaving the driver’s eyes on the road and hands of the wheel, significantly increasing safety. Inphodrive’s proprietary Web-cloud server transforms today’s on-screen Internet to audible Internet for drivers. The driver interacts with the system by vocal dialog using an application installed on his/her Smartphone.
Contact: Mark Heifets, markh at inphodrive dot com, www.inphodrive.com
JFrog is the home of Artifactory – the world’s first Repository Management Solution. The company was established in 2008 by 3 co-founders, following 10 years of working together leading the Israeli Java community. In its 2 years of operation, JFrog has already accomplished a number of significant achievements, including entry into the list of Fortune 500 companies - reflecting the company’s being the first to offer a Repository Manager solution for binaries. Artifactory is the de-facto leading Repository Management Solution on the market today, and JFrog has established itself as a technology leader in the industry. The company aspires to continue setting the standards going forward.
Contact: Shlomi Ben-Haim, shlomib at jfrog dot org, www.jfrog.org
Despite technological advances, nothing has really changed in the buyer-seller relationship. It is still a one-time negotiation, which usually ends in failure: 80% of customers leave stores without buying – usually because the price is too high. Konot will revolutionize this relationship, enabling more sales at better prices. Instead of store owners selling at full price, and then offering big discounts to get rid of the stock, Konot brings the best potential customers back to the store – those that almost bought the product, and only needed a discount. Konot enables customers to sign up for future discounts, indicating how much they are willing to pay. When the store owner is ready to offer a discount, the buyer receives a notification, and the negotiation begins, with suggested prices communicated online, at point of sale, etc. Last year, 50 stores in Israel began using Konot.
Contact: Estee Badt, estee at konot dot com, www.konot.com
Mantissa is developing a small, reliable and inexpensive radar sensor for the detection of humans and vehicles. Mantissa’s mini radar sensor is a highly innovative integration of cutting-edge RF technologies with proprietary new software and hardware developments. Based on MicroDoppler millimeter RF waves, Mantissa’s miniaturized sensors have the capability of dividing the scene into thousands of range-Doppler cells, each of which is analyzed to detect true moving targets. Mantissa’s highly reliable smart sensors provide unparalleled performance for surveillance during day or night, in any weather or visibility conditions, at significantly lower costs. The Company has completed its first in-lab prototype.
Contact: Danny Seker, danny at mantissa-ltd dot com, www.mantissa-ltd.com
MashLife is like an automatic scrapbook of our digital life, combining all of the user's social feeds into a visually compelling and contextual collage consisting of check-ins, pictures and status updates from the various social networks. An example of MashLife at work: A user checked-in to Central Park using foursquare, took a few pix with their smartphone, and added a relevant facebook entry --- all of these were automatically combined by MashLife into a cool collage depicting the event that can be viewed in different clients shared on facebook.
Contact: Yanai Oron, yanaoioron at gmail dot com
SentryCom provides a proactive solution for ID fraud that "bad guys" will not be able to circumvent. Traditional IT security, such as Anti-Virus or other defenses, fail to prevent malware from infesting our computers. Competitive products fail to operate in infested environments, are inconvenient to use, and too costly. Our novel Malware-Resilient Strong Authentication and Crypto Software provides viable and convenient protection for mission-critical data and online transactions. Applications include Online Banking, E-Commerce Transactions, Digital Wallet, Cloud Computing Storage, and Secure E-Mail. SentryCom is applicable to PCs, smart-phones and mobiles. It provides MACS - Managed Authentication & Crypto Service for Enterprises, delivered as Cloud Services/SaaS. SentryCom also provides "private-SaaS on Premises" installations for very large customers.
Contact: Eli Talmor, eli at sentry-com dot net, www.sentry-com.net
SLB – Smart Lamp Balast
Smart Lamp Ballast develops leading-edge, energy-saving, high-reliability devices for lighting control.
The company’s magnetic lighting controller is capable of delivering 25% energy savings. SLB’s electronic ballast is capable of providing 50% energy savings. The radio control network can monitor and control each lamp, making maintenance costs very low. The company has already received an LOI from a distributor that supplies OEM components to lighting manufacturers, which will translate into many thousands of units per month.
Contact: Michael Lemanski, info at slb-hid dot com, www.slb-hid.com
Webees
Contact: Ziv Koren, ziv at mywebees dot com, www.mywebees.com
