Data Pitch was the first open innovation programme funded by the European Commission to explore how data shared by large organisations, from government bodies to multinational corporations, could be used by startups and innovators to tackle specific company and sector challenges.
Over three years, we worked with partners that shared some of their data with 47 startups to solve 28 challenges. We wanted to shine a light on some of the individual startup successes, from notable funding rounds to continued data sharing partnerships post-Data Pitch.
Funding
By the end of December 2019, the startups supported by Data Pitch had generated over €18 million of sales, investments and efficiencies. Below, are some examples of startups that have secured additional grant and investment funding to accelerate development.
- French startup Mojo announced a €1.7 million seed round to build AI and robotic technology for fertility care, helping to make fertility treatment accessible to all.
- London-based Predina, which develops AI solutions to predict and prevent road accidents in real-time, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Impact X Capital Partner, a VC firm focused on investing in startups led by or for women and people of colour.
- German startup Statice raised millions in funding to build software for automated data anonymisation.
- Berlin-based IPlytics also raised millions for its market intelligence platform to help companies keep on top of emerging technology trends.
Continued collaboration
On Data Pitch, startups took part in a six month virtual accelerator, using shared data to develop new solutions and services, with some choosing to continue a partnership with the organisations that shared data beyond the acceleration period.
- Spanish startup Recognai announced a new project with Uniserv to investigate the use of AI to clean up master data duplicates
- VitalBeats, based in Copenhagen, signed a three year deal with Rigshospitalet to use its remote care management platform
- Madrid-based Obuu have licensed their storage and manufacturing software for German company Greiner Packaging – you can read more about their collaboration in the Data Pitch impact assessment.
Awards
Finally, alongside our internal awards recognising outstanding programme participants in the categories of Corporate Innovation, Startup Impact and Female Entrepreneurship, Data Pitch startups have won numerous awards.
- German startup Bliq (formerly AIPARK) were recognised as Germany’s Digital Startup of the Year 2019 for their urban street mobility innovation
- Dublin-based Verge.Capital won the 2019 NYU Stern Startup Challenge, which came with a prize of $75,000
- German digital health startup Mentalab won global biopharmaceutical company Sanofi’s challenge competition on digitalising clinical trials at VivaTech 2019
- UK-based Transformative AI won the EIT Health UK-Ireland Headstart award
Finally, we would like to share our Startup Investor Portfolio, which features a range of our startups from cohort one and two. The portfolio was shared as part of our Data Pitch showcase efforts at the South Summit startup festival in Madrid in October 2019.