Announcing the 11 startups in the Fall '21 Accelerator batch
At Startuplab, we want to create an environment and a culture that enables technology companies to go further - faster. We want to see more startups and make it increasingly attractive for founders to start them. One of the ways we work towards this goal is through the SL Accelerator Program.
With the program, we accomplish two things; first, it gives us a unique opportunity to evaluate a large number of startups at the same time. Second, working with batches of startups over twelve weeks allows us to assist with structured support, and learning events. At the same time, founders on the same journey sharing experiences have proved to create a truly beneficial environment.
In the eleventh batch, more than two hundred applications turned into eleven great startups who trusted us with the privilege of working with them. We are proud to announce each company below:
More and more children and youth are spending much time playing video games while sacrificing the time spent on physical exercise. At the same time, an increasing number report that they also feel lonely. BitPet is a location-based augmented reality mobile game where people own and care for digital pets. Just like with normal pets, the owner needs to take their BitPet for walks outside where they are encouraged to interact with other BitPets in AR.
Contact: Mathias Grønstad, mathias@bitpet.io
All publicly-traded companies report financials both quarterly and annually. No matter what type of company and industry, everyone needs to comply with GAAP and IFRS standards to ensure accurate and consistent treatment of companies by investors and regulators. In 2022, the same firms will also need to comply with the EU Taxonomy.
Companies will need to comply with criteria within multiple sustainability areas to be considered sustainable, with the degree of compliance determining a company's score. Celsia offers a SaaS solution to assist companies in assessing, scoring, and reporting—in accordance with the taxonomy—and suggest actions to become more climate-friendly.
Just like financial reporting, a standard with consistent reporting will make investors and regulators identify and support the companies that operate in a climate-friendly way, and Celsia makes taking the new EU-promoted standard into use as simple as possible.
Contact: Petter Reistad, petter.reistad@celsia.io
EU has effectuated a new law that requires all ferry companies to count the number of vehicles and passengers that is on board on each trip, while Autopass needs information for ticketing. This is to help ferry operators and captains ensure that they are operating within the secure capacity of the vessel while having control of the number of individuals they are responsible for in the case of an emergency.
To avoid tedious manual counting, and still comply with the legislation, Counting Hero has developed video-based counting solutions that automatically understand how many passengers there are within each vehicle, and report this to the bridge in real-time. The company aims to expand the technology and detect safety-critical information for all mobility systems.
Contact: Jone Rasmussen, jone@countinghero.com
An increasing number of young adults are playing video games. Like in other sports, engaged gamers enjoy watching professional gamers/teams, and the viewership for popular esports tournaments (like League of Legends, Counterstrike, Fortnite, and Overwatch) surpassing that of traditional sports like American football, basketball, and soccer. It is, in fact, the fastest-growing spectator sport in the world.
However, with many players, teams, and events, it is hard for viewers to get an overview of important events and figure out which team to support. Gameflow builds a platform where it is easy to navigate to information and get familiar with each player and team, as well as comparative statistics. In addition, the interface helps viewers understand the importance of different leagues and tournaments, while team content will help fans follow their heroes, and watch their games via available streams.
Contact: Markus Bjørnereim, markus@gameflow.tv
The growth in population, wealth, and urbanization is estimated to double the number of buildings the next half-decade. The combined value chain of the construction industry accounts for a bit more than one-third of global CO2 emissions. In the quest to reduce emissions to the atmosphere, buildings need to be constructed by using materials and processes that keep the negative effects of emissions and resource extraction to a minimum.
BREEAM, CEEQUAL, and other environmental certifications outline standards for sustainable construction. Kvist Solutions offer software to make it easy for construction companies to keep track of every step in the certification process while filing all the required documentation at the right time. With this information, companies can easily obtain environmental certifications and gain positive recognition for their building projects.
Contact: Fabian Utigard, fabian@kvistsolutions.com
Every day 60 000 tracks are released on Spotify. With the proliferation of music, most songs are uploaded by independent producers without external resources for recording and mastering. Traditionally, mastering a track through a sound engineer takes time and is expensive, and most artists are not prioritized.
Masterchannel offers a service that uses machine learning to understand the optimization of sound waves and automatically master tracks within minutes. This allows independent producers and distributors of music to easily and cheaply master their tracks and offer a listening experience close to professionally mastered tracks. Masterchannel aims to expand its services to serve all creatives in need of sound optimization, including music, podcasts, and video.
Contact: Christian Ringstad Schultz, christian@masterchannel.ai
Merkely is the DevOps Change Collaboration Platform. It frees regulated software teams to deliver at the speed of Devops with their existing tools. Merkely maintains continuous compliance by automating change management. It provides 4D observability to show what’s in prod, and how it got there, at any point in time.
Disclosure: Not Startuplab investment
Contact: Michael Long, mike@merkely.com
Climate change and extreme weather lead to more precipitations, floods, wildfires, etc. As a result, increased damages to homes and buildings have led to more losses paid by insurance companies, reaching 630 b€ globally in the last decade.
Historically, the cost of claims has been passed on to the customers through higher premiums. Mitigrate uses analytics to assess the risk profile of buildings and identify concrete solutions able to reduce climate claims.
Their software enables home and building owners to understand climate risk and invest in improvements. On the other end, insurance companies can better understand the risk in their insurance portfolios, propose tailored offerings to exposed asset owners, and correct risk price insurance coverage.
Contact: Aleksander Lund, aleks@mitigrate.com
Shapemaker
There are more than 2 million telecommunication towers worldwide. There are many reasons why these towers need structural assessment. The roll-out of 5G is one of them as most tower structures will need to hold more radio equipment, and/or swap antennas to new MIMO wireless technology.
Shapemaker develops a software tool that offers structural analysis and inventory management for telecommunication towers. The solution allows civil/structural engineers to design new towers according to geography, exposure, load capacity, radio conditions, and weather. The solution also takes the current process from weeks to minutes and optimizes the structures to reduce carbon footprint.
Tower companies and MNO’s can get an overview of their digital infrastructure and ensure integrity, and by extension, make better strategic decisions with their structures and radio equipment.
Contact: Ingrid Sofie Øvrum Sem, is@shapemaker.io
Pharmaceutical drug development is extremely difficult, time-consuming, and costly. Despite extensive preclinical research for better predicting how a drug will work in a human patient, the R&D failure rate is over 90%.
Based on a research collaboration of NTNU and the University of Zurich, Vitroscope has developed a hardware device that simulates how cells behave and react under lifelike mechanical stimuli, similar to what they experience within a human body. With the integrated software, researchers can take advantage of analytics to understand both the potential and make adjustments to molecules earlier in the drug development phase, saving both time and cost.
Contact: Carlo Kriesi, ckriesi@vitroscope.no
Energy usage in residential buildings account for 12% of global CO2 emissions. At the same time, electricity prices are increasing. Of the 221 million private homes in the EU, only one in four are energy efficient.
Vilda accelerates the transition to green homes. Vilda develops a platform connecting banks with homeowners and craftsmen to make green upgrades easy and affordable. Vilda does this in three steps: Using analytics to identify energy-efficient improvement measures for your home, facilitating green loans, and managing the installation. Vilda will unlock the potential for bank’s green loans, opening the market for installers and craftsmen by empowering homeowners to make smart investments – saving money and energy.
Contact: Børrea Schau-Larsen, borrea@vilda.no
If you are interested in either the accelerator program, individual startups, or both, please get in touch.