English turned out to be an official language at IDCEE, which took place over the past two days in Kiev, Ukraine. The conference organizers proved to have what it takes to challenge Startup Week Vienna and How to Web to become the leading eastern European startup conference.
Familiar faces seen at Startup Week Vienna were pitching at IDCEE competition. Four finalists made it to the final, and the jury was asked to rate the finalists. Here is the result.
Number four: Pinpoint from Russia is a personal place management tool. It allows putting pins on the map to help store, share and give directions to a particular place of interest, especially if it has no particular address. Its pins on the map are like a hashtag on Twitter.
Number three: Speaktoit is Siri for Android developed by a Russian team. The company has 230 000 users, with number of downloads exploded with the announcement of Siri. As the company knows what application its clients are using, it gets paid for contextual ads. The main competence of the team is natural language processing engine.
Number two: Quoteroller from Belarus offers a cloud-based proposal development and presentation tool for SMEs. Luring clients with a sleek online proposals templates (this keyword is entered in Google two million times per month), the company offers other services such as invoicing and document management. An online invoicing tool Tradeshift has raised $17 million investment this week.
And the winner is Mixgar from Hungary. Mixgar helps bar visitors influence music using a mobile app. The bars pay Mixgar for the service, or let sponsors support them. The team from Mixgar Kristof Bardos and Gerzson Huszar deserves a special round of applause. Not only because Glaenzer has commended the idea during the smooth pitch by Gerzson Huszar but also for the persistency. Huszar has polished his presentation at Credo Week Budapest, HackFwd Build 07, Startup Week Vienna, Mini Seedcamp Prague and now IDCEE. All that within the past two months.
Seedcamp has reserved a place for one startup which will be selected amongst top three finalists of IDCEE.
The speakers Esther Dyson of EDventure, Stefan Glaenzer of White Bear Yard, Alexander “Sasha” Galitsky of Almaz Capital Partners, Serguei Beloussov of Runa Capital and many more investors shared the stage with successful entrepreneurs Constantin Bisanz (founder of brands4friends sold to ebay for Euro 150 million), Andrej Nabergoj (ex Outfit7, Azumio, Stealth Games), Andrei Romanenko (QIWI) to mention but a few.
Many startups were showcasing their ideas in a dedicated mini-exhibition area. I spoke to some. Rollme brings feed from and to various social networks to one place (it is still in a closed beta). Kinolife offers cloud-based workflow of the movie making (there is StudioBeyond in the US). Curiously named Endorphin makes dating more anonymous by selling numbered ID cards that helps finding person on its site. City Eye has put together this 3D panorama of the IDCEE exhibition in 30 minutes, a more impressive result than panoramas by Polish Imgn.it which won a ticket to the accelerator Startup Sauna recently (admittedly, City Eye used a wide-lense camera). Magfashion.co.uk is Zinio of fashion plus rich media.
The conference, organised by Viktoriya Tigipko (TA Ventures) and Denis Dovgopoly (stealth mode startup) was a solid event, despite time management issues and a shocking quality of the wifi connection. So there is still a room for improvement for the event, which, no doubt, will take place again next year.