VDS has selected the 20 finalists for its international startup competition, whose final phase will take place on October 23-24 at the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia. This seventh edition includes some new features, including having 10 finalist startups in each of the two categories: Early Stage and Growth Stage.
These startups were chosen from over 800 applications submitted this year from 65 different countries. The 20 finalists will have the opportunity to present their projects on the main stage of VDS2024 in front of more than 12,000 professionals and over 700 investors with assets under management worth more than 200 billion euros expected to attend the international tech event. Following these presentations, the two winning startups in the Early Stage and Growth Stage categories will be announced.
A prestigious international jury, composed of Myrthe van der Erve, advisor at Antler; Andy Lurling, co-founder of LUMO Labs; Diederik Stolk, co-founder of Arches Capital; Maxime Paradis, founder and union leader of Paradise Club; and Marcus Hølland Eikeland, program director at Katapult, will select the best startups. These high-level investors and leaders of international corporations were chosen by TNW, a company of The Financial Times and Strategic Partner of VDS. They were also responsible for selecting these 20 startups as finalists of the VDS Startup Competition.
The two winning startups will receive various prizes, one of which is an exhibition space for VDS2025, allowing them to benefit from networking opportunities and promoting their businesses at one of Southern Europe’s most prominent tech events.
Another new feature this year is that one of the two winning startups will automatically qualify for the semifinals of the Startup World Cup organized by Pegasus Tech Ventures, the world’s largest startup competition that offers a $1 million investment prize to the winner.
Startup Finalists
Early Stage Track
– Cardiomo (Netherlands): Cardiomo is a miniature wearable patch for remote, real-time health monitoring to detect and predict medically actionable cardiovascular events and send life-saving alerts.
– Drill Surgeries Ltd. (Spain): This startup has developed ZAORY™, an AI surgical guidance system to assist surgeons during trauma surgeries.
– Hydros Power (Spain): The Hydros Power team is developing a module that will enable hydrogen adoption as fuel in the logistics sector. This will facilitate decarbonization and improve fleet productivity.
– HULO.ai (Netherlands): HULO’s mission is to provide a global solution for improving sustainable water supply. They develop algorithms to design and optimize a network and detect, locate, and categorize leaks.
– IBIONS (Spain): Offers an online medical service for nutritional treatment in cancer, based on the latest scientific advances and associated with psychological support and physical exercise.
– Nidus Lab (Spain): Their main offering is an innovative AI-powered tool that significantly streamlines and improves the early stages of real estate development.
– SeaO2 (Netherlands): This startup provides affordable giga-tonne scalable carbon dioxide removal technology by harnessing the ocean’s carbon removal power.
– Sorbet (United Arab Emirates): It’s a community providing freelance creatives with the necessary tools to grow, connect, and succeed.
– TrollWall AI (Slovakia): Specializes in managing social media comments, leveraging state-of-the-art AI algorithms to automatically identify and filter toxic comments from social media pages.
– Vexxel Biotech (USA): This startup uses biotechnology to reduce chemical use in the food production chain by creating specific non-toxic bio-capsules that are safe for humans and the environment.
Growth Stage Track
– BioEsol (France): BioEsol offers innovative battery solutions for companies transitioning to renewable energies. Their technology ensures reliable, optimized, and cost-effective energy supply.
– dealcode AI (Germany): Dealcode provides a fully automated sales process that enables the creation of a scalable sales pipeline.
– Make My Day (Israel): Make My Day is a leading provider of solutions that facilitate the transition and operation of electric vehicle (EV) fleets, resulting in reduced CO2 emissions and significant benefits for fleet operators.
– Metacampus (Spain): Metacampus has developed a learning platform that helps organizations and professionals thrive in the virtual economy.
– Morado (Colombia): Morado is an all-in-one online platform for beauty businesses with the mission of empowering and providing economic independence to women in the beauty industry.
– NAX SOLUTIONS (Spain): This company works in research, development, and innovation within precision agriculture. Their goal is to support farmers in caring for their crops.
– PHYSIO MRI (Spain): PHYSIO MRI develops a new generation of magnetic resonance imaging and democratizes its access.
– Talk’n’Job by ApplyZ GmbH (Germany): It’s an application that helps apply for voice-guided virtual job applications designed to reduce barriers for applicants.
– Viewed (Spain): Viewed is a proprietary SaaS platform that provides the technology needed to send impactful, personalized emails with auto-play embedded videos within the email.
– Virtuleap (Portugal): Virtuleap combines neuroscience and virtual reality to help increase attention levels and address cognitive diseases, disorders, and learning challenges.
