Enterprises, such as Cisco and Intel, are heating up the
summer with investments in Internet of Things companies worldwide.
Intel, Cisco and Deutsche Telekom announced on 14 July the
twelve startups selected to join the next phase of the Challenge Up! Program, a
joint startup initiative organized by the three companies. The twelve teams
will participate in a 4-month incubation program designed for young innovative
companies building Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.
The winning teams were selected after five days of intensive
mentoring sessions, workshops and pitching during the Challenge Up!
Acceleration Week at hub:raum Krakow, from 5 July-10 July. Out of more than 300
applicants, twenty startups from 13 countries were invited to meet over 100
international mentors, experts and entrepreneurs. The sessions were designed to
help early-stage companies scale their business ideas for faster market entry.
Challenge Up! is designed to help IoT startups enter the
market faster by combining access to corporate resources and joint projects
with mentoring and high-value networking. The program unites resources and
experience from the startup initiatives of the individual companies, including
Cisco, Intel Business Challenge Europe and hub:raum powered by Deutsche
Telekom.
The incubation program will take place in Krakow, Berlin and
London from July to November 2015. Startups that successfully complete the
program will be eligible for potential co-investment from Intel, Cisco and
Deutsche Telekom, as well as other leading corporate venture funds. More
details will be announced in December during Challenge Up! Summit, part of the
unBoundDigital tech conference to be held in London, between 30 November 30 and
1 December 2015.
The startups invited to join the Challenge Up! Incubation
program are:
- Admetsys (Denmark) www.admetsys.com
Smart Pancreas, a solution that measures and helps maintain blood sugar levels
of diabetic patients.
- ComfyLight (Switzerland) www.comfylight.com Smart LED light bulb,
enhanced with a presence sensor and connectivity which helps protect homes.
- Devicehub.net (Romania) www.devicehub.net
Offers a Platform as a Service (PaaS) through which users can connect easily
and remotely manage multiple devices and create services on top of them.
- Hi-Park (Israel) www.hi-park.co
Uses crowd-sourced data and images to provide information on parking vacancy.
- Ifinity (Poland) www.getifinity.com
Provides beacons based tailor-made technology to cities, public spaces and
commercial clients around the world.
- n-Join (Israel) www.n-join.com Leverages
the rapid advancements in the Internet of Things to make production facilities
more flexible, maximize their output and reduce their environmental signature.
- OORT (Poland) www.oort.in
Unique patent-pending technology that enables an open ecosystem consisting of
smart devices, sensors, mobile software & cloud platform.
- ProGlove (Germany) www.proglove.de
Smart glove that enables its users to scan hands free and provides them with an
instant feedback.
- Senic (Germany) www.senic.com
Universal dial for the Internet of Things, able to control smart lights, locks,
thermostats or speakers with simple gestures rather than browsing through apps
on a smartphone.
- SEMSEYE (Lithuania) www.semseye.com
Unique solution for monitoring people flows, built on the most advanced
algorithms for intelligent video processing, and can be used among others in
retail areas.
- Taggalo (Italy) www.taggalo.co.uk
iTunes for real world analytics. Open platform integrating video analytics, WiFi
tracking and Beacon, all in a single, plug & play sensor. – Waylay
(Belgium) www.waylay.io A real-time
automation platform that integrates Internet-of-Things (IoT) with enterprise IT
systems and online services.
Cisco also announced this summer that it will invest $150M for UK
IoT ventures, as well as committing $1B to IoT in the UK. Hardware incubator HAX
has announced a slew of new investments in ventures with developed IoT products.
They also provide a residential program for its startups in China. HAX are soon
to announce their 7th group
of 15 startups that they mentor and in which they invest.
Intel and Altera announced on 1 June that they have entered
into a definitive agreement under which Intel would acquire Altera for $54 per
share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $16.7 billion.
The acquisition will couple Intel’s leading-edge products
and manufacturing process with Altera’s leading field-programmable gate array
(FPGA) technology. The combination is expected to enable new classes of
products that meet customer needs in the data center and Internet of Things (IoT) market segments. [Emphasis added]
Thus, we’re looking at hundreds of millions, and even
billions of dollars, from just these deals, not to mention the millions of
dollars in on-going investments in IoT startups and projects (from Smart Cities
to Smart Cars) from venture funds, enterprises and angels.
While it may be summer and a time to lie on a beach
somewhere, for the IoT market, there’s no vacation in sight.
