The Startup Booster Track competition wrapped its second edition, giving Lebanese entrepreneurs the chance to benefit from a customized support program offered by The Next Society. Out of 21 applicants, 8 were shortlisted to pitch to a jury who chose the winning startups for 2018: Bakala, FabricAID and Spike.
The Startup Booster Track is a flexible support program for entrepreneurs in the MENA region with the aim of supporting them to bridge with key markets: Europe, Africa, Gulf, and the USA. The winners of last year’s competition organized by Berytech have been matched to services according to their business needs including access to training, mentoring, acceleration, networking and soft-landing in Europe. Their scheduled support activities run till the end of this year.
Jury members of this edition included Wissam Youssef – General Manager of CME Offshore, Corine Kiame – Investment Manager at IM Capital, Stephanie Abi Abdallah – Business Development Manager at ZRE, and Karyl Akilian – Head of Brand Management at BLC Bank. They evaluated the startups based on innovation breakthrough, market opportunity, business model, team and potential impact.
Startup Booster Track Finalists 2018
Pitching startups included:
Quadra, presented by Serge El Khoury: An affordable optical fruit sorting machine that will increase the capacity and quality of sorted produce to meet international standards.
Pitchworthy, presented by Bilal Ghalib: A powerful startup and project development platform that helps teams, cohorts, classes, or organizations to learn and apply best practices for personal and team effectiveness, grow within a strong community and enable cohort managers to more effectively manage teams, monitor mentor interactions, leverage actionable startup and soft skills data, and assign activities on a cohort, team, or individual basis.
FabricAID, presented by Hussam Hanouni: FabricAID collects clothes from local NGOs for $0.5 per kilogram and through smart clothing collection bins. The bins are equipped with a sensor that monitors the level of clothes in each bin and draws collection routes to increase efficiency. For every kilogram collected through the bins, a partnering charity benefits from $0.5. Collected clothes appropriate for reuse are sorted into over 70 categories to be sold either through one of FabricAID’s own permanent shops or at pop-up markets for prices ranging between 0.3 and maximum $3 per item.
Zareef, presented by Kifah Khatib: An end-to-end energy management IoT gateway. Zareef monitors & controls multi-generation and load circuits, consumptions (kWh to currency) then recommends & schedules demand accordingly using AI.
Bakala, presented by Myriam Awad: Bakala is a SaaS business intelligence tool with a web interface that provides FMCGs with real-time access to market analytics through extracting/aggregating data from its disruptive solution Willi, a double-sided tablet placed inside grocery stores; one side is a POS with four modules: billing, inventory, customers, and reports, the other is an advertising screen.
IOTree, presented by Nancy Daou: IO Tree (Internet of Trees) is a wireless sensor network of smart traps connected to a mobile application interface in order to signal to the farmer remotely and wirelessly useful information about the outbreak of pests, the amount and dosage of pesticides that he needs to apply, and the timing through which he needs to apply these pesticides.
Crowd Powered, presented by Georges Khoury: Crowd Powered makes renewable energy accessible to businesses and homes. It offers customers a one-stop shop web platform to design, finance and build green power installations. The power equipment, labor, and financing resources are crowdsourced from local suppliers, contractors and banks. The software combines these building blocks to generate an optimal solution. The design of the renewable electricity project is customized to the site requirements and constraints.
Spike, presented by Ziad Alame: Spike is a mobile assistant that helps diabetics better manage their diabetes. Spike monitors the patient’s daily behavior and jumps in with reminders and tips when needed about insulin, food, activity, etc. In addition to that, Spike stores the patient’s data supporting a wide range of supported devices for further analysis and/or sharing with doctors and caregivers. To complete the solution we provide a medicine adherence network from friends, family, and other diabetics. In addition to all that, Spike includes a real-time dashboard for doctors with smart alerts when required to intervene.
About the Next Society
Berytech is the official partner of The Next Society in Lebanon, an open community of change-makers engaged in innovation and economic development. It gathers entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, NGOs, public and private innovation, research and economic development hubs from Europe and the Mediterranean countries. The Next Society gathers a large network of over 300 business and innovation, research and investment organizations, 2,500 international SMEs and entrepreneurs from 30 countries. The Next Society launched a four-year action plan (2017-2020), co-funded by the EU with up to 90% for a global amount of EUR 7.8 million budget, with a part dedicated to achieving its objectives in Lebanon through its partnership with Berytech.