Innovate!Europe's Finalists

Innovate!Europe held an event at Sunnyvale's PlugNPlay center that showcased ten finalists from over 250 companies across Europe and Israel. The title to win in this global competition? Europe's Most Promising Startup.

I watched all the demos and listened to their pitches; a surprising number came from France, followed by Switzerland, Spain and Belgium. While the messaging could be tweaked for all after listening to their few minute on-stage pitches, they each had something compelling to say that drew me in.

Among the Trade Mission attendees to participate this year included the following companies: (clips taken from Innovate Europe site)

A few additional comments after listening to them.

Arimaz's CEO Pierre Bureau's goal is to keep you in touch with what's happening in social networking and deliver it to you using voice recognition. They are looking for partners in online entertainment, games and virtual worlds.

Jobijoba's Francois Goube is redirecting jobs to businesses and recruiters; their pitch - only pay for what you get. They offer the largest database for jobs in France and just launched a UK version. They plan to hit the U.S. market this summer and are looking for partners.

Climpact's Harilaos Loukos has an interesting pitch. Over 30% of GDP depends on the weather....and weather drives consumer behavior. Gartner says they're a 'cool vendor for consumer goods.' They essentially help businesses that are weather sensitive by delivering real-time data across industries, i.e., food and beverage today although fashion/clothing seem like a natural fit.

Knowgate's Sergio Montoro Ten is doing java-based open-source CRM. Didn't quite get the specs on this one although their site can tell you more.

NomaDesk's Filip Tack who I first met at the First Round Capital bash last night, is here to build strategic relationships and partnerships and they're also interested in talking to investors. Think: secure file sharing.

eBox's Ignacio Correas says of their platform: "We have a unified network server which is open source...with over 1,000 contributors right now." Most of their downloads come from the U.S. today - they're in the states hoping to meet partners who can further accelerate their growth.

TheCraneTV's Constantin Bjerke is targeting premium brands; the luxury and high-end guys that are after the 50-70 million people they're reaching through print today. They offer a medium where brands can interact online; they also faciliate commerce and have built-in video metatags. Then, they syndicate content out to major media players and others.

Vaelsys has developed a comprehensive video analysis platform; they tout it as the 'fastest platform' out there as well as an easy solution to integrate with third parties. Says their CEO Eduardo Cermeno, "we're here to secure partnerships and accelerate our efforts outside Europe."

Sobees' Francois Bochatay and I spent a chunk of time talking about their offering and how to pitch it. Is it a social desktop aggregator, a Twitter-like deck for managing feeds and people, a NetVibes meets TweetDeck meets FriendFeed, or all of the above?

It looks a bit like TweetDeck and for someone who has been playing around with far too many Twitter apps, I was eager to know if it combined a slick user interface with the ability to post-tweet. Sadly, because its a desktop download, it can't do the latter, but the look-and-feel is sweet with options for customization and integration with other social networking tools we frequently use like Facebook, flickr, Friendfeed and others. I'd love to see integration with WordPress and Typepad. Apparently a web version is coming in about a month.

Lastly, owlient's Olivier Issaly told us what's so compelling about their aggregation of communities that are passionate about very specific niches: games, horseriding and childhood. I did a double take myself: horses and childhood?

After a preview, I realized 'girl, you're not their core audience,' but also realized that my teenage niece IS their target; she's about as passionate about horses as Hancock is about jazz. They're currently looking for distribution partners.

A peek of the horse online game howrse.com which is offered in French and English below. They apparently have a fish game also but its currently only offered in French.