Four of the eight startups that participated in AdvancingAI, the first acceleration program in Romania dedicated to artificial intelligence businesses, received investments of 365,000 euros. The money will be invested by the investments funds GapMinder VC and Cleverage VC, the TechAngels network and the equity crowdfunding platform SeedBlink.
The four startups that have attracted investments are:
Meetgeek.ai – 100,000 euros from GapMinder VC. Meetgeek.ai is a virtual assistant for effective meetings, which takes notes, sends the follow-up of the meeting, and ensures that the actions resulting from it are tracked effectively.
MOCAPP – successfully completed a €165,000 euros equity crowdfunding campaign from SeedBlink out of a total round of € 185,000. MOCAPP is a SaaS application used by Marcom professionals to automate and optimize processes in influencers’ campaigns. Companies and agencies use it to streamline marketing campaigns and cut costs by 45% to 70%.
RepsMate– 50,000 euros from TechAngels. RepsMate uses artificial intelligence and data analysis to understand customer behavior and needs and transforms customer representatives, who interact with customers, into top performers.
MediNav– 50,000 euros from Cleverage VC. MediNav is a digital assistant for doctors that helps them spend more time with their patients, reducing administrative work. It listens to the doctor’s verbal recommendations, understands them, automatically fills in the forms within the electronic files, and offers clinical assistance through various alerts.
The Best Pitch Award went to MetaBeta, a company dedicated to accelerators and investors to manage their startups’ portfolio.
GapMinder VC also nominated GoTeleport as a favorite for a preSeed investment in the next period due to the impressive validation it managed to obtain from users. GoTeleport is an electric car rental service based on algorithms that provide data on-demand, real-time location of vehicles, and their delivery to customers.
Also, all startups in the program will continue to be supported by the Techcelerator acceleration program to attract additional funding rounds over the next six to nine months.
The investments were announced during #AdvancingAI Demo Day, an event where startups in artificial intelligence presented their projects to international investors specialized in deeptech.
The companies that presented their projects in front of over 50 investors are: Meetgeek.ai, RepsMate, Medinav, MOCAPP, GoTeleport, MetaBeta, Neonic.ai and Siscale.The companies participated for two months in acceleration and investor training sessions at AdvancingAI, a program launched by Techcelerator and Google for Startups to support entrepreneurs who develop products based on artificial intelligence. The startups selected in the Advancing AI program use at least one of the technologies Artificial intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Big Data, Advanced Analytics. The acceleration program places Romania among the pioneering ecosystems globally in this field.
“Two months ago, we chose eight teams in the AdvancingAI program, and the fact that over half of them have already attracted investments, and the rest discuss for financing, shows us that entrepreneurs and investors believe in the development of the field of artificial intelligence. This confirms that our choice to launch an acceleration program for AI was one that anticipates high-tech trends and responds to them by providing solutions and tools for the accelerated development of this ecosystem”, said Cristian Dascălu, GapMinder VC partner and Co-founder of Techcelerator.
The companies participating in the Demo Day were rewarded by Google for Startups with 800,000 dollars as credits in Google Cloud platform. They will also receive resources from Techcelerator partners: Stripe credits, HubSpot startup accounts, Freshworks software products.
The jury consisted of Michał Kramarz – head of Google for Startups, Dan Mihaescu – partner GapMinder VC, Ondrej Bartos – partner Credo Ventures, Dan Oros – head of Marketing Google & YouTube, Flavia Richardson – vice president Silicon Valley Bank, Cosmin Ochisor – partner GapMinder VC, Timothy Krause – DeepTech Investor Speedinvest, Mălin Stefanescu – president Techangels Romania, Ionuț Pătrăhău – co-founder SeedBlink, Dmitry Galperin – partner Runa Capital.