Start-ups pitch their ideas at Techstars 2018

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Four young companies who participated in the Dubai-hosted Techstars gathering of tech start-ups on Tuesday said they hoped their new ideas would be adopted in Dubai or Saudi Arabia - where they see opportunities to change the way business is done in their particular sectors.

Techstars is a 10-year-old global accelerator based in Colorado in the United States. The company finances start-ups by an amount of $120,000 per company in exchange for a six percent equity stake. It also acts as an incubator for the companies it takes on board, helping them to access finance, its network of contacts and other support structures. Techstars Dubai has partnered with GINCO Investment - the investment arm of the UAE-based general contracting firm, GINCO.

“Today we have 40 programmes and this year we will have 400 start-ups. This is the inaugural programme in Dubai,” Vijay Tirathrai, the managing director of Techstars in Dubai, told Zawya in an interview on the sidelines of the event. When asked why Techstars had launched in Dubai at this time, Tirathrai said: “Dubai seems to be the centre for the vast majority of transactions for the technology startups’ acquisitions, investments, mergers,” he said.

Among the companies making pitches at the Dubai event looking to broaden their horizons in the Middle East were Novele, which is a technology start-up that designs super-thin energy storage boards that can either be wall-mounted or inserted into wall spaces.

AJ Glassberg, the CEO and co-founder of Novele, said the company’s product would help users to save energy and to easily upgrade their energy systems. They are also demountable and can be taken with owners when they move to new locations.

“When the building is the battery, then you will seriously change the world,” Glassberg said during his presentation. He added that his company which already has clients in the real estate industry and is talks to do business with a hospital in Dubai.

A second business seeking funding was Soluki, which is a Dubai-based company that allows people who don’t have any English language knowledge to create their own Arabic language apps, websites and e-commerce sites.

Benjamin Balazs, the CEO and founder of Soluki, told Zawya on the sidelines of the Techstars event that creating an Arabic app is a valuable idea worth investing in, especially in Saudi Arabia, where Arabic is widely used.

“When you open an account on Instagram or Facebook, you don’t need a developer for it. Because it is so easy and you can just do it yourself. So when it comes to publishing any sort of content in a browser like a website, it should not be the way that you have to hire a developer. It is 2018,” Balazs said.

“So what we are doing is we are giving you a tool, which is an app that runs in the browser that enables you to build a website in Arabic without you having to hire anyone or without you knowing any English. This is what we are doing. And We are targeting Saudi and 50 percent of our users are already from Saudi,” Balazs said.

The young entrepreneur said his app allows users to swipe from right to left - the way Arabic text is written and read. The app is free to download and use but fees of $50 per year are applied when a user asks for a domain name to go live.

Also pitching was TPS Engage, which is a start-up that has created a technology that allows billboards or TV screens to change advertisements in real time based on information such as the number, the age or even the gender of the people watching them.

“We put camera(s) in them (the screens) with technology that allows (us) to realise that, for example, there are more males in front of the screen than females and delivers an ad that is more dedicated to the male audience," Matei Psatta, one of the co-founders of TPS Engage told Zawya.

"It (the camera) has a delay of couple of seconds, but it changes based on the sex of the person and it changes based on the age group as well,” he added.

Psatta said his product, which was launched in Romania, now works with several big brands like beverage company Coca-Cola and retail chain H&M and aims to do business with Dubai-based companies.

A fourth start-up targeting companies in the region is Nytilus, which is a company that has invented a workers’ safety helmet incorporating augmented reality that helps welders and other industrial workers by relaying relevant information about their task in front of them. The company’s co-founders and co-CEOs Abi Ghafari and Debanga Raj Neog told Zawya that their new technology will improve the work environment and efficiency in the welding industry.

“The helmet price is going to be $800," Ghafari said.

"Right now, the good (regular) helmet is from $200 to $800 without anything. I am selling at the highest price but they can have a return on investments in (a) few months as it (the helmet) improves the quality of buildings a lot,” he added.

Ghafari said he has come to Dubai to find business opportunities for the company, especially in the oil and gas and construction sectors.

The other five companies to appear at the event seeking potential funding from Middle East backers were: Klasha, a fashion e-commerce portal that mainly targets the Nigerian market; Flugauto, a company developing a flying vehicle to transfer cargo; Felix, a technology platform for the insurance sector; Natufia Labs, which has developed a system to grow organic plants; and Omni X labs, which has created a technology allowing businesses to analyse videos.