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And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF 2019 is… Render
At the very beginning, there were 20 startups. After two days of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner.
Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $100,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup.
After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down to five finalists: OmniVis, Orbit Fab, Render, StrattyX and Traptic.
These startups made their way to the finale to demo in front of our final panel of judges, which included: Mamoon Hamid (Kleiner Perkins), Ashton Kutcher (Sound Ventures), Alfred Lin (Sequoia), Marissa Mayer (Lumi Labs), Ann Miura-Ko (Floodgate Ventures) and Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch).
Winner: Render
Render has created a managed cloud platform. The company wants to provide an alternative to traditional cloud providers, such as AWS, Azure and GCP. And it starts with an infrastructure that is easier to manage thanks to automated deployments and a abstracted way to manage your application that is reminiscent of Heroku.
Read more about Render in our separate post.
Runner-Up: OmniVis
OmniVis aims to make detection of cholera and other pathogens as quick, simple and cheap as a pregnancy test. Its smartphone-powered detection platform could save thousands of lives.
Read more about OmniVis in our separate post.
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Greyparrot uses computer vision to improve waste management
Meet Greyparrot, a London-based startup that wants to improve waste management. The company uses computer vision to make sorting more efficient at different stages of the waste chain. And Greyparrot has been selected as a wildcard for the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt SF.
The company has been using machine learning with images of different types of waste to train a model that detects glass, paper, cardboard, newspapers, cans and different types of plastics (black trays, PET, HDPE).
Greyparrot can then use a simple camera combined with a computer to sort waste in a fraction of a second.
There are many different use cases for this kind of technology, but it seems particularly promising in sorting facilities. Those facilities already use a ton of machines to separate small and big objects, metal from plastics, etc. But many of them still rely on humans at the end of the process to pick up the last remaining false positive objects.
While it’s never possible to sort everything with a 100% accuracy, you want to get as close as possible to 100%. Sorting facilities create huge cubes of PET plastics and send them to countries on the other side of the world so that they can transform PET into something else.
In some cases, those cubes are not pure enough. For instance, Indonesia regularly refuses containers of waste and send them back to the U.S. or Europe.
Greyparrot wants to help with the last step of the sorting process. The product can be used to assess the purity of a conveyor belt to see if it’s good enough. It can also identify problematic objects and give coordinates to a sorting robot so that it can automatically pick up impurities.
The startup has been testing its solution in facilities in the U.K. and South Korea. It has raised $1.2 million so far.
In the future, Greyparrot also has other ideas of use cases. For instance, you could imagine embedding Greyparrot’s technology in a smart bin to automatically sort waste from the very beginning. You could also use Greyparrot in reverse vending machines and credit your account when you return plastic bottles.
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StrattyX lets you buy and sell shares using automated rules
StrattyX is a trading interface that lets you set up sophisticated “if-this-then-that” rules and execute orders on the stock market. The startup is participating in the Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt SF.
There are plenty of brokers that let you buy and sell shares using a mobile app and a web interface. But if you want to access more sophisticated tools and automate strategies, there’s not much you can do.
StrattyX wants to open up automated trading software to anyone, from non-professional traders who have some savings to professional day traders. The startup focuses on this specific part of the process.
It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel and it doesn’t want to become an online stock broker. Instead, the company integrates with existing brokers, such as Robinhood, TD Ameritrade and many others as long as they support trading via an API. It acts as an interface and executes orders on your behalf.
You can create rules based on multiple different factors. In addition to traditional stop-loss and stop-limit orders, you can say that you want to buy or sell shares if something happens on Twitter, in the news or on the stock market.
Here are a few examples of rules you can create:
- If @realdonaldtrump tweets something that contains “China” or “tariff,” sell Apple shares.
- If the value of EUR drops by 2% against USD, buy LVMH shares.
- If news headline contains “Tesla delays deliveries,” sell Tesla shares.
Interestingly, StrattyX will provide a marketplace of strategies. If a star investor starts using StrattyX to define a set of automated rules, other users could follow the same strategy.
StrattyX then wants to go one step further by giving you the tools to train a model using machine learning and user-generated data sets. You could imagine a feature that lets you upload a .csv file with price history and different types of data points, such as SEC filings, earnings, etc.
The company is also working on a feature that would show you news headlines that you’d rate with a Tinder-style swipe gesture — swipe right if you think it’s good news, swipe left if you think it’s bad news.
StrattyX is launching its mobile app today. It’s a sort of minimum viable product for now — some features are still in beta. The company is also working on a desktop version that would be useful for professional traders in particular.
StrattyX initially costs $5 per month per user, with more expensive plans for bigger teams and whether you execute a lot of orders through the product. The startup is looking to raise a seed round in the coming months.
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Stephen Curry Brings SC30 Inc. to Disrupt SF
Startup founders are hard-pressed to find the right investors — not only to fund their businesses but to help their businesses grow. These days, investors represent a variety of backgrounds and industries — traditional venture capital, Hollywood, even the NBA.
When Golden State Warriors point guard and two-time MVP Stephen Curry isn’t playing basketball, he’s working with his business partner and former college basketball teammate Bryant Barr. Together, Barr and Curry run SC30 Inc., which manages Curry’s investment, media, philanthropy and brand partnership interests.
SC30 Inc.’s third investment came in December 2018, when the fund participated in hotel-booking platform SnapTravel’s $21.2 million Series A round.
Curry’s foray into the tech ecosystem started when he co-founded marketing automation platform Slyce. Since then, Curry has taken a more structured approach to investing through SC30 Inc., where the portfolio has grown to eight investments in companies such as TSM and Palm.
It’s worth noting Curry is not the only baller in the tech investment game. There are his former teammates Andre Igoudala, an investor in Lime and board member of Jumia, and Kevin Durant, an investor in a number of startups through his fund Thirty Five Ventures.
At Disrupt SF 2019, listen as the three-time NBA champion Stephen Curry and SC30 Inc. President Bryant Barr discuss SC30 Inc. investments, featuring SnapTravel CEO Hussein Fazal as he shares how he determined SC30 Inc. would make a good strategic investor. We’ll also talk to Curry about his general investment strategy and overall ambitions in tech.
Disrupt SF runs October 2 – 4 at the Moscone Center in the heart of San Francisco. Passes are available here.
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Learn how to change banking one dollar at a time at Disrupt SF
Fintech startups are the hot new thing. Everybody wants to reinvent the way you manage money, invest and pay for things. That’s why we’re inviting three fintech experts to TechCrunch Disrupt SF to help you learn everything about the space.
They know that the bank of the future is not necessarily a bank and that the payment method of the future is not necessarily a card. And they’re going to tell you all about it.
First up is Chris Britt, the founder and CEO of Chime. While there are plenty of challenger banks in Europe, Chime is a rare success in the U.S. market.
The company has managed to attract over 3 million customers and $300 million in funding with a simple value proposition — a better user experience, an automatic way to save money and no fees for basic features. But Chime isn’t an overnight success. Britt has amassed a ton of experience in retail banking as chief product officer at Green Dot and as a senior product leader at Visa.
We also invited Angela Strange, a general partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz . As a founder of a fintech startup, you might want to know what investors are looking for. And Strange is an expert on this front.
She focuses on financial services of all sorts, including insurance, real estate and increasing inclusivity. She’s a board observer at Branch, Earnin, HealthIQ, Mayvenn, PeerStreet and Point. As you can see, it’s an impressive portfolio, and she has encountered a ton of different situations in the fintech industry.
And finally, Omer Ismail from Goldman Sachs has seen both sides of the banking coin. After many years working in private equity investing and investment banking, he was asked to lead an unusual team — the consumer business of Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs hasn’t been a powerful brand when it comes to consumer products — until very recently. The company successfully launched Marcus, a banking product focused on personal loans and online savings with high interest rates, and Clarity Money, a mobile app that acts as a financial dashboard.
More recently, Ismail was in charge of the surprising partnership with Apple for the Apple Card. It’s clear that he knows where the industry is heading, so you’ll want to learn a few tips from Ismail.
Buy your ticket to Disrupt SF to listen to this discussion — and many others. The conference will take place on October 2-4 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
In addition to fireside chats and panels, like this one, new startups will participate in the Startup Battlefield to compete for the highly coveted Battlefield Cup.
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And the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF 2018 is… Forethought
At the very beginning, there were 21 startups. After three days of incredibly fierce competition, we now have a winner.
Startups participating in the Startup Battlefield have all been hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition. They all presented in front of multiple groups of VCs and tech leaders serving as judges for a chance to win $100,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup.
After hours of deliberations, TechCrunch editors pored over the judges’ notes and narrowed the list down to five finalists: CB Therapeutics, Forethought, Mira, Origami Labs and Unbound.
These startups made their way to the finale to demo in front of our final panel of judges, which included: Cyan Banister (Founders Fund), Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital), Jeff Clavier (Uncork Capital), Kirsten Green (Forerunner Ventures), Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures) and Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch).
And now, meet the Startup Battlefield winner of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018.
Winner: Forethought
Forethought has a modern vision for enterprise search that uses AI to surface the content that matters most in the context of work. Its first use case involves customer service, but it has a broader ambition to work across the enterprise.
Read more about Forethought in our separate post.
Runner-Up: Unbound
Unbound makes fashion-forward vibrators, and their latest is the Palma. The new device masquerades as a ring, offers multiple speeds, and is completely waterproof. And the team plans to add accelerometer features.
Read more about Unbound in our separate post.
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Meet the five Startup Battlefield finalists at Disrupt SF 2018
Over the past two days, 21 companies have taken the stage at the Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield. We’ve now taken the feedback from all our expert judges and chosen five teams to compete in the finals.
These teams will all take the stage again tomorrow afternoon to present in front of a new set of judges and answer even more in-depth questions. Then one startup will be chosen as the winner of the Battlefield Cup — and they’ll also take home $100,000.
Here are the finalists. The competition will be livestreamed on TechCrunch starting at 1:35pm Pacific on Friday.
CB Therapeutics
CB Therapeutics is a new biotech company that aims to change the game with cannabinoids produced cleanly and cheaply in the lab, out of sugar. What it’s done is bioengineer microorganisms — specifically yeast — to manufacture cannabinoids out of plain-old sugars.
Read more about CB Therapeutics here.
Forethought
Forethought has a modern vision for enterprise search that uses AI to surface the content that matters most in the context of work. Its first use case involves customer service, but it has a broader ambition to work across the enterprise.
Read more about Forethought here.
Mira
Mira is a new device that aims to help women who are struggling to conceive. The Mira Fertility system offers personalized cycle prediction by measuring fertility hormone concentrations in urine samples, telling women which days they’re fertile.
Origami Labs
Origami Labs wants to bring voice assistants right to your ear without requiring you to wear a device like a Bluetooth headset or Apple AirPods. Instead, the startup is using a ring on your finger combined with bone conduction technology to allow you to use your smartphone’s built-in assistant – whether that’s Google Assistant or Siri – in an all-new way.
Read more about Origami Labs here.
Unbound
Unbound makes fashion-forward vibrators, and their latest is the Palma. The new device masquerades as a ring, offers multiple speeds, and is completely waterproof. And the team plans to add accelerometer features.
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PoLTE lets you track devices using LTE signal
Meet PoLTE, a Dallas-based startup that wants to make location-tracking more efficient. Thanks to PoLTE’s software solution, logistics and shipment companies can much more easily track packages and goods. The startup is participating in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF.
If you want to use a connected device to track a package, you currently need a couple of things — a way to determine the location of the package, and a way to transmit this information over the air. The most straightforward way of doing it is by using a GPS chipset combined with a cellular chipset.
Systems-on-chip have made this easier as they usually integrate multiple modules. You can get a GPS signal and wireless capabilities in the same chip. While GPS is insanely accurate, it also requires a ton of battery just to position a device on a map. That’s why devices often triangulate your position using Wi-Fi combined with a database of Wi-Fi networks and their positions.
And yet, using GPS or Wi-Fi as well as an LTE modem doesn’t work if you want to track a container over multiple weeks or months. At some point, your device will run out of battery. Or you’ll have to spend a small fortune to buy a ton of trackers with big batteries.
PoLTE has developed a software solution that lets you turn data from the cell modem into location information. It works with existing modems and only requires a software update. The company has been working with Riot Micro for instance.
Behind the scene PoLTE’s magic happens on their servers. IoT devices don’t need to do any of the computing. They just need to send a tiny sample of LTE signals and PoLTE can figure out the location from their servers. Customers can then get this data using an API.
It only takes 300 bytes of data to get location information with precision of less than a few meters. You don’t need a powerful CPU, Wi-Fi, GPS or Bluetooth.
“We offer 80 percent cost reduction on IoT devices together with longer battery life,” CEO Ed Chao told me.
On the business side, PoLTE is using a software-as-a-service model. You can get started for free if you don’t need a lot of API calls. You then start paying depending on the size of your fleet of devices and the number of location requests.
It doesn’t really matter if the company finds a good business opportunity. PoLTE is a low-level technology company at heart. Its solution is interesting by itself and could help bigger companies that are looking for an efficient location-tracking solution.
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InVision CEO Clark Valberg to talk design at Disrupt SF
To Clark Valberg, the screen is the most important place in the world. And he’s not the only one who thinks so. It isn’t just tech companies spending their money on design. The biggest brands in the world are pouring money into their digital presence, for many, the first step is InVision.
InVision launched back in 2011 with a simple premise: What if, instead of the back-and-forth between designers and engineers and executives, there was a program that let these interested parties collaborate on a prototype?
The first iteration simply let designers build out prototypes, complete with animations and transitions, so that engineers didn’t spend time building things that would only change later.
As that tool grew, InVision realized that it was in conversation with designers across the industry, and that it hadn’t yet fixed one of their biggest pain points. That’s why, in 2017, InVision launched Studio, a design platform that was built specifically for designers building products.
Alongside Studio, InVision also launched its own app store for design programs to loop into the larger InVision platform. And the company also launched a fund to invest in early-stage design companies.
The idea here is to become the Salesforce of the design world, with the entire industry centering around this company and its various offerings.
InVision has raised more than $200 million, and serves 4 million users, including 80 percent of the Fortune 500. We’re absolutely thrilled to have Clark Valberg, InVision cofounder and CEO, join us at Disrupt SF in September.
The full agenda is here. Passes for the show are available at the Early-Bird rate until July 25 here.
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Chad Rigetti to talk quantum computing at Disrupt SF
Even for the long-standing giants of the tech industry, quantum computing is one of the most complicated subjects to tackle. So how does a five-year old startup compete?
Chad Rigetti, the namesake founder of Rigetti Computing, will join us at Disrupt SF 2018 to help us break it all down.
Rigetti’s approach to quantum computing is two-fold: on one front, the company is working on the design and fabrication of its own quantum chips; on the other, the company is opening up access to its early quantum computers for researchers and developers by way of its cloud computing platform, Forest.
Rigetti Computing has raised nearly $70 million to date according to Crunchbase, with investment from some of the biggest names around. Meanwhile, labs around the country are already using Forest to explore the possibilities ahead.
What’s the current state of quantum computing? How do we separate hype from reality? Which fields might quantum computing impact first — and how can those interested in quantum technology make an impact? We’ll talk all this and more at Disrupt SF 2018.
Passes to Disrupt SF are available at the Early Bird rate until July 25 here.
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