- The SXSW Interactive Festival finalists names are out for the sixth annual SXSW Accelerator competition presented by Oracle. The activities take place the weekend of SXSW Interactive, March 8-9. SXSW Interactive Festival’s Startup Village brings together startups from around the world to present their innovations to a live audience and panel of experts including entrepreneurs, venture capital and angel investors, and industry influencers.
This year’s 48 finalists were chosen across six categories, including: Enterprise and Big Data Technologies, Entertainment and Content Technologies, Health Technologies, Innovative World Technologies, Social Technologies, and Wearable Technologies. SXSW Category Sponsors include Rackspace, Enterprise and Big Data Technologies Category Sponsor; and IBM, Innovative World Technologies Category Sponsor.
On Saturday, March 8th, 48 finalists will pitch their innovations in front of a live audience for the opportunity to be one of the top 18 companies invited back to the stage on Sunday, March 9th, when a new panel of judges will hear their pitches and select the grand prize winners for each category. These winners will be announced and honored at the SXSW Accelerator Awards ceremony, occurring on the fourth floor of the Downtown Austin Hilton on Sunday evening, March 9th, immediately after the pitch competition concludes.
“Over the past five years of companies competing in SXSW Accelerator, 56% have gone on to receive funding in excess of $587M and 9% of the companies have been acquired, so the judges are looking for truly innovative companies to raise the stakes,” said SXSW Accelerator Event Producer Chris Valentine.
The winners will receive two Interactive badges for the 2015 SXSW Interactive event, various SXSW Accelerator sponsor gifts and, most importantly, the opportunity to receive exposure to the SXSW audience looking out for the latest in cutting-edge technology.
This year’s SXSW Accelerator finalists include:
Enterprise and Big Data Technologies
AddSearch (Helsinki, Finland)
Addy (San Francisco, CA)
Databox (Boston, MA)
EvoSure (Austin, TX)
Fieldwire (San Francisco, CA)
Map-D (Cambridge, MA)
Shelfbucks (Austin, TX)
Trustev (Cork City, Ireland)
Health Technologies
ActiveProtective (Allentown, PA)
AdhereTech (New York, NY)
Kinsa (New York, NY)
Pixie Scientific (New York, NY)
Plantiga (North Vancouver, Canada)
Sensible Baby (Somerville, MA)
ThriveOn (San Francisco, CA)
Yingo Yango (Weatogue, CT)Innovative World Technologies
CubeSensors (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
InsideMaps (Mountain View, CA)
Monsieur (Atlanta, GA)
OP3Nvoice (Austin, TX)
Plum (Austin, TX)
Synbiota (Montréal, Canada)
The Eye Tribe (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Viddyad (Dublin, Ireland)
Social Technologies
Ansa (Orinda, CA)
Connect (San Francisco, CA)
Felt (Telluride, CO)
MobiSocial (Menlo Park, CA)
PPLCONNECT (Montreal, Canada)
Samba.me (Tel Aviv, Israel)
Surfly (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Terranova (Chicago, IL)
Wearable Technologies
Bionym (Toronto, Canada)
Fashion Discovery Labs (San Francisco, CA)
Jon Lou (Staten Island, NY)
Kiwi Wearable Technologies (Toronto, Canada)
Mighty Cast (Montreal, Canada)
Pauline van Dongen (Arnhem, Netherlands)
People+ (San Francisco, CA)
Skully Helmets (San Francisco, CA)
The 2014 SXSW Accelerator Emcees include:
Chris Dannen - Fast Company, Senior Editor Francisco Dao - 50 Kings, Founder
Casper De Clercq - Norwest Venture Partners, Partner
SXSW Conferences and Festivals P.O. Box 685289 | Austin, Texas | 78768 T: 512.467.7979 | F: 512.451.0754 | sxsw.com
Brad King - Ball State University, Assistant Professor
Kay Koplovitz - Koplovitz & Company LLC; USA Networks & Syfy, Founder; Springboard Enterprises LLC, Chairman
Mohanjit Jolly - Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Managing Director
Harry McCracken - TIME, Editor at Large
Bob Metcalfe - University of Texas, Professor of Innovation at Cockrell School of Engineering
John Sculley – Investor; Former Apple Computer CEO
Laurie Segall - CNN, Tech correspondent
Brian Singerman - Founders Fund, Partner
Maria Thomas - Axios Ventures, CEO
