Google and Impact Hub bring 10 promising AI-startups to Zurich

Google for Entrepreneurs Exchange is a week -long immersion program that bridges the gap between startups, experts and new markets. The focus of the Exchange program is to support the acceleration and scaling of data-driven and AI startups in the Swiss region. The program will be based in Kraftwerk, 12-16 March. Throughout the week, the ten companies will have the opportunity to test their startup ideas with local industry leaders, Google mentors, and organizations in the field. The program ends with a pitch event that will bring together dozens of venture capitalists and corporate executives. This is the eighth Exchange program run in collaboration with Google for Entrepreneurs partners. Previous cities have included Durham, Paris, Waterloo, Dubai, Nashville and San Francisco.

“We are excited to see applications from a mix of countries, like Brazil, Israel, India and the US, from entrepreneurs who really want to test their business concepts and build their startups here in the Swiss innovation ecosystem. I am particularly thrilled that many local leaders and mentors are supporting such a unique program, which is coming back to Europe to focus for the first time on AI and Machine Learning, " said Katka Letzing, Project Lead at Impact Hub Zurich.

"Impact Hub Zurich is uniquely positioned to provide AI and machine learning startups with the tools, connections and expertise that will enable them to enter a new market and position their companies for growth," said Nicole Froker, Partner Engagement Manager with Google for Entrepreneurs. "We are proud to partner with Impact Hub Zurich on this program, and welcome founders from across the Google for Entrepreneurs partner network and beyond".

The ten startups were selected from an international pool of applicants totaling more than 100 startups. Seven of the teams belong to organizations within the Google for Entrepreneurs partner network, including Talent Garden Milan, NUMA, Dogpatch Labs, Startup Farm, Campus Sao Paolo, Campus Tel Aviv, and Impact Hub Zurich. The companies cover a diverse range of innovative solutions in the field of AI and Machine Learning, from air pollution or connecting small-scale farmers to information services in Ghana.

Participating startups:

• AAAccell (Switzerland): AAAccell is a leading innovation company in asset and risk management, developing cutting-edge high-tech solutions for the financial service market.
• Farmerline (Ghana): Farmerline, a company that took part in the Kickstart Accelerator program 2017, connects small-scale farmers to information services, innovative finance, and markets to improve their incomes.
• CovalentAI (USA): A fully automated end-to-end web application test solution that tests clients’ UI, app servers, and databases to find defects, benchmark performance, run security tests, and generate reports.
• DataGen Technologies (Israel): Creating customized photo-realistic synthetic visual data to train neural networks for real-world tasks.
• Datair Technology/Ambee (India): Ambee gathers data about air pollution in real time across different geographies and compute deep insights to provide advisories, recommendations and drive a behavioural change.
• Draguu (Spain): A tech photography company making image buying and selling as easy as text messaging.
• Fhinck (Brazil): Artificial intelligence to increase productivity on backoffice and support operations.
• Instateaser (Brazil): An innovative process for producing short videos in scale with quality.
• MDOTM (UK/Italy): AI-driven investment strategies for global financial markets.
• Webio (Ireland): Webio Conversational Middleware acts as a bridge between enterprise systems, processes and data to enable AI-driven digital conversations over messaging apps and voice interfaces.

(Press release)