Welcome to the winners in the Call 3

We have our winners in the third and final MediaMotor Europe open call! MediaMotorEurope (MME) had three open calls: the first one took place between the 18^th of May and the 17^th of July 2020, the second one from the 1^st of September to the 30^th of October 2020, and the last one took place between 1^st April and 27^th May 2021. Congratulations to the new 20 deeptech media startups & scale-ups that are about to start their MME journey. 

A total of 51 startups and scale-ups finalized their applications to the MME program.

With this third open call, MME received 221 finalized applications in total, only falling short in 29 applications of the overall project KPI – 250 applications for the three support cycles. This analysis should also be considered the expression of interest from the applicants, as 91 started applications in this third round, and 386 in the entire project. With a robust application form, MME has filtered high-quality applicants, successfully allowing to “select 20 good startups/scaleups with deeptech solutions applied to the media or creative industries”.

The most represented country was France, in contrast with the other two calls where the most represented country was both times the UK. Then, there is Germany, Italy, and Israel. In addition, it is relevant to note that the countries of the four MME innovation hubs are represented (Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, and Norway).

Areas of activity

The most chosen areas of activity of the startups are:

• Machine learning, statistical data processing, and applications using signal processing (e.g. speech, image, video),
• Web and information systems, database systems, information retrieval, and digital libraries, data fusion,
• Artificial Intelligence, intelligent systems, multi-agent systems,
• Natural language processing.

Applications

The most common applications are:

• Media related services,
• Artificial intelligence-related software,
• Streaming,
• Data processing, analysis,

Partnerships sought

Similar to the demand in the previous two rounds, startups again are most often looking for venture capitalist funding contracts, but this time, there is also a desire to join consortia to apply for large public or private contracts. Among the three areas of demand for assistance is the desire to secure agreements with larger companies for joint product development. Also popular are the topics of technology licensing, transfer of know-how, and obtaining specialized expertise.

Selected startups

The following 20 startups and scaleups from 16 countries are selected from the 51 finalized and eligible applications. The table presents all winners with the main media challenge addressed and the innovation hub to which they have been assigned and the country and a link to their website.  

Innovation Hub - CSKC, Sofia

• Kelp.Digital, Estonia,  - Better protection of personal data and data in general, https://kelp.digital
• Saulx, Netherlands, Facilitating the transition to a data-driven media industry 4.0, https://www.saulx.com;
• Summy, Netherlands - Facilitating the transition to a data-driven media industry 4.0, https://summy.global;
• Wanted TV, UK - Improved accessibility to media outlets (including support; https://wantedtv.com/;
• Wantent, Ukraine -  Advancing human-machine interaction; https://www.wantent.io

Innovation Hub - MCB, Bergen

• Searchr (before Arturs), Latvia - Facilitating the transition to a data-driven media industry 4.0; www.noscos.com
• Circulr, Denmark - Advancing human-machine interaction; www.circulrsound.com
• Movi, Norway -  Advancing human-machine interaction; https://movi.ai
• Rumble Studio, France, Advancing human-machine interaction, https://rumble.studio
• Spectalix, Israel - Other - How to capitalize on the user base; https://spectalix.com

Innovation Hub - Thermi, Thessaloniki

• isoft.ai, Finland - Advancing human-machine interaction;  https://www.isoft.ai
• Questpass, Poland - Fight against misinformation and fake news;  https://questpass.pl/
• JDaily, Italy - Improved accessibility to media outlets (including support); https://www.jdaily.it/
• Veeplay, Germany - Facilitating the transition to a data-driven media industry 4.0; www.veeplay.com
• Exorde, France - Fight against misinformation and fake news; www. exorde.network

Innovation Hub - VRT, Brussels

• Contilt, Israel - Advancing human-machine interaction; https://contilt.com/
• Playtreks, Belgium - Facilitating the transition to a data-driven media industry 4.0; https://playtreks.com
• SMI, Israel - Improved accessibility to media outlets (including support); www.speechmorphing.com 
• Voxalyze, Germany - Facilitating the transition to a data-driven media industry 4.0; https://www.voxalyze.com/
• x.news, Austria - Fight against misinformation and fake news; https://www.x-news.eu

The full portfolio of the startups selected by the third call to participate in the MME project can be downloaded from HERE.

As of the date of this publication, the four innovation hubs have already identified their mentors and made their first bilateral contacts to launch the mentoring program.

Over the next six months, the selected companies will have the opportunity to further develop their technological solutions, receive advice and recommendations from experts in the fields of interest, participate in specialized, common to all hubs workshops and training, meet investors, to attend international events offered by MME and many others!