The concept had been tweaked for the second event – there were fewer startups pitching, and more focus on 1 on 1 session afterwards between startups and investors. Overall both good improvements, and it turned into a short, good and impactfull event for everyone attending.

Early stage startups

The level of the startups was solid, and covered both early startups looking for € 50 000 or less, up to some asking for for € 1 million. The event was small, but impact-full – the audience was 15 business angels and early stage VCs, including names such as Thorvald Stigsen, Anders Frankel, Rasmus Bjerngaard and Nikolaj Nyholm. With 13 startups present and the different levels, it was also good spread for the different investors.
The startups present where:

• Petreas – connecting service providers with customers.
• Startuptravels – an airbnb for entrepreneurs.
• Sharingear – renting out music equipment to bands and concerts.
• DrinksOnUs – digitalising bar services.
• Forecast.it – a project and portofolio management service
• Sensor Six – a solid team that aims to make enterprise IT better
• Kiggit – a new and more up-to-date way of making betting
• Erghis – touch less technology
• Renouve – a new take on the cosmetics market
• Form – the smart home sensor.
• Rokoko – making motion capture cheap and affordable, especially interesting with the huge interest in virtual reality such as oculus rift.
• Donkey Republic – providing bike rentals in cities that are convenient and digital connected.
• Sponsta – making content marketing and branding on Instagram easier.

After the 4 minuts pitches by each startup, the event was changed into a 1 on 1 session with investors and startups having time for deeper questions and answers. This was highly appreciated and gave the startups feedback and insights, while letting the investors get to know the startups better.

Drawing on the regions strength

Just as last time the event included startup and angels from the entire region, both Copenhagen and the Swedish side, Skåne. Overall this was an event that was short, effective and brought lots of value. Another really good example of community efforts from #malmostartups and #cphftw, and how they do a great job of moving the startup scene forwards.

The event was held in the brand new event space at Rainmaking Loft. Great atmosphere and good for the presentation, but became a little noisy during the 1 on 1s. But this will probably improve for future events.

Stay tuned to cphftw and malmostartups for info about when and where the next AngelNext will be held. And are you interested in pitching your early stage startup, or a business angel who wants get to know good startups, get in touch with Jasenko or Joel.

The post AngelNext – connecting promising startups with good business angels appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The Sphere

Their approach, simulating a ‘sphere’ that is typed on or controlled by the users hands, makes it possible to have a highly configurable interface that can be adjusted for different devices, apps or programs.

“Use it to write, navigate, move the mouse, rotate 3d-models, do work or just play around. Make the Sphere your own or use it as is.” the team says

The Sphere makes a complex system of gestures into a simple object that puts almost unlimited control in the users hands. You manipulate the sphere in configurable ways to control different devices. Use it to write, navigate, move the mouse or rotate 3d-models. The Sphere is highly costumizable and will support multiple interfaces, keyboards and shortcuts.

“For the computer this is a set of gestures, for you it is a magical object that gives you unique personalised control.”

The teams says the on-screen interface will make learning easy and show the sphere in a reflection of the users hands, making it easy to adjust ones actions.

Built on experience

The Erghis Sphere is not just a vision, even if might sound almost like science-fiction. It is built on experience. Shortly after the launch of the Leap Motion Controller, the “Erghis First” was released. It was the teams way of testing how people react to the concept of holding a sphere and using it for writing. Even though the experience was limited, the results were promising.

The touchless hardware sector is young, but the sphere is already usable for basic writing. From there it is a small step to make it useable for other forms of interaction. The feedback from the Leap Motion Erghis First experiment was very good:

“This is the most feature rich keyboard app that I’ve tried for the Leap yet. They’ve done a great job of understanding what the Leap tracks well and implemented a system to work with that tracking. As the tracking improves, I expect this to get better and better over time.” was one of the opinions.

“This program has a learning curve to it, but feels like a great step towards touchless computing.” was another review.

Creating the future

The Sphere as seen in the campaign video is the one that the team wants to create. The goal with this campaign is to put in place the technological foundation that allows the Sphere to mature greatly with each leap in sensor technology. Current plans are that the Erghis Sphere will support the Leap Motion sensors initially.

Check out the crowdfunding campaign at IndieGoGo and support the team! The crowdfunding rewards are also used in a nice way – such as a voting mechanic wether MacOS or Linux should be supported first, depending on which rewards is more popular!

The post Erghis Sphere wants to change how we type and interact with devices appeared first on Øresund Startups.