BRUSSELS- Mendeley took Plugg by a storm and won the Start-Up Rally ahead of 20 other competing outfits from all over Europe with a unanimous vote of confidence from both the jury and the audience.
Rightly so, given that they presented a unique idea, pitched it very clearly and effectively and actually made the revenue model very tangible. The idea behind Mendeley? It is a last.fm for research papers incorporating a recommendation system and acting as a dis-intermediary within the (high priced) academic journal market. You can see the full pitch here.
The audience award went to Myngle, a web-based interactive vehicle for language training with an attractive market and a crisp pitch.
My personal favourite after Mendeley was SofaTutor, a start-up that recruits video-tutors for maths subjects from YouTube and addresses the "digital age" gap present in most schools. It has a clear business model, focused execution (it only does maths tuition) and taps into what is a lucrative public sector (education) that is well ripe for a shake up.
You can read up more details on the start-ups by clicking here
Rightly so, given that they presented a unique idea, pitched it very clearly and effectively and actually made the revenue model very tangible. The idea behind Mendeley? It is a last.fm for research papers incorporating a recommendation system and acting as a dis-intermediary within the (high priced) academic journal market. You can see the full pitch here.
The audience award went to Myngle, a web-based interactive vehicle for language training with an attractive market and a crisp pitch.
My personal favourite after Mendeley was SofaTutor, a start-up that recruits video-tutors for maths subjects from YouTube and addresses the "digital age" gap present in most schools. It has a clear business model, focused execution (it only does maths tuition) and taps into what is a lucrative public sector (education) that is well ripe for a shake up.
You can read up more details on the start-ups by clicking here
