VentureClash Announces Finalists for 2018 Global Venture Challenge
Nine early-stage IoT, digital health, insurtech and fintech companies to compete for $5 million in investments at Yale School of Management in New Haven on October 18
Rocky Hill, Connecticut – September 17, 2018 – Connecticut Innovations (CI), Connecticut’s strategic venture capital arm, today announced the finalists for VentureClash, the $5 million global venture challenge. The nine finalists, representing six different countries, will participate in a live pitch event at the Yale School of Management on Thursday, October 18, 2018, in front of a panel of live judges.
The 2018 VentureClash finalists include:
- CloudKPI (Sandyford, Ireland): An insight engine that enables SaaS businesses to predict likely outcomes
- DOZR (Kitchener, Canada): A marketplace for the online rental of heavy equipment
- Invixium (Markham, Canada): A manufacturer of modern biometric solutions for markets needing strong user authentication, convenience and data analytics
- IronYun (Stamford, Connecticut): A next-generation AI deep-learning, big-data video search business-to-business software company
- Kasko (London, England): A digital insurance intermediary bridging the gap between the digital and insurance economies
- Panoply (Tel Aviv, Israel): A smart data warehouse, using machine learning and natural language processing to automate data integration, data management and query optimization
- Paygilant (Ramat Gan, Israel): A technology that prevents mobile payments fraud on mobile devices in the pre-authorization phase
- SnapSwap (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg): Offers white-label end-to-end know-your-customer (KYC) services for financial institutions and businesses
- Voiceitt (Ramat Gan, Israel): A proprietary speech-recognition technology translates unintelligible speech into clear speech in real time
VentureClash brings together early-stage digital health, insurance technology (insurtech), Internet of Things (IoT) and financial technology (fintech) companies from around the world to compete for the opportunity to receive investment, mentoring, customer introductions, grants and services from CI to help them grow and succeed in Connecticut. A panel of judges will determine the distribution of the top investment award ($1.5 million) and the remaining $3.5 million on the day of the event.
“This year’s VentureClash competition has already been another huge success in identifying young and promising companies and introducing them to all that Connecticut has to offer in support of their growth,” said Matt McCooe, CEO of Connecticut Innovations. “We congratulate all our finalists and look forward to the final pitch competition next month at Yale.”
This year’s VentureClash attracted more than 300 companies from 20 countries around the world, all of whom completed initial applications this past June. Finalists were selected following two rounds of judging by an outside panel of industry leaders and subject matter experts. For more information on qualifications, requirements, guidelines and application, visit www.ventureclash.com.
About VentureClash
Managed by Connecticut Innovations, VentureClash is Connecticut’s global venture challenge focused on early-stage companies. The challenge identifies high-potential companies in digital health, fintech, insurtech and the Internet of Things that will receive investments from a $5 million investment award pool. Learn more at www.ventureclash.com.
About Connecticut Innovations Inc.
Connecticut Innovations (CI) is Connecticut’s strategic venture capital arm and is the leading source of financing and ongoing support for innovative, growing companies. CI provides venture capital and strategic guidance for early-stage technology companies, and connections to its well-established network of partners and professionals. For more information, visit www.ctinnovations.com.
Media contact:
Lauren Carmody
Vice President of Marketing and Communications
lauren.carmody@ctinnovations.com
860.258.7829