Premier Farnell, the Development Distributor and sponsor of Startupbootcamp IoT: connected devices, has shared its ‘ones to watch’ following the culmination of the three month Accelerator Programme at the Startupbootcamp IoT demo day on 24^th January 2018.

Nine start-ups joined the accelerator in December 2017 and have since been working with a range of mentors to develop their ideas and bring their products to market. At the Accelerator’s demo day, the start-ups pitched for second round funding, collectively looking for £4.1m to support the next stage of their development.

The 2017 cohort has seen a dramatic shift towards industrial IoT, with eight of the nine start-ups focusing on addressing issues in business, industry and farming rather than more traditional smart home devices.

Premier Farnell’s top picks from the 2018 cohort address key problems in the market, have broad application and growing market opportunities:

• HUDlog created a retrofit head up display unit to help correct expensive and dangerous commercial driving behaviour in real-time, whilst reducing a fleet managers operational costs – both fuel and insurance.
• Thing Blox provide OEMs and developers with a complete communication module that is 100% secure. Simply plug ThingBlox into a connected device and each one will have secure wireless connectivity hardware based authentication and automatic mass provisioning.

Steve Carr, Global Head of Marketing at Premier Farnell said: “Having worked with these start-ups for three months, it makes me very proud to see them present their ideas at the demo day, and share the successes they have had to date. The Internet of Things continues to be a market changing phenomenon. The opportunity it presents, combined with greater access to hardware and software support through startupbootcamp and Premier Farnell creates a unique opportunity for start-ups. It is easy to see how the next big idea, that changes the way we live and work, will not come from an established technology business. All the start-ups who participated in the accelerator in 2017 designed products that improve lives, improve our environment or save resources. They should be very proud of what they have achieved so far and I am very excited about what will come next.”

Other start-ups who presented on the day include:

• Odyssey Sensors and Mothive – developing solutions for farming

• Unifi.id, Sonodot and Squad robotics – tracking people and assets for greater efficiency

• Storybot – screen free technology taking children on adventures

• Internet of Trees – developing early warning solutions to minimise the impact of forest fires.

You can view the video from the day at: https://www.element14.com/community/community/businessofengineering/bootcamp/blog/2018/02/06/startupbootcamp-iot-demo-day

Premier Farnell, the Development Distributor, has announced a second year of sponsorship of Startupbootcamp IoT. Now in its second year, Startupbootcamp IoT’s program will give nine startups access to a global network of business mentors, hardware professionals, corporate partners including Premier Farnell, potential customers, and investors. With workshops, one-to-one sessions and events, each startup is able to call upon daily support from the Startupbootcamp team on areas including business development, finance and marketing.

The nine startups selected to join the second cohort of its London-based accelerator program kicking off in October, are developing Internet of Things (IoT) devices that tackle problems in diverse applications from factory automation and smart farming to driver safety and cybersecurity.

Back in April Startupbootcamp IoT opened applications with a particular call out to Industrial IoT, B2B and high-impact startups in areas such as manufacturing, infrastructure, energy, education, the environment, health, agriculture and retail. This was a response to trends highlighting a growing investment in the Industrial IoT space and waning support for smarthome products and consumer IoT devices. As a result nearly 75% of the applications received were from startups working on B2B IoT devices, compared with just 24% in 2016.

Program CEO and Founder, Raph Crouan, said: “We’ve begun to see a real shift in how investors, partners and customers are viewing the IoT. These audiences recognise the clear benefits the IoT brings but are bored of the deluge of useless connected products built in the past five years. With a few notable exceptions, last year’s inaugural IoT cohort was dominated by home and consumer-level products, but this year it’s been the reverse. We’ve witnessed a real shift in those innovations attacking the needs of heavy industries such as manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, etc., or using IoT in high-impact areas such as the environment, sustainability and societal problems in general.”

“Our experience seems to mirror what’s happening on a global level, where those startups bringing IoT innovation to heavy industries — through innovation in areas such as sensors, security, cloud platforms, networking infrastructure, machine learning, AI, robotics and data analytics — are receiving a greater share of the investment going on in the IoT ecosystem.”

“Here at Startupbootcamp IoT we’re aiming to make the journey of building a connected hardware startup clearer, shorter, and more successful for entrepreneurs. The team can’t wait to start helping this year’s exciting cohort to realise their goals and bring their IoT innovations to market. Narrowing down our final startups was very difficult given the exceptionally high calibre of the applicants but the nine we’ve chosen have huge potential in such a diverse set of applications.”

Steve Carr, Global Head of Marketing at Premier Farnell and a mentor for the Startupbootcamp cohort said: “Premier Farnell is delighted to sponsor the programme for a second year. We pride ourselves on the support we give to customers as they navigate their journeys and bring products to market. This might be providing the technology they need when they need it or working more closely with them on their design, right through to developing high quality packaging and getting the product out for sale. As a mentor I thoroughly enjoyed working with the 2016 cohort – they showed an immense amount of energy and enthusiasm – and determination! I am looking forward to working with this year’s start-ups.”

After receiving, and reviewing, applications from over 350 startups from 57 countries, 18 finalists were invited to attend Startupbootcamp Selection Days between September 13-15th. The final nine to join the program were chosen following an intense three-day selection process that included expert workshops, pitches to program partners including Premier Farnell, and mentor feedback sessions.

The 2017 Startupbootcamp IoT cohort is:

1. HUDlog (Canada) — the HUDlog Head-Up Display projects essential driving information through the windshield of a vehicle so drivers never have to take their eyes off the road.
2. Internet of Trees (Honduras) — a forest monitoring solution to alert authorities about fire outbreaks and logging in real time.
3. Mothive (UK) — creating wireless devices to continuously monitor air temperature, air humidity, soil moisture and irradiance or crops.
4. Odyssey Sensors (UK) — delivering vital and actionable intel from field to farmer for the 428 million underserved and often overlooked smallholder farmers.
5. Robotic Solutions (Latvia) — building a self-driving kit to make existing manually controlled machinery autonomous.
6. Sonodot (UK) — a plug and play indoor location intelligence platform for warehousing and factory automation.
7. Storybot (Israel) — a handheld, screen free connected device for children that engages them in healthy digital, social and physical activities.
8. Thingblox (Hungary) — a simple, secure, scalable and complete IoT communications hardware technology.
9. Unifi.id (UK) — helping businesses improve their user experiences by inserting a special RFID tag into a standard plastic card, which is detected at long-range upon entry to a location of interest.

Premier Farnell operates as Farnell element14 in Europe, Newark element14 in North America and element14 in APAC.

element14 today announces its partnership with Startupbootcamp IoT | Connected Devices, a new dedicated Internet of Things (IoT) accelerator programme from Startupbootcamp, the global network of industry-focused accelerators. Through this partnership, element14 will work with the programme to provide unprecedented support to IoT and hardware startups from across the world.

The accelerator programme, which launched on 2 March 2016, is seeking applications from startups across the world with a focus on innovation in Consumer or Industrial IoT, for example, Wearables, the Connected Home, Industrial IoT and Smart Retail.

Ten startups will be selected to engage in an intensive three-month programme starting in September 2016, with each one receiving €15,000 and guidance and support from mentors, partners and investors, including element14. The programme will take place in a brand new, 70,000 sq ft fast prototyping lab at Cocoon Networks in London.

As a corporate partner, element14 will play an integral role in supporting the startups in taking their initial concepts through to a finished product, in an aggressive three-month development process.

As a leader in the global electronics market, element14 can provide a range of products and services to support the IoT and hardware startups, together with extensive technical expertise and an established global channel to market:

• An extensive range of hardware products and components available to help startups build an IoT solution
• Expertise and consultancy in electronics design and build - critical for IoT innovators with a software background requiring support for hardware solutions
• Advanced electronic engineering and hardware design services
• Creation of prototypes right through to volume manufacturing
• Access to the engineering expertise, ideas and support of the 400,000 members of the element14 Community

At the end of the three-month acceleration, the programme’s startups will pitch their company to 250+ investors and mentors on a Demo Day, set to take place on 7 December 2016.

Startups can apply for the Startupbootcamp IoT | Connected Devices programme here.  Applications close 13 June 2016.