The pitch competition finals at this year’s Web Summit welcomed three European startups on stage. And the big winner is Nutrix, a startup based in Basel, Switzerland, developed a micro sensor that placed in the back of a tooth measures glycose levels in saliva. The device sends low and high level warnings to an app and is useful for people with diabetes. The less intrusive (read needleless) device will be sold at half price of existing devices.
“Investment for the development of the prototype is very important.” says Maria Hanh, CEO and founder of Nutrix. “PITCH has put us in front of the right people. Our booth gave us the opportunity to connect with new investor contacts, and once we pitched in the semi-finals, our chat in the Web Summit app was full of messages. It’s really great to get this kind of exposure.” she added.
The two additional finalists come from very different areas.
Meet Banjo Robinson, your child’s pen pal, a sweet cat that encourages children to write. I had my pen pals back in the day and I’m sure my pleasure for writing is partly coming from that experience. So does the London-based startup and their thousands subscribers with 3-5 year olds using the subscription based service. We just announced yesterday they got a €1.16 million pre-seed funding round.
BRB, for Be Right Back, explores the City Break market with a monthly subscription turned surprise trip to an European city, including stay at a three star minimum hotel and traveling with a hand bag only.
Lisbon hosted the Web Summit for the fourth year and welcomed 70,469 participants (almost the same number than in 2018) from 163 countries. The exhibition floor hosted over 200 partners and 2,000 startups, with the chance to connect to over 1,200 investors.
