Sponsored content

SPONSORED: This year’s Online Marketing Rockstars (OMR) Festival saw the first awards presentation of the new Future Hamburg Award. With Heptasense (Lisbon, Portugal), LignoPure (Hamburg) and Humanising Autonomy (London, UK) on the winner’s rostrum, the new award was bestowed on startup teams from three leading entrepreneurial hubs in Europe.

Hamburg, 8 May 2019 – Three outstanding international startup businesses received the Future Hamburg Award on 8. May during the OMR Festival in Hamburg. The winners of the 2019 Future Hamburg Award will be provided with a tailored support programme in Hamburg, offering easy access to one of Europe’s most vibrant startup ecosystems.

First place went to Heptasense from Lisbon, a Portuguese company that enables CCTV cameras to detect suspicious behaviour using a special software.

Second place went to LignoPure from Hamburg, a company that has developed a sustainable alternative to oil-based plastics.

The third company to receive an award was Humanising Autonomy from London, a British company providing a software aimed at increasing the safety of autonomous vehicles by anaylsing and predicting human behaviour on the road.

The three winning companies convinced the jury with their groundbreaking products and advanced business models. All three winners of the 2019 Future Hamburg Award will now be provided with a tailored support programme in Hamburg, offering easy access to one of the most vibrant startup ecosystems in Europe.

The winners had been able to assert themselves against more than 100 competitors from around the globe and were selected by a top-tier jury of experts as part of a multi-stage procedure. Launched by the Startup Unit of Hamburg Invest as well as Hamburg Marketing, the new international support programme was launched earlier this year.

Dr Rolf Strittmatter, chairman of the management board of Hamburg Marketing GmbH, comments:

“We are delighted to be able to provide the three winning teams with a further building block for their success. The Future Hamburg Award is a unique platform for young enterprises seeking to develop their innovative business model in a systematic manner. Hamburg is one of the best locations in Europe for innovative entrepreneurs as hardly any other location offers such a high concentration of expertise in key technologies of the future. When it comes to launching new products or services, many international corporations rely on Hamburg and we would like international startups to be able to benefit from these advantages even further. The new support programme signals to startups from around the world that Hamburg is an excellent option.”

These are the three startups that will be able to boost their business in the course of several months with a tailored coaching and support programme in Hamburg:

 

1st place: Heptasense (Lisbon, Portugal)

Heptasense offers a software program for CCTV cameras that gathers and processes information about recorded behaviour of individuals. Whenever a potential threat is detected, the security teams will receive an alert that is aligned with the relevant camera, enabling them to act more swiftly. The software protects people’s privacy by analysing behaviour only, i.e. face recognition features are not used. The Lisbon-based company is convinced that security can be achieved without compromising people’s privacy and that Europe should be leading the way in this respect. 

2nd place: LignoPure (Hamburg, Germany)

LignoPure’s Lignin is a natural, biodegradable alternative to oil-based industrial products such as plastic microbeads. LignoPure’s mission is to produce lignin-based consumer goods for the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries and to develop sustainable solutions in collaboration with stakeholders from the green economy. The LignoPure team aims to replace the majority of oil-based products with natural, renewable and organic-based alternatives. Their vision is to develop solutions today for the challenges of tomorrow’s world.

3rd place: Humanising Autonomy (London, UK)

Using artificial intelligence, Humanising Autonomy analyses behavioural data in order to predict the behaviour of vulnerable road users. Human behaviour differs widely and varies depending on the location, i.e. pedestrians in a small town will behave differently from people on the footpaths of cities like London. What is more, there are cultural differences in behaviour too. The company’s goal is to capture the patterns of such behaviour and establish a global standard for artificial intelligence.

Future Hamburg Award – the tailored support programme for startups from around the globe

Offering immediate market access to one of Europe’s most dynamic and strongest startup ecosystems, the Future Hamburg Award is directed at pioneering founders from all over the world. As part of the programme, innovative startup businesses are linked up with established companies and receive systematic support in advancing their business model.

The tailored support programme “Start me up in Hamburg” will be customised in collaboration with each of the winning teams and will be adapted to their specific needs. In addition, the winners will be able to benefit from high-end business coaching, access to exclusive networking events, a dedicated media kit, as well as up to six months of free coworking space during their stay in Hamburg.

As part of the award ceremony at the OMR Festival, the winning teams were able to present their company in front of an audience comprising 50,000 experts from the realms of marketing and technology.

Key players such as Google, Facebook and Twitter have chosen Hamburg as the location for their corporate headquarters, and Hamburg is also home to one of the youngest German unicorns – AboutYou. A major trading hub in Northern Europe and a leading innovation location in key technologies of the future, Hamburg is an ideal place for tapping new markets with innovative ideas. The Future Hamburg Award was initiated by Hamburg Marketing GmbH and Hamburg Invest.