Meet The Startups That Will Pitch At The TechSupport Meetup

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The TechCrunch Meetup in Seoul presented by Campus Seoul is set for April 16 at the aA Design Museum and we’re thrilled to announce the startups vying for your attention in the great pitch-off. We found a great group of interesting startups that might just have what it takes to make it, and we look forward to learning more about them next week.
If your startup didn’t make the cut, don’t worry — we’re happy to talk to you about what you’re working on at the event itself.
So, without further ado (drumroll please…) here are the pitch-off contestants that were selected from the hundreds that applied:
AKA Intelligence: deep-learning startup that built a Quantum machine learning systemAquaPowerGen: green-tech startup behind a hydrogen-powered engineBBB: mobile health startup that enables blood tests from smartphonesCasual Steps: e-commerce site allowing Koreans to shop at overseas web storesCloudbric: web security startupIamcompany: service to help parents manage their children’s school informationMobidays Inc: mobile ad tech and marketing startupROOT ENERGY: service promoting energy saving and green practicesSolidware: machine learning and risk assessment technologySpacosa Corp: internet-of-things company that tracks the location of family and loved ones
Each startup will have two minutes to pitch their product or service. That will be followed by four minutes of questions from the judging panel, which will consist of TechCrunch editors and local startup figures.
In addition to the obvious prestige of winning, there are prizes on offer for the triumphant pitch-off contestants.
The winner will score space to demo their company in Startup Alley at a future TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Campus Seoul will give them the opportunity to participate in its global Campus Exchange in London.
The second-placed startup will take home two tickets to an upcoming Disrupt conference, while the third place company gets one Disrupt ticket.
We have also lined up a few interesting fireside chats with prominent local tech figures to round out the evening and provide insight to entrepreneurs and fledgling startups.
There are only a handful of tickets for the event left, so if you haven’t already reserved your spot, now is the time to apply for tickets here.
That’s not quite all. TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher, Sam O’Keefe and I will take part in a discussion on creating startup ecosystem that generate global companies at Google Campus Seoul in the afternoon before the meet-up. You can reserve tickets for that event here — more details in Korean.
See you in Seoul!

By: Unknown On 00:29

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Disrupt Returns To London, From December 5th To 8th

Daum Kakao Debuts Uber Rival KakaoTaxi In South KoreaLast year European startups raised more money in the first quarter than they had during the “dot-com boom”. Much of that money and startup activity was coming out of London. Why? It’s simple. European entrepreneurs are using this highly developed center as a bridge to global markets, and, often, to San Francisco and the Valley. At the same time, London remains the first beach-head for many U.S. startups looking to scale in Europe. So there are hard and fast reasons why TechCrunch today announces that it’s returning to London with the Disrupt conference.
Last year, TechCrunch Disrupt in London set off a “media atomic bomb”, with multiple media outlets covering the startups that launched on our stage. We aim to repeat, and better, that experience.
We’re coming back.
Unlike 99% of tech conferences, TechCrunch puts its journalists in front of every speaker and holds their feet to the fire. Incredibly, speakers love this and line-up for the battle that ensues. We love that process, and we know everyone else does too.
Certainly, the wider media also loves this approach. On the first day of Disrupt London last year, we saw around 100 media outlets attending, including The Financial Times, City AM, The Independent, Business Insider and CNBC; including the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight.
Disrupt it would seem, captured the imagination of the Western European press like few other tech events could.
So here is the detail.
TechCrunch Disrupt London 2015 will be held at the Copper Box Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It will be open to any startup form anywhere in the world. But we are particularly encouraging startups to apply from Europe, the Middle East and Africa to join us.
The legendary Disrupt Hackathon will be held on December 5th to 6th, followed by the main conference on December 7th to 8th. Startup Alley tickets are immediately available for purchase.
You can apply for 2-for-1 tickets here. We will be releasing a limited number these in batches. So you need to apply for that access ASAP.

By: Unknown On 03:20

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15 TechSupport Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week

This Week On The TS Gadgets Podcast: Smartphone Stuff And Smart Home StuffThis week’s tech news included big announcements from Facebook and Y-Combinator, a sighting of the Tesla Model X on the road, a controversial Indiana bill that has tech leaders up in arms, and the launch of Periscope, a Twitter app that has potential to change the way we communicate online.
At TechCrunch HQ we launched our new daily show, Crunch Report, a roundup of tech news airing weekdays at 4 PM PT. These are our best stories of the week (3/21-3/27).
1. Facebook held its annual developer conference F8, and the company announced a ton of exciting news. You can find our F8 coverage here.

2. Y Combinator’s winter Demo Day took place, and these were our favorite startups from Day 1 as well as the 47 companies that launched on Day 2.
3. Amazon is going after Dropbox, Google and Microsoft with its Unlimited Cloud Storage expansion.
4. Apple acquired FoundationDB, a company that specializes in speedy, durable NoSQL databases.
5. A new iOS game called Mr. Jump racked up 5 million downloads in just four days.
6. YouTube is experimenting with ultra high definition, ultra smooth video playback. Here are the examples.
7. A slightly disguised version of the Tesla Model X was spotted on a highway near Palo Alto.
8. Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed into law a bill that allows private businesses to discriminate against gay and lesbian consumers. Tech industry titans were quick to denounce the move, led by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
9. Josh Constine layed out Facebook’s strategy as a family of apps, and now rather than just being a social network, Facebook sees strength as an interconnected clan of experiences.
10. Alexia Tsotsis went hands on with Twitter’s new livestreaming app Periscope which went live this week, explaining how the app came to be and what it will mean for the future of live video.
11. Jon Russell explains that WhatsApp’s simplicity is the yin to the yang of Messenger’s busy platform in “Facebook’s Messenger Platform Preserves WhatsApp’s Clarity Of Purpose.”
12. Sarah Perez gives her take on the potential – both positive and negative – that live streaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat have to change the ways consumers communicate online.
13. Instagram launched Layout, its own photo collage app.
14. Guest writer Bill Maris juxtaposes data from the 2000 dot-com bubble with numbers from today’s technology landscape, providing both sides of the argument as to whether or not we are currently in a tech bubble today in regards to startups.
15. After several days of deliberations, a San Francisco Superior Court jury ruled against all four of Ellen

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15 TechSupport Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week

Etsy IPO, Tinder’s Age-Based Pricing, Kleiner Perkins On TrialThis week was Mobile World Congress, so some of our staff was in Barcelona reporting on the latest from the mobile world. Meanwhile, we wrote about Tinder, pretty people, and a pricey new drone. These are our best stories from the week (2/28-3/6).
1. Colleen Taylor reported on the Ellen Pao V. Kleiner Perkins trial, as it entered its second week in court.
2. Samsung revealed two brand new smartphones, the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 edge. We went hands-on with the impressive devices to see how they perform. And Darrell explains the story behind the phones’ design departure.

3. We demoed the HTC Vive, a sensor-studded helmet with dual hand controllers that allows you to enter alternate universes. John Biggs argues that HTC and Valve have cracked the VR code with this device.
4. We told you what to expect for next week’s Apple Watch event, and Matthew Panzarino predicts how the Apple Watch will change your behavior and save you time.
5. Xiaomi introduced a new GoPro-like action camera, and it only costs $64.

6. Microsoft and Google are working together to help make Angular 2 — the next (and somewhat controversial) version of Google’s JavaScript web app framework — better.
7. In “Beware The Pretty People,” Jon Evans argues that as the establishment slowly infects and merges with the tech industry, and vice versa, the people who actually think differently will be, and are being, pushed out.
8. Tinder’s “Rewind” functionality went live, giving users the ability to go back in time and swipe right instead of left. And now, Tinder Plus costs more for users older than 30.
9. Lady Gaga’s Backplane pivoted away from creating and managing standalone social networks for brands. It’s now called Place.xyz. Josh Constine gives you the run-down.
10. Darrell Etherington reviewed Parrott’s Bebop drone, a brand new drone featuring a 1080p video camera that captures motion at 30FPS, and that can take stills at 14MP.
11. Online marketplace Etsy filed to go public and is aiming to raise $100M.
12. Instagram ads became clickable, with the introduction of the photo sharing app’s new carousel ads.
13. Matt Burns wrote about the Stratos Card, another card that promises to consolidate your credit cards into one – but this one is worth a closer look.
14. Valve announced Source 2, the next generation of their Source game engine, and it’s free to content developers.
15. The Huawei Watch, from the gadget-maker of the same name, made its official debut onstage at Mobile World Congress.

By: Unknown On 22:14

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15 TechCrunch Stories You Don’t Want To Miss This Week

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