The Microsoft Israel R&D Center celebrated the graduation of its second class of Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure, after a four-month intensive program. Thirteen up and coming Israeli companies were chosen from a pool of 300 applicants.
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/By Ilan Shavit /
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Microsoft Azure Accelerator provides a unique program offering business and technological platform helping early-stage startups make important decisions in a quick, decisive manner demanded in today’s high-tech business environment. The program includes counseling at every stage of the startups evolution from more than a hundred senior mentors sourced from hi-tech, finance and marketing sectors. The mentors share their expertise with the accelerator participants including the latest scientific methods developed by Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, cutting edge UI & UX design, tech assistance and partnerships with Haifa’s Technion and leading multinational companies.
“The results of our second Microsoft Azure Accelerator class prove without a doubt that the success we saw in our first year was not coincidental, but rather the direct result of the unique methodology that we have developed” said Hanan Lavy, Director of Microsoft Accelerator.
The startups have already caught the attention of leading Israeli and international investors and venture capitalists that have been following their progress over recent months. Ten of the thirteen participating companies have already received investment offers, and eight of them have closed on more than $4 million in funding.
“The mentor’s expertise is a great benefit in preparing the entrepreneurs to make more headways into the marketplace. The investor interest seen demonstrates the trust placed in this program along with the huge potential of these young companies, ” Lavy noted.
Following their debut in Israel, twelve of the companies will travel to California where they will launch their products before an audience of investors and industry influencers on May 7th at the Microsoft Silicone Valley campus.
The second class of startups focused on a variety of areas including music, videos and the medical industry. What they all share in common is use of the Cloud technology and big data.
The companies are:
Pixtr is a cloud service which understands the content of your photos and perfects them www.pixtr.me
Telesofia conveys relevant medical information using personalized videos. http://www.telesofia.com
Shopetti provides women with a true online shopping experience. http://www.shopetti.com
INNOBI helps its users to track competitors by curating industry news. INNOBI Market Timeline is a cloud-based solution that provides an immediate value by gathering the most important indications of financial activities into one comprehensive market view. www.innobi.com
SkyGiraffe is a cloud-based mobile app platform providing employees with on-the-go interactive access to their corporate data systems. With SkyGiraffe any company can take its business mobile, increase employee productivity and lower IT spend, without compromising security. www.skygiraffe.com
Applango enables organizations to maintain control over the use of SaaS applications, optimize subscription spend across the organization, and better serve SaaS users. www.applango.com
W.S.C Sports puts sports fans in the driver’s seat & helps publishers use digital media rights W.S.C helps sports media right owners to bring an interactive video experience to sports fans on the digital platforms. Fans get personalized video clips and highlight footage according to their preference. http://www.wscouting.com
LiveTune develops the Jamstar platform. Jamstar is a new way to learn and practice musical instruments. Jamstar’s technology listens while you play and gives real-time feedback. It creates a tailor made lesson out of every song at any level, and compiles a personal improvement plan. http://JamStar.co
Kitchenbug develops an NLP (natural language processing) based technology that analyzes any online recipe and provides nutritional facts, dietary information and food labeling. http://www.kitchenbug.com/about/about
Scoreoid is the ultimate gaming Backend-as-a-Service for game developers. We help game developers retain and engage with their players. http://www.scoreoid.net
SCREEMO enables the creation of engagement experiences between smartphones and digital signs. SCREEMO is building the world’s first full and comprehensive SaaS platform allowing the simple creation, management, distribution and measurement of interactions between smartphones and digital screens, abilities never available before to the mass market. www.screemo.net
askem is an innovative mobile platform enabling you to instantly discover what the world and your friends think about everything and everything.
Featuring engaging visual questions that are fun and easy to create and share, askem is super addicting, fun & extremely useful. www.askem.com
Physihome facilitates personal indoor rehab activity programs 24/7 at homes. The platform facilitates interactive, intensive personal programs for independent physical and functional exercise at home, with no need for online therapists.
About Microsoft Israel R&D Center
Microsoft Israel R&D Center is one of Microsoft’s three strategic regional development centers and home to some of the company’s most exciting and innovative technologies.
Led by General Manager Yoram Yaacovi, the center is comprised of incubations and core product efforts. Relying on its original R&D operation which was founded in 1991 and tapping into Israel’s deep technological talent pool and its thriving high-tech community, Microsoft inaugurated in April 2006 the Israel Research & Development Center as a significant expansion of the scope and nature of its technology activities in Israel.
