Meet Our 10 New Startups!

We're incredibly pleased to be about to announce our latest £1 million investment in ten start-ups! Unlike other accelerators, we partner with brands such as Unilever, Bauer Media, and BBC Worldwide, to help digital media startups create a product that is market ready from the offset. During our 13 week Collider programme, the startups are introduced to over a dozen respected corporations, engage with a large network of investors, get assigned to relevant mentors, and learn how to turn their innovative startup into a profitable, sustainable business.

Marc Mathieu, the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Unilever says: “Increasingly, having collaborative contact with startups is critical to bringing the outside in and infusing new thinking into our marketing. Collider is a great accelerator partner for Unilever and our work with them and the startups will no doubt help our brands continue to innovate in the digital marketing space.”

The Collider startups on the 2013/2014 programme are:

• Ad Venture: brings the power of the internet to TV advertising. Its proprietary technology allows broadcasters to serve their audience with adverts targeted according to the profile and interests of individual viewers.
• CampaignAmp: simply effective project management and analytics for marketing and PR campaigns.
• Cooala: a free mobile app for consumers which aggregates news, offers, photo streams and other brand content based on users’ brand interests.
• LivingLens: creates insight from consumer video. It puts precise consumer feedback in front of marketers and insight professionals with ease and speed.
• LovetheLook: automatically identifies and hotspots products in any web image and offers similar buying opportunities.
• Seenit: helps you to engage with your audience through the co-creation of video.
• StashMetrics: analyses social media behaviour, creates value from the voice of the crowd and connects brands with the things that matter to their audiences.
• Sponsify: helps your brand to reach a highly engaged audience on YouTube through native advertising.
• Sumo Insight: a mobile technology platform, bringing real-time and real-context to consumer insight.
• Unrival: unlocks new ways for innovative companies to easily identify unique sales opportunities and develop client relationships with inside information.

Rose Lewis, the co-founder and driving force behind Collider, comments:  “The Collider programme is unique as it is a win-win situation for both parties. The startups receive product market validation from potential customers by senior brand managers as potential buyers of the product, while large businesses can work with innovative young companies who can help them with their marketing and customer engagement.”

Collider was founded in 2012 and funds ten startups every year. Startups can start applying for the 2015 programme in the summer of 2014.

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The Future of Tech

Collider has been invited to host a competition at this year's Technology for Marketing & Advertising conference! This year, TFMA is bigger and better than ever and we're hosting a special event to host six of our innovative and disruptive digital startups who can solve problems a brand is facing. All six companies have solutions to common brand problems, such as:

• Engaging with your consumers across the world
• Using and analysing mobile & online video advertising effectively
• Creating unique and motivating content
• Harnessing your social communities
• Powering your staff with the right tools and tech to work effectively

They will be battling it out to be crowned 'Tech of the Future' so attend the session to add your input and meet the startups.

The six finalists are:

• CampaignAmp
• LivingLens
• Moment.Us
• Seenit
• StashMetrics
• Sumo Insight

We will announce the winner soon!

dibbz join TIGA

Our Collider12 startup dibbz has been receiving some press attention for joining TIGA ( the trade association representing the video game industry).

Elliot Sochall, dibbz co-founder and CEO, said: “Since launch we’ve seen click-through rates of 30% with our reward format - this far exceeds the industry average for mobile banner ads which currently sits at 0.39%. As part of our model, we carry out a 50/50 split with developers, so they are often getting as much as £1 from brands for every single click-through that happens in their game or app. We are very proud to already be working with some amazing studios and indie developers, who together have an install base of more than 12 million.

As a London-based startup setting out to provide an innovative means of monetisation among mobile game developers, we were always keen to become part of TIGA. We want to be even more involved in the UK game development community and help both indie developers and established studios deliver a more rewarding experience for users and greater revenue for themselves. Our goal is to bring the best rewards to the best games in a way that actually enhances the experience for players.”

 TIGA, the trade association representing the video game industry has welcomed dibbz, a London based startup dedicated to helping developers monetise their games via real-world branded rewards, as its latest member. Dibbz’ industry-benchmarked iOS & Android SDK is designed specifically for mobile games, and generates revenue for developers by allowing brands to offer players real-world rewards in return for their in-game achievements.

Players benefit from a more engaging experience, with real rewards appropriately and unobtrusively integrated into the game. Developers benefit from top tier brand association, recurrent revenue and increased player retention. Brands benefit from click through rates 77 times higher than the industry average for mobile banner ads.

Notable games to have integrated dibbz’ SDK include 2 Player Reactor, the no.1 multiplayer game on Android, created by developer Cool Cherry Trees. Dibbz SDK utilises dynamic notification overlays and natural pause breaks, as chosen by the developer, to serve rewards to users, ensuring the continuity of the game experience. The rewards on offer are from globally renowned brands including Burger King, ASK, Zizzi, Subway and Garfunkel’s with more being added every day.

Dr. Richard Wilson, CEO, TIGA, added: “As the network for developers and digital publishers it is always encouraging to meet new members who are determined not only to help other TIGA members to be more successful, but who also have players’ interests at heart.

“Increasing the sophistication and sustainability of current monetisation methods is of huge commercial value to the mobile development sector. I look forward to seeing how the TIGA community benefits from dibbz’s ambitious plans and innovation.”

Fuelling Your Spooky Startup; a Halloween Special

We had a great event last night at TechHub Manchester which explored the different funds that are available to startups. On our panel to discuss this was Doug Stellman from Enterprise Ventures, Darren Westlake the CEO of CrowdCube, Andrew Ko the co-founder of Manchester startup Moment.Us, and Rose Lewis the co-founder of Collider. With representation ranging from venture capital to crowd funding, the discussion was lively with plenty of questions from the audience. There was a lot of discussion around what investors look for in startups, what stage a startup needs to be at to raise finance, as well as more grueling questions concerning the pros and cons of accelerators, crowd funding, and venture capital. There was a lot of tweeting, so be sure to head over to our account to take a look at some of the responses.

We love coming to Manchester and will definitely return soon with more pizza, beer, and lively startup debate. Thanks to TechHub for putting us up for the evening, and thanks to everyone who came along instead of trick-or-treating!

As a final reminder, there are only SIX DAYS left until our application closes, so head over to our application page to apply!

Moment.Us Teams Up with 7digital to Deliver a Unique Music Experience

7digital provides Moment . Us, a new streaming radio and music discovery app, with over 25 million tracks. The Moment.Us app allows users to discover music using emotions, environments, and experiences to tailor playlists.

7digital, the leading open digital music platform, today announced a partnership with Moment.Us Ltd., making its library of 25 million tracks available via Moment.Us’ streaming radio and music discovery app. The Moment.Us app allows users to discover music in a new way by using emotions, environments and experiences to tailor playlists. Unlike other streaming radio services that only use musicology, the app learns from contextual data such as pictures, locations and weather to personalise music.

“We wanted our app to be as simple as turning on the radio, but smart enough to deliver music that is personalised to what you want to hear, exactly at that moment”, says Andrew Ko, CEO of Moment.Us.  “The Moment.Us app offers a different kind of music discovery experience. The app can visualise how each song has touched the user’s life by capturing their most significant moments with music.  Our aim is to bring playlists to life!”

Ben Drury, CEO of 7digital comments, “We want to work with companies like Moment.Us that concentrate on delivering the best music experience in a creative way. The history of music and radio demonstrates that targeted services for music fans have an important place in the market. The Moment.Us app will offer a new music experience and we are excited that our API and streaming platform is behind this.”

7digital’s feature rich API allows partners a legally licensed offering to choose between a number of software methods and a global catalogue of over 25 million songs from all the major and independent music label distributors and aggregators. The 7digital API already provides digital music services to hundreds of partners globally including Samsung, BlackBerry, Microsoft, HTC, Sonos and now, Moment.Us.

The Moment.Us application is available to download free from the UK iTunes App Store.

Read the press release here.