172877_APEX_Global Book_PROOF 7-19

Updates on Some of the Past Global Challenge Finalists

Park and Diamond continueed

complete the Urban-X accelerator with investment from BMW/Mini and its Urban.US investment partners, focused on developing “smart cities.” Park & Diamond was also awarded the Red Dot Award for product design in March 2019. The team has also received incredible television, print and online press coverage, including NBC-10/Philly, Fast Company, Forbes, Business Insider, Crain’s NY and Outside. It will be featured in Women’s Health Magazine (Hearst Corp.) in May and on CBS Innovation Nation. Learn more at https://www.park-and-diamond.com and watch its promotional video at https:// youtu.be/ynTsfqP0ovY. $10,000 VT KnowledgeWorks Information Technology Award in 2016 Sitemate , University of Technology Sydney, Australia Hartley Pike, Samuel McDonnell, Tommaso Armstrong, Jan Schroeder Sitemate, a project management startup focused on the construction industry, closed a $1.3 million funding round in September 2018 to fuel its next phase of growth. Sitemate was formerly named “Construction Cloud” and launched out of the University of Sydney’s UTS Startups program in 2015 by civil engineer Hartley Pike and co-founder SamMcDonnell. The Sitemate platform offers shared workflow documents for industrial projects, including financial documents, commercial record-keeping and environmental and safety workflows. Since the 2016 VT Global Entrepreneur Challenge, the team has grown from its three founders to hiring four more employees, while its user base continues to grow in over 100 countries. The team launched its first product, Dashpivot, in August 2018, which allows industrial businesses to build and access all their organization's cross-functional processes in one platform. Learn more at www.sitemate.com.

CoatChecker, ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland, 2016 Finalist: CoatChecker won two stages of Venture Kick, amounting in $30,000 in 2017. It was also the winning recipient of the 20th annual IMD Startup Competition in 2018. CoatChecker’s patented and innovative technology offers non-destructive, fast measurement of coating properties based

on a revolutionary photothermal process and digital signal processing. Its main applications assist construction companies in protecting flat roofs against weather and environmental influencers, as well as parking decks and underground garages against weather conditions and heavy traffic loads.

Ledsreact, Ghent University, Belgium, 2016 Finalist: Ledsreact released its first indoor product version in March 2017. The Ledsreact Direction sports device is a smart, interactive sports cone that will train the reaction speed and agility of athletes. By end-of-year 2018, Ledsreact was profitable and active in more than 17 countries. In February 2019, it was selected to participate

in the ISTART track of IMEC, the best ranked European accelerator and one of the world’s top university-based business accelerator programs. Ledreact will receive one year of training and funding from ISTART, which will allow it to recruit its first employee. Learn more at www.ledsreact.be.

weview, Technical University of Munich, Germany, 2016 Finalist: The winner of the 2016 Global Challenge Virtual Preliminary now resides in Berlin. The team went through the accelerator Retailtech Hub by Plug & Play, as well as a three-month accelerator program by SAP and Techstars, who recently invested in its company. The weview team pivoted its model to B2B, now displaying

its video reviews on online shops, such as MediaMarktSaturn, the second largest consumer electronics retailer worldwide. In addition, it has cooperated with brands such as Sony and Epson. Focusing on B2B, weview helps shops increase conversion rates, decrease return rates, improve organic search traffic and make pages more authentic and visual. In the past, it received a 36k subsidy from the Bavarian government, and it recently hired a new CEO. Learn more at https://www. weview.tv.

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