After a month of applications, semi-finalists and voting, LeWeb has announced the 16 companies that will compete in the startup competition. For those who haven’t been following, the 16 finalists are all invited to LeWeb, and the LeWeb community will vote over two days for their favorite startups. The top 3 startups will pitch on stage on the third day as well as receive prizes, with Google giving one of the three startups its People’s Choice award.
Social meet Local. Local meet Social
While we often hear of the dreaded SoLoMo, it seems that nowadays startups can’t be local without being social, and vice versa. LeWeb seems to be latching onto that, as more than half of the startups define themselves as either social, local, or both. Whether it’s a social network for parking spots or another action graph startup, it seems startups are hooked on getting people sharing what they’re doing around them.
Augmented Reality becomes …. a reality
While we’ve all marveled at the idea and possibilities of Augmented Reality technology, no one seems to have gotten in quite right. As we imagine ourselves one step closer to Princess Lea’s hologram technology, it seems that a few companies are coming up with sustainable-enough ideas to get a little recognition. While I spoke previously about AugmenteDev, the augmented reality startup this year at LeWeb will be ARNav, which is looking to make giving and following directions easier.
I won’t talk to you on the metro, but I’d love to crowdsource you!
It seems that the Crowdsourcing bug has come to France, and LeWeb is no exception. Startups like HeyCrowd‘s app for polling people around you and Babelverse‘s realtime voice translator demonstrate that all the resources we need are around us – I wonder if they’re willing to lend a hand?
Startups can come from anywhere
One of my personal favorites is the country grab-bag of startups that will be featured at LeWeb. In front of US bloggers, US CEOs and US VCs, we will see 16 startups from 11 countries, including Chile, Japan, Italy, Austria, India and more. In a time where startups are starting to rub their eyes and see that the Silicon Valley is not the only place to start your startup, LeWeb’s startups may be the Espresso that the global startup community needs.
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If you’d like to get a look at all 16 startups, you can check them out here.
Check out some other events coming up in Paris on our Rude Calendar, or check out some other European Startup Articles: