Startups 2.0

Thirteen early stage startup founders will pitch to a judging panel at a ‘Pitching Night’ event at TuSpark in Newcastle next week.

They are the first confirmed ventures on TechBlast’s inaugural North East & Tees Valley Startups 2.0 list, which will be unveiled in full at the early evening event on Monday 27th November hosted by TechBlast & BusinessCloud executive editor Chris Maguire.

The list and event, produced in association with Ignite, will shine a light on the region’s under-the-radar technology startups – all of which are bootstrapped, grant-funded, pre-seed or angel-backed.

The pitching companies hail from Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Darlington, Skelton-In-Cleveland, Durham, Washington and Newcastle. Each will be given four minutes to pitch to the judging panel, with a package of support from Ignite and TechBlast/BusinessCloud offered to the winner.

The judging panel will feature Ignite CEO Jo York; Jamie Hardesty, director of communications and ecosystem development at Sunderland Software City; Jonathan Symcox, editor, TechBlast & BusinessCloud; and Laura Richards, Ignite alumni, ex-Sunderland Software City & Northstar Ventures.

They will assess the pitches on innovation; the startup’s ability to address its targeted problem/market; business potential; and quality of pitch. A minute will be allocated for questions following each pitch.

The pitching startups are below.

Reserve your spot at the pitching night here

Dan Hopper – founder, Class Club

Platform for teaming up with skilled designers to create, share and sell professional-quality learning resources for free

Luke Mills – CEO & creative director, Dink

Videogame studio which also uses game engine software to craft TV graphics, 3D art and game prototyping

Dr Muhammad Wakil Shahzad – founder & CEO, EcoTech69 Limited

Behind Solar2Water & OptimumAirCon devices for generating drinking water and air conditioning from atmosphere respectively

David Dixon, founder & CEO, Fireside Ltd

Web3 collaboration, connection and innovation platform for the world

Alex Simpson, co-founder, Fuze Applications

A ground-breaking solution for the wealth management sector

Hannah Underwood, co-founder, Insightano

Take the headache out of data engineering, analysis and visualisation to enable social sector to get answers and insights from their data

Christopher Withers, director, Miboxlive

Combining numeracy and sport to make maths learning fun

Louise Thompson, founder & CEO, Myfolks Ltd

Digital brokerage connecting elderly people who need extra help

Adelaide Da Cunha, director & co-founder, Northrak

Experts in Unreal Engine 4 & 5, producing prototypes, 2D and 3D assets for multimedia productions ranging from games to animation and VR

Peter Holdsworth, CEO, Odyssea Enterprise C.I.C

Cutting-edge social media app that revolutionises capture, preservation and sharing of cherished memories

Callum Duncan, CTO, Sencode Ltd

Cybersecurity services ranging from penetration testing and phishing protection which extends into realm of software development

Owen Thomson, founder & CEO, Simily

AI-driven matchmaking software for dating

Stephen Mitchell (Mitch), founder, SQCDP.co.uk

App and software platform that allows manufacturers to remove problem paperwork from their factory areas

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