Here’s What Went Down At The Hottest International Startup Event Held In Malta
Remember Hotjar – the fastest-growing analytics startup in the world that began with one Maltese entrepreneur? Well, the people behind it just organised an epic networking and awards event here in Malta for international startup businesses. As expected, it was a melting pot of creativity, amazing ideas, and awesome entrepreneurial brains.
Just in case you actually don’t remember: Hotjar is an all-in-one analytics tool which reveals the online behaviour of a website’s users. Think Google Analytics except aside from just showing you where your visitors are going on your site, Hotjar tells you what they’re doing and thinking.
The “Oscars” of the startup world
Over 100 guests flew in from all over the world for last weekend’s event at Villa Rosa to discuss digital experiences at the early startup stage. They also had the opportunity to compete in the Hotjar XAwards – which aimed to recognise great new digital ventures.
Over 640 teams originating from 63 countries submitted their application to participate. They each competed for their business idea to win one of the following titles and cash prizes:
- Best Overall Experience: €20,000 cash prize.
- Best Tech Achievement: €5,000 cash prize.
- Best Mobile App Experience: €5,000 cash prize.
Ten finalists were ultimately chosen to make their final pitch to a panel of judges, which included David Darmanin – CEO of Hotjar, on why they deserved to win the coveted cash prize of €20,000.
The Final Ten
The final ten teams flew in from seven different countries (including France, The United Kingdom, Serbia, The Netherlands, Poland, Bulgaria and Israel) to make their 3-minute pitch. Their ideas ranged from virtual personal assistants and digital website-builders, to holiday planning apps and customised music solutions – basically anything that sought to fulfil an untapped digital user need.
And the winners were…
The Best Tech Achievement Award
Real Eye – Poland
The first webcam eye-tracking software to be made accessible and affordable. Real Eye allows a website owner to see what its users see on its website, thus revealing their unconscious behaviour and providing valuable insights into reasons for lower conversion rates.
The Best Mobile App Experience Award
SoundR – France
SoundR is a novel way of discovering ‘the right music at the right time’ by converting feelings into playlists.
The Best Overall Experience Award
Crisp IM – France
The concept behind ‘Crisp’ is built on the premise that more than 50% of business people prefer instant messaging as a communication tool, rather than email or phone calls. The team created a one-stop-solution for a company’s employees to communicate with each other and to all customers via a collaborative inbox. With 5,000 active users and 1 million messages being currently sent on a weekly basis we foresee that we will hear a lot more about Crisp IM in the very near future.
Events like these help to bring together renowned speakers (this year’s included prestigious digital companies such as Basecamp, Pipedrive and Spotify) and up-and-comers in the digital world. It sure looked like an amazing event, and we’re keeping a close eye on the winners to see how far their award-winning ideas will take them!