It’s less than a week until Frontline Innovator 2021 gets underway. Several promising startups have joined the competition for this coveted award and the perks that come with it. Now there are only 4 up-and-coming businesses left to be judged on May 6th at Frontline Future 2021.
The winner will be advance to Beekeeper’s recently launched Acceleration Program. Participating startups will have access to potential clients and Beekeeper’s insights into frontline work to speed up go-to-market and product/market fit.
An important milestone in the acceleration program is integrating this solution with Beekeeper and a listing it on Beekeeper’s Marketplace. This enables frontline organizations to harness the power of the most innovative solutions in the market and one of the most effective productivity and collaboration platforms for frontline workers.
See all the shortlisted pitches at Frontline Future on May 6th and get your tickets.
The Jury
The Jury consists of seasoned experts in the startup world and business community. Among them are:
- Julie Maples, General Partner at FYRFLY Venture Partners
- Juan Muldoon, Partner at Energize Ventures
- Julian Riebartsch, Associate at btov Industrial Tech Fund
- Dr. Benoit Leleux, Professor of Entrepreneurship at IMD Business School
- Kees de Vos, Chief Product Officer at Beekeeper
The Jury is closely examining each candidate’s potential and any risks and challenges they are likely to face. Let’s see who made the shortlist for Beekeeper’s Innovator Award 2021 in alphabetical order.
Ario
Ario promises to give frontline workers easy-to-use knowledge-sharing tools that provide information when, where and how it’s needed most.
To achieve that, the US-based team decided to harness augmented reality. They develop tools to easily capture and distribute expert knowledge across all levels of an organization and enable workers to put the information right where it’s needed most. Virtual sticky notes or “pips” can be placed and viewed via mobile devices anywhere in the working environment. AR-powered collaboration tools allow for remote guidance when performing tricky tasks in maintaining or operating machinery.
epyMetrics
Emerging from the prolific startup scene around ETH Zurich, epyMetrics is focused on the health of frontline workers.
Specifically, the company is developing smart personal protective equipment (PPE) to track the heat stress experienced by “industrial athletes.” These are frontline workers in physically demanding jobs, often wearing heavy duty protective gear that increases the danger of overheating. Combining a wearable sensor with their proprietary physiological model and analytics, epyMetrics aims to empower workers, increase health and safety on the job and provide valuable business insights.
MachIQ
MachIQ was founded in 2016 in Switzerland to offer a platform connecting machine operators with maintenance needs to machine builders who offer after-sales services. The goal is to allow plant managers to maximize the performance of their industrial equipment and industrial suppliers while offering more services to their buyers in a cost-efficient way.
An important point that sets them apart in the field of maintenance management software is their openness. While most solutions in the field are bound to a specific brand of machines, MachIQ works with about 300 different OEM`s already.
Wowflow
Vienna-based startup Wowflow offers tailormade solutions for property maintenance teams. In his previous job as technical director for a shopping center, founder Drazen Ivanis experienced firsthand the challenges such frontline teams face. As he sees it, the time and effort they put just into communication, coordination and reporting takes up more than half of their time.
Wowflow aims to automate maintenance processes, eliminate paperwork and save resources for their clients. These already include an impressive array of retail clients in Austria.
