3 UK Startups

26th March, 2014

It was a welcome announcement to see three UK technology research start-ups receive a share of Collider’s £1 million investment scheme. As well as investment the companies will also receive exceptional partnership knowledge through major organisations such as Unilever, Bauer Media and BBC Worldwide in an effort to engage ‘a product that his market ready from the offset.’

Collider12 acts as startup accelerator and is backed by a team of individually successful entrepreneurs along with core investor, Creative England. They represent the first organisation to consider purely assisting ‘companies focused on helping businesses achieve corporate growth and marketing goals’. The headline for Collider12 is perhaps not the cash invested in their startups but the collective ecology the organisation builds by working directly with startups to achieve maximum brand success from the outset.

With a strong focus on mobile and mass communication market disruption, the startups Collider12 collaborates with represent a strong market proposition where their technical innovation will inherently benefit their respective market. For the technology research companies in question this should provide instant customer validation whilst simultaneously substantiating their appearance in technology research sectors as an instantaneously useful tool. Interestingly, not all of the research tech companies are based around mobile.

Living-Lens has developed a platform for adding value to film in a process where they ‘take your content and give you the power to search the spoken word.’ With an almost instantaneous turnover from filming, to editing, to search the process will enable instant engagement in detailed consumer insights that can be presented and monitored from one filmed event to the next.

Sumo Insight do use mobile. They use it to ‘capture people’s opinions as they’re formed’ to enable instant, real time insight into company consumers. By utilising a realistic modern mobile framework designed to be triggered at certain times, that surveys are short and developed to be engaging they aim to provide ‘Smart Moments of Truth’ that truly provide direct consumer reaction to their experience. Sumo Insight understands the two key facets of mobilising insight: short and sweet, and keeping it genuinely mobile.

The third recipient of Collider funding is Stashmetrics, a social media metrics startup aimed appealing directly to the PR and Marketing industries. Whilst their analytics platform is currently in closed beta they aim to release a commercialised version of their product within 18 months and through their PR partner, Wolfstar, have already began working with ‘the world’s biggest brands.’

Innovation is alive and well in research technologies though it is important to note the importance of investor groups such as Collider12. The provision of investment, information, ambition and development will continue to enable startups the chance to flourish in the future, in turn allowing researchers chance evolve the tools in their repertoire and the knowledge base alongside to keep research practices moving forward.