Over the past few years, the HR tech landscape has been shifting to a more automated and customer-centric approach. A new wave of HR related startups focused on combining AI, HR, process automation, human consulting, referrals, anonymity and matchmaking emerged across Europe. Some of these fast-growing HR startups have realistic chances of significantly changing recruiting, payroll, training and people’s management processes in the near future. This week, we took a closer look at the HR tech landscape with the goal to introduce you to 10 HR startups from across Europe with potential to disrupt the HR industry. Here they are:

JobRocker is an online job search portal that connects applicants’ CVs with job openings using a proprietary algorithm and further human driven consulting work. The Vienna-based startup was founded in 2016 by Günther Strenn. JobRocker aims to close the gap between headhunters and recruitment agencies and offers a pretty new concept in an old market. It enables you to harnessing the power of automated matching with human driven consulting for hiring. JobRocker raised €1 million in a Series A round in November 2017, led by Surplus Invest.

Zapiens is a collective intelligence platform that’s both fun and easy to use. Use Zapiens to maximize your team’s collective knowledge. Founded in April 2015, by Ivan Arrizabalaga, Marina Vidiago and Samuel Ordieres, Zapiens is helping companies find gaps in knowledge, formation and communication through Q&A gamification and artificial intelligence. Zapiens was the only finalist from Spain in the Pirates Summit and also won the B2B prize in the South Summit 2017 conference. So fare, the young company secured about €200K in seed funding.

MoBerries is an automated ranking system that matches applicants with companies searching for new hires. Founded in 2015, Berlin-based MoBerries takes a big data approach to recruitment. Its in-house developed hiring platform uses a proprietary automated ranking system that matches applicants with companies searching for new talent. It receives 10,000 applications weekly. The goal now is to build a screening bot for selecting candidates before interviews, as the founders deeply believe the candidates pre-filtering phase can be fully automated, having considerable scale gains impacting its users. MoBerries closed a €1.8 million seed round in May 2017.

Hibob is an all-in-one, cloud-based HR & benefits platform that gives fast-growing businesses a better way to engage and manage their employees. The London- and Tel Aviv-based startup was founded in 2015. The HR platform concentrates on various human resources related processes and workflows. From benefits to work documents and from pension plans to recruiting, the platform also provides specific data about corporate culture and employees, streamlining admin and improving employees’ experiences with a smart mobile app, through an inviting onboarding and survey tools. The rich real-time data in bob gives decision-makers valuable insights and helps employees feel more connected to the people they work with. Hibob raised about $25 million so far and is currently busy expanding into foreign markets.

Jobbatical is a matchmaking platform for techies and tech employers. Jobbatical was founded in 2014 by Karoli Hindriks, Allan Mäeots and Ronald Hindriks. Their online platform assists candidates to search for positions in technology sector internationally. With users in excess of 100,000, from more than 150 countries, and having raised $7.9 million, Tallinn-based Jobbatical enables people to work from where they feel happy in terms of location, instead of working in the same boring office/location evey day.

Productive Mobile was founded in 2014 and aims at making humans more productive, by simplifying and automating manual tasks. The Berlin-based startup wants to become a leader in the nascent field of Human Process Augmentation (HPA). Their software revolutionizes the way enterprise software workflows are built, optimized and automated because of its fast implementation and lower costs, making humans more productive, by simplifying and automating manual tasks that still require human interaction. The startup’s software enables customers to quickly design simple, modern and personalized applications, and easily connect them with a company’s existing IT infrastructure, using software robots to connect any application or workflow, which can also be used to automate tasks or run applications in the background. So far, Productive Mobile raised about €3.4 million in seed funding.

MeetFrank is a Tallinn-based startup which offers an anonymous recruiting App. The MeetFrank app works as a chatbot and interacts directly with applicants, using AI and machine learning. The app analyzes the needs of users and proposes job advertisements that match with the candidates’ profile and abilities, from the jobs pool. If the user is interested in one of the suggested positions, he or she can start a private and anonymous chat with the company to find out more about the position. The Estonia-based HR startup was founded in 2017 and their app excludes discrimination and increases diversity in the work place, as it does not collect information about age, gender, or origin from its users. It counts an excess of 125,000 users in Scandinavia, the Baltics and Germany. Hummingbird VC, Karma VC, and Change Ventures invested €1 million in the Tallinn-based startup.

Opening.io was founded in 2015 by Andreea Wade and Adrian Mihai in Dublin, and it uses AI to make the recruitment process entirely data-driven. AI enables users to narrow down candidate pools based on role-specific criteria. It has context aware capabilities and task orientation and performs analysis in bulk quantities of candidates profiles. It gathers important information from each resume, like education, experience, candidate code, portfolio, abilities and ranks everything against all other candidates, matching them to suitable jobs forecasting salaries and exposing data harvested insights. This results in up to 40% less time spent in the recruiting process and 90% of the shortlisted applicants move to the call phase.

Healthy Workers: Founded in 2015 and based in Amsterdam, Healthy Workers helps large companies such as UWV and IBM gain insight into employee well-being and the quality of life in the office building to provide so-called “interventions” that provide a pleasant working environment and happier employees. The startup combines environmental data with science-based people analytics, to uncover actionable insights. In August 2017, the HR technology startup has raised a total of €500K of growth capital from six investors.

Personio: The Munich-based HR-management and recruiting platform was founded in 2015. The startup offers a holistic HR and applicant management software designed for companies with 10 to 1000 employees. Their solution plays a critical role in making the day-to-day business operations of HR teams more efficient, transparent and effortless, while respecting German privacy standards. So far, the company raised about $14.3 million to push its SaaS-product and establish itself as Europe’s leading HR software for small and middle-sized companies.

The electric scooter startup felyx just raised €2 million in additional funding through a combination of private investors and the ABN AMRO bank. Earlier this year, felyx already raised €1 million to accelerate growth. Founded in 2016, thousands of users currently share the 108 electric scooters of felyx in Amsterdam. The combined funds will now be used to expand with the shared mobility concept to Rotterdam, where felyx will start with 324 e-scooters.

The investment of additional €2 million is the decisive factor for expansion to Rotterdam, where earlier this year a letter of intent was signed by the city to introduce the concept. The first step for expansion was made early 2018, when €1 million was raised for the organizational growth of the company. That earlier investment was made by informal investors, of which Anne-Marie Rakhorst, entrepreneur and founder of the platform Duurzaamheid.nl, is one. Unlike Bird and LimeBike that offer stand-up scooters, Felyx offers larger electric ‘mopeds’ suitable for two people to drive.

The dark green electric scooters are already part of the streetscape in Amsterdam. Consumers can easily rent the e-scooters through the felyx app for Apple and Android. Driving costs €0,30 per minute, and users do not have to worry about maintenance or parking spots for the vehicles.

Felyx successfully launched the sharing concept in Amsterdam, where the e-scooters can be collected and dropped everywhere within the service area. Their well-thought-out approach of this ‘free-floating’ principle prevents (parking) issues. The prevention of nuisance was also an important condition for the company to start in Rotterdam.

The launch of felyx in Rotterdam is an important milestone for co-founder Quinten Selhorst and his team. He stated: “Our goal is not only to move around people, but also to make cities more livable. When people leave cars and taxis, they will not only benefit from less congestion and emissions, but they will also get from A to B faster. A survey amongst our users shows that 50% would have used a (shared) car or taxi if felyx would not have been available for their last trip*. We also offer a great alternative for everyone who has their own (gasoline) scooter or wants to buy one. We think Rotterdam is ready for felyx. And after Rotterdam, who knows… There are many more cities in The Netherlands, but also in Europe, where our shared green scooters can improve mobility and air quality for users and inhabitants.”

The e-scooters are not only painted green, they are also 100% electric and powered by green energy from Dutch wind. In the past year the e-scooters drove 430.000 km, saving 50 tons of CO2. The extraction of this amount of CO2 from the air would require 2.500 trees to grow for one year. Felyx will start testing in Rotterdam next month and expects to open the service to everyone in September.

2018 – the year of trying to achieve a work/life blend in our daily routines, unwinding, eating healthier, being active, meditating, finding out what makes one truly happy, and having the true freedom of not needing to sit at your desk all day, and all that preferably on a beach in Indonesia, am I right? – that is what most people wish for when getting asked: “What would be your dream job?”. While this will keep being just a dream for most people, the reality is a hectic life, which contributes to a higher level of depression, burnout and anxiety than ever before. Following the “work hard play hard” mentality, today’s society is probably the most mentally over-worked generation who has ever lived, meaning it is about time we get some support from the masterminds.

Well, most likely that all isn’t as easy as we hope it to would be, but there are many great startups trying to make just a slight difference to daily routines and really trying to motivate us into living a happier and healthier life. The 8 European startups below are actively contributing to one’s mindful happiness and a more joyfull life.

Moodpath: Diagnosis and therapy from your smartphone A German startup founded by the co-founders Felix Frauendorf and Mark Goering, in 2016, it is meant to help people find their way out of depression. It is now the leading app for fighting mental weaknesses and accompanies one to “get on the right path”. The idea is that the app detects mental health disorders and is able to help manage them. It works with cognitive behavioral therapy and was developed with experienced therapists and doctors.

Novego: Another German startup that offers clients and 12-week program, priced at €177 to help overcome symptoms of depression, anxiety and burnout. It even includes access to advisers with degrees in psychology and who are reachable round the clock. Novego is headquartered in Hamburg and the company’s service is currently only available in German.

Mappiness: A UK-based startup that developed an iOS-only app that asks its users daily about their level of happiness, their surroundings and basic details about it. It is part of a research project from the London School of Economics, to be able to understand better how people’s feelings are affected by their current situations and environments. It then provides its users with data about when, where and with whom they are happiest and provides the researchers, of course, with a huge amount of anonymous information.

PSYT: Another UK-based startup that exists to help users live a happier, healthier, fulfilling and more productive lives. They focus on large-scale, positive changes that improve the well-being of individuals. To make sure their users understand their main mission, they enable them to “get the best out of themselves”, whether at work, home or school.

Lifesum: The Stockholm-based startup created a tool to help you forge good habits for an improved overall quality of life and a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Founded by CEO Henrik Torstensson, Lifesum is the leading health app in Scandinavia, Germany, France, Italy and Russia. It goes from reminding you to drink more water to presenting you overviews on your nutritional and exercise habits and is loved by millions.

8fit: Focusing on sustainable and health living and weight loss… because if you are not physically healthy, it is difficult to be mentally healthy. The Spanish-born founder Pablo Villalba, planted his startup in Berlin, Germany, but is planning to expand into the US, since they have proven to be 8fit’s largest market. 8fit concentrates on achievable workout and diet regimes and has proven results to many.

Sleep Cycle: A sleep tracking tool that monitors its users’ sleep patterns via movement and sound and wakes them at the optimal time in their REM cycle. Founded by Maciek Drejak, Sleep Cycle remains (and has remained) the leader in the app store with healthy sales. The app’s vision is to let their users start their days feeling refreshed instead of tired and constantly wanting to reach for the snooze-button.

Healthy Workers: The Amsterdam-based startup Healthy Workers helps large companies such as UWV and IBM gain insight into employee well-being and the quality of life in the office building to provide so-called “interventions” that provide a pleasant working environment and happier employees. The startup combines environmental data with science-based people analytics, to uncover actionable insights. Since we spend a huge proportion of our our life at work, a solution which keeps track of the well-being of the workforce makes total sense, both for employers and employees.

Mental, health, to nutrition, to sleep patterns, exercise and mindfulness – all these aspects contribute to happier and healthier lives. In our nowaday society, we tend to be in need of support to achieve all the goals we have in our minds. It helps to remind ourselves once in a while that we live not just to earn as much money as possible, or to achieve the biggest success ever, but to also give our mind and body the ability to sit back, relax and enjoy a nice view, go for a long and intense bike ride, look and feel the best we can or be aware what is worth getting our minds worked up for and what isn’t.

Please remember, these are still only tools that might help and enhance the way we feel, but if there are large issues pending, do not feel ashamed to look for personal help or support to get rid of any doubts and struggles you might be feeling. After all, we are all human.

Do you wonder why check in at hotels often takes so long? Until recently hotels were forced to rely upon a closed one-stop-shop systems offered up by incumbent players. Founded in 2012 by Matthijs Welle and Richard Valtr, Mews has revolutionised the way that hotels operate across all departments, through its mobile hotel management platform. Mews enables hoteliers to free themselves from boring administration and rather focus on creating real customer experiences.

The company is based in Amsterdam, with additional offices in Prague, London, Paris and Barcelona. Mews, which already employs a team of about 100 people, recently closed a €6 million Series A funding round led by Notion Capital, with participation from HenQ and Thayer Ventures. We interviewed the founder and CEO Matthijs Welle, who is leading Mews from the company’s office in Prague, to learn about his entrepreneurial journey and future plans.

Matthijs, what is Mews? What do you do?

Mews is a software company that has built a complete back office solution for hotels. If you have ever checked into a hotel, and wondered why you have to queue up at a reception desk to get into your room, while airlines invented online check-in almost 20 years ago…so did we. So we rebuilt the entire hotel software infrastructure to support an open network of apps, allowing hoteliers to completely revamp and modernise their guest experiences.

Who are your competitors, and what makes your offering stand out?

Our biggest competitor is Oracle, who acquired Micros Fidelio a few years back, which has been the leader in the industry for years. They are however struggling to get traction with their own cloud solution and most of their clients still run on their old on-premise system, which is clunky and hard to integrate with. Besides Oracle there is a host of competitors, mostly regional and mostly focused on smaller hotels. Mews on the outset never shied away from tackling complex environments, large hotels, lots of integrations and going after pretty much any country we could get our hands on. This made the early years really tough, but recently we started to reap the benefits, as we can handle chain hotels, across multiple countries, with up to 2,000 rooms per hotel. Another winner is our open API, which in most other industries is expected, in the hotel technology landscape its still not a given. The open API allows any partner to integrate into Mews, and to date we have 140 partners connected.

How did the hotel industry change in the past ten years? Where will it be in another ten years? What trends do you see?

Unfortunately the hotel industry has been relatively stagnant, due to the lack of innovation in their back-office systems, which is a big blocker in launching guest facing applications, as they need to pull the guest data from those systems. If you would walk into any mid-range hotel and just spend 30 minutes in the lobby observing the reception desk, you will see the incredible level of manual work involved in operating and serving guests, its crazy. Many hotel managers are just blind to it, as its how we have always done business, but I think there is a tipping point coming. As hotels will move to the Cloud (I estimate only 5-10% today are in the Cloud), this will bring a liberation and will allow hotels to get creative with their guest experiences. The open API will allow hoteliers to get really creative in coming up with new scenarios to hyper-personalize guest experiences.

What challenges do hotels face today?

This year has been all about GDPR and a lot of our competitors have struggled to implement great solutions that allows guests to query to see the personal data a hotel has on record. This was a great opportunity for Cloud systems. I think the next big thing will be PCI compliance, as hotels today still process huge volumes of credit cards manually (by typing in 16 digits on credit card terminals) which is incredibly old fashioned. Hoteliers unfortunately don’t spend enough on their back-office innovation, and at some point this will need to get tackled.

How did Mews grow so fast? Any secret growth hacking tips?

We were incredibly lucky to find a killer startup team, which was key to our early success. The real growth came in the last 2 years, where we expanded into 38 countries across hotels, hostels, chains, campsites and AirBnB apartments. Early on we learned that hotels needed to integrate a myriad of systems into the PMS (accounting, door locks, TV, travel agents, housekeeping, revenue management, etc) and we did not have the manpower to build each and every integration ourselves. So when we opened up our API 2 years ago, suddenly we did not have to build everything ourselves, but we were able to ask the partners to rather integrate into Mews, which proved to be a winning formula.

What growth do you expect this and next year?

Our revenues grew by 400% over the last 12 months and we are already seeing this trend continue for the coming months, which is amazing. Our team grew from 40 people in January this year to 100 people today in August, with locations in Prague, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Barcelona and we will be opening offices in Berlin and Sydney in the coming months.

Why are you in this particular industry/business?

I have always been passionate about hotels, and I knew from age 4 that I was going to work in this industry. After almost 10 years with Hilton, I felt it was time to tackle bigger challenges and join Richard (the founder) in bringing some real innovation. It was a huge bet, but luckily the hard work paid off.

How is it to manage a global business from Prague?

Its been hard in the early years, as there is a lack of serious VC’s and investors who can help young startups succeed and the community of entrepreneurs is very small in comparison to London or Amsterdam. We therefore consciously started looking for investments in the Netherlands and UK, and found that to be a successful path to be on. We are looking for a lot of talent to join our Prague team, as we are quickly scaling up our support, training and development teams, so anyone interested can apply.

The pet market is booming everywhere around the world with a steady increase in pet-related sales value. According to recent studies, the specific reason why the industry keeps expanding in the Europe and across the world is twofold: The households owning at least one pet animal have increased and consumers have been spending more and more per pet.

The estimated number of pet dogs is about 87 million and the number of cats is araound 102 million. This all adds up to almost 200 million animals, without even counting other small mammals, nor caged neither birds nor fish. This has certainly boosted the pet food products industry, however a massive growth in value has been registered also in non-food related products and even pet-dedicated accessories and/or supplies also witnessed such a trend.

The startup world has not been immune to the lure of this variegated industry and set out to innovate especially in two product categories: pet food and pet services. Let’s have a look at some successful examples of startups tackling the pet market across Europe:

Butternut Box is not your average pet food company. The British startup founded in 2016 is about as luxurious as a pet brand can get. The company, in fact, cooks and delivers boxes of fresh dog food to homes across the UK. All the food is cooked-to-order in weekly batches and tailored to suit the needs of each individual dog. The people at Butternut Box have made quality and freshness their distinctive features: ‘Putting the food back into dog food’ is their motto. Over the past two years, the successful startup has secured the impressive figure of £6.2 million in three rounds of funding.

Mascoteros is a Barcelona-based pet startup operating in Spain and Portugal. Its leading ecommerce marketplace of pet products comprises a network of 300 pet shops across Spain, 520 brands and 35.000 items. Founded in 206, the company’s main strengths are its big product catalogue, competitive prices and its delivery service. After two rounds of funding Mascoteros has managed to raise a total of €1.8 million.

PawSquad was launched in August 2015 in London with the mission to improve the way pet healthcare is delivered. Over the past few years, the startup has built a successful marketplace that connects pet owners to pet care providers (vets, trainers, breeders, nutritionists) over multiple touch points. PawSquad features services such as ‘Video Visits’, a 24/7 face-to-face video consultation service with certified vets. Within two rounds of funding the startups has been able to assemble a total of about €1.6 million.

Snau: Another pet startup from Spain, Snau, is the go-to website for a dog’s owner everyday needs. Founded in 2016, the platform is a vetted marketplace of dog services such as sitting, walking, training and grooming. The young company also offers a space to keep your pets while you are on vacation. In just less than two years, the Madrid-based startup has secured €305K in seed funding.

Tailwise was launched in 2017, in the UK. The London-based startup originated from the ambition of its two founders, Dan Baird and Sam Worthy, to ease the process of looking for and purchasing a dog. Today, Tailwise is a platform that matches dog buyers with trusted and safe dog breeders. The company also provides its users with guidance and assistance when looking for a dog, vetting breeders, ensuring puppies are healthy and giving future owners a ‘No Puppy Farm’ guarantee. As of today, the British pet startup has secured about €225K in funding.

Felcana: Founded in 2016 in London, Felcana is a tech startup devoted to pet healthcare. Felcana monitors your cat’s and dog’s health and wellbeing, using connected devices and tracking exercise, temperature, eating and drinking habits, and sleeping patterns. This data is collected and analysed in Felcana’s cloud computing platform, which also produces reports and insights made available for the veterinarian experts. Felcana’s first product “Felcana Health Monitoring Kit” was launched earlier this year. The startup received about €200,000 in grants from Innovate UK in addition to Angel investments.

Oupet is a startup company launched in 2015 and based in Finland that offers pet sitting services. Oupet helps pet owners find trusted and qualified pet sitters in Finland whenever needed. Among its services: boarding, house sitting, drop-in visit, daycare, dog walking and grooming for dogs, cats and other pets. The kaverivahti platform also offers to its users the possibility to become a pet sitter on Oupet free of charge. However, pet sitters need to go through a verification process before being approved. Pet owners can easily compare pet sitters, chat with them and make a booking either on the website or the mobile apps. So far, Oupet has only raised about €50K in funding.

Wooldog: According to Inc. magazine, Wooldog is one of the ‘Coolest Canine Startups of 2017’. The company was founded in 2016 and is based in Poznan, Poland. Wooldog mostly produces handcrafted sweaters and unconventional pet-centered items such as wool blankets and cowls. Its e-shop and Instagram feed feature dogs wrapped in wool pieces which are single handedly manufactured by the Polish brand’s artisans.

Dinbeat: This Barcelona-based pet startup has developed a wearable device, called DinbeatPRO, which monitors the pet’s health in veterinary facilities. The device allows vets to continuously monitor their vitals giving pets the best, real time, medical assistance. This way, Dinbeat is saving time and money for veterinarians, helping them to grow their business., and improving the quality of pet’s life. Apart from the technology, Dinbeat’s website includes a marketplace of gadgets dedicated to pet lovers. Dinbeat was founded in 2016

Petbnb: Founded in 2015 and based in the Netherlands, Petbnb connects dog lovers with dog owners looking for a trusted sitter for their pooch. The platform is inspired by AirbnB and allows its users to find dog day care, house sitters, dog walkers and many other services in a selected area of the Netherlands. The platform is present in more than 700 towns around the country and counts over 1,000 subscribed sitters. The company also promises to dog professionals who subscribe to the platform to help them grow their businesses with 24/7 support, tools, and useful tips.

With heatwaves sweeping most of the European countries these last weeks, and summer showing all its exuberance, we take the opportunity to introduce you to 10 European startups that are changing the face of travel in 2018.

The hottest hubs for innovation Europe’s travel industry are now Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona and London. We can observe trends in chatbots, services integration like expenses invoicing and tracking, niche and business travel, besides automated search and purchasing apps through instant messaging platforms.

Here are 10 promising startups, founded from 2014 onwards, that are already making big waves in the European travel industry:

HotelChamp was founded in Amsterdam in 2015 and offers a suite of conversion tools powered by AI and machine learning that boosts direct revenue of hotels and helps them build guest relations. Founders Kasper Middelkoop and Kristian Valk say that the service enhances guest engagement and delivers a personalized booking experience, while promoting a more sustainable future in which hotels have more control and are less dependent on third parties. The Amsterdam-based startup supports more than 1,000 hotels in more than 40 countries and it has grown in two years to a team of more than 50 employees. It built a portfolio that includes Millennium Hotel Group, The Athenaeum in London and Hotel Palazzo Versace in Dubai among others, having raised over €4 million in funding so far.

TravelPerk: Launched in 2015, Barcelona-based TravelPerk allows individuals and companies to book and manage business travel. “If you’re stuck in Berlin with all flights cancelled, we’ll find a flight to bring you back home,” says co-founder Avi Meir – who sold his previous startup Hotel Ninjas to Booking.com. Javier Suarez and Ron Levin complete the founders team. Among TravelPerk’s top features, it has tools such as centralized invoicing, simplified itinerary emails and expenses integration to deliver a one-stop shop service to users. The fast-growing travel startup has raised $8.5 million to date and they won the Scale Startup Competition at the TNW Conference in Amsterdam in May 2017.

Flio: Founded in Q4 of 2014 by serial entrepreneur Stephan Uhrenbacher, FLIO set out to make the most out of the time you spend at airports. FLIO is free and shows you live flight info, gives you insider tips, connects you to Wi-Fi, shows you maps of each airport, lets you pin your flights on a globe so you can keep track of where you’ve been, and more. You can share your tips and advice, too. So far, the Hamburg-based startup has raised a smaller seed funding round and took part in the London-based Founders Factory of Lastminute founder and investor Brent Hoberman.

Medigo was founded in by Pawel Cebula, Ieva Soblickaite and Ugur Samut 2014, in Berlin, with the goal to act as an online search and engagement platform, connecting patients and doctors globally. The medical tourism startup aims to disrupt the healthcare industry by helping patients to target high-quality clinics, and doctors, and also possibly have shorter waiting times and more affordable treatments than in their home country. The service counts with over 900 top internationally accredited hospitals and thousands of expert doctors in more than 30 countries. The company has raised $11.83 million to date. The platform is completely free-to-use and is currently available in 5 languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, and French.

Comtravo: In our research, Berlin has emerged together with Amsterdam and Barcelona as the European powerhouses for travel innovation and top German startups include Comtravo. Founded in Berlin in 2015 by Jannik Neumann, Michael Riegel and Simon Schmincke, the young company offers a platform that uses natural language processing and AI technology and human travel experts to offer quick business travel booking via email, SMS, Skype or its self-booking platform. Comtravo has raised €8.5 million in funding so far, from investors like Howzat Partners, Monkfish Equity, Creandum and Project A.

Bidroom was founded in Amsterdam in 2014 by Casper Knieriem and Michael Ros. The startup has a simple and powerful idea of charging hotels no commissions after a one time €149 fee. Instead, it charges travelers a yearly membership fee of €59 for full access. Other reservation platforms can take up to 30% of the booking rates, being a nightmare for independent hotels and small chains alike. VISA, the credit card issuer, noticed the disruption in this model and approached Bidroom, marketing the platform to its clients in Europe. Bidroom has raised about €6 million so far, from investors like the Egyptian multi-millionaire Samih Swairis.

Destygo differentiates from the crowd of chatbot suppliers by creating a conversational AI platform specialized in the travel industry. Think of Destygo as the “chatbots for travel people”. Founded in 2016, the Paris-based travel startup is a graduate of International Airlines Group (IAG)’s Hangar 51 accelerator — and it already builds chat- and voice-assistants for companies, such as Iberia Airlines. Destygo has raised €1 million so far from investors like Partech Ventures and AccorHotels.

CorreYvuela is a Barcelona-based travel chatbot startup that allows users to book flights with only three messages on WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram or even SMS. From your smartphone, you can plan a trip and the chatbot will provide you with the best itinerary option and a safe link where you can pay for your flight online. It was founded in 2016 by Juan Prim and Carlos Nunes, and it has raised about €775K till date. CorreYvuela is an alternative to the user who buys flights on Internet, as it offers the best flight option in a fast and convenient way, through instant messaging and SMS.

Holidu: Founded in 2014 in Munich by Johannes Siebers and Michael Siebers, Holidu helps you find the best holiday vacation rental accommodations from all of the leading travel websites. The Holidu website and app compares prices and user reviews, ranking the vacation rental options accordingly. The Munich-based company, which also took part in the pitch competition of the very first EU-Startups Conference in 2014, has so far raised about $6,4 million in venture capital, with mentors and investors who helped Booking.com, Spotify and Zalando expand globally.

Snaptrip: Headquartered in London, Snaptrip aims to make it as easy as possible to find the right holiday at the right price in Ireland and United Kingdom cottages, with discounts of up to 50%. Snaptrip was founded in 2014 by Dan Harrison and Matthew Fox, and it aims to become the UK’s leading site for last-minute breaks in self-catered holiday properties. The travel startup has already raised a total of $8.2 million.

From the Erasmus University to the Cube houses, Rotterdam represents a mixture of innovation, design and talent. With Europe’s largest port and with many international companies having offices in the city, Rotterdam is also the most multicultural town in the Netherlands, hosting inhabitants of over 160 different nationalities, forming the young and dynamic startup scene in the city. If you want to check out the Rotterdam startup ecosytem for just a few days, or maybe even a few months, here are 10 of the city’s best coworking spaces:

42 Workspace is a community of tech and digital entrepreneurs, offering flexible membership options from a hybrid desk to a private office. All members have access to a fully equipped kitchen, high-speed internet, terrace and lounge areas, but for an additional cost, you will have at your disposal use of meeting rooms, admin services, gym, breakfast etc. Known to host great events. Costs: Monthly packages vary from €99 to €199.

Cambridge Innovation Center – Originally an American concept, CIC Rotterdam opened its doors in September 2016. Flexible desks or dedicated offices is the choice to be done, as well as unmetered printing, scanning and copying, a fully stocked kitchen and over 60 diverse events each month. CIC is also certified facilitator for Startup Visa program. Costs: Monthly packages are available for €250.

TSH Collab – TSH Collab is bringing together a new generation of international citizens and digital nomads. This beautifully-designed professional space offers flexible desk, dedicated desk or private offices, with full amenities included, as well as a kitchen, lounge area, library, ping-pong/pool table. Moreover, their co-living options in their student hotel are offered at discount prices, as well as access to a gym, restaurant and bar. Costs: Monthly packages start at €99.

The Rotterdam Collective – Placing a focus on environmentally and socially innovative projects, The Rotterdam Collective hosts professionals across industries ranging from tech, design, art and sustainability, making the space diversified and exciting. The open floor spacious workspace is complemented with a kitchen, lounge area, meeting room and table tennis. Costs: Monthly packages start at €124.

The Commune is Rotterdam’s incubator for creative entrepreneurs. 255m2 of space is designed to encourage creative entrepreneurship, in the form of a studio, research room, kitchen, call-corner, print room, meeting room, mechanical workshops etc. Full amenities are included, but the best part is its educational portfolio, allowing access to training and extensive networking events. Costs: Monthly packages start at €125.

HNK Rotterdam – With multiple locations around the country, HNK provides its members with ergonomically furnished work areas and full facilities such as 24/7 access, fast Wifi, onsite cafe, admin services, office supplies and equipment, and table football/foosball for relaxation. Coworking options include flexible desks or managed offices. Costs: Monthly packages start at €175.

Kleinhandel – The biggest co-working space in the center of Rotterdam hosts an energetic mix of start-ups, scale-ups, corporates, and creatives working in over 25 different disciplines. Their offer includes open space or private offices, accompanied by an onsite cafe, outdoor terrace, chill-out area, kitchen, Skype room, childcare and makerspace. Costs: Monthly packages vary from €129 to €249.

Tribes – Inspired by the indigenous, nomadic tribes around the world, Tribes is an award-winning coworking space. And for a good reason. Unique interior, designed to enhance creativity, 5 start services, provocative meeting rooms, freshly brewed coffee from Ethiopia, and Tribes service team on hand. Memberships are offered based on your preferred location in any Tribes office around the world. Costs: Monthly packages start at €125.

#Workmode is an all-girl club, a unique female-focused coworking and co-learning space, offering plenty of sunshine in their space, filled with flexible desks, comfy chairs and vintage couches. From online influencers and digital creatives, they have access to printers, storage space, kitchen and library. Known for great workshops, events and master classes. Costs: Monthly packages vary from €110 to €240.

Spaces – Hosting a community of professionals from various industries, Spaces offers a stylishly furnished office, available 24/7, either desk or office, tailored to your needs. Services include cupboard, locker, print/scan/copy as well as access to kitchen and meeting rooms. Monday morning yoga to start the week. The company’s membership additionally provides access to a full program of events. Costs: Monthly packages start at €225.

​Siilo​, the secure instant messaging app for healthcare professionals, has raised a €4.5 million in a funding round led by ​EQT Ventures​, with participation from existing investors. The fresh capital will be used to scale-up Siilo’s user base across Europe, with a particular focus on the UK and Germany.

Medical professionals are faced with an increasingly fragmented healthcare system and outdated methods of communication, such as fax, pagers and landlines. This often results in key patient data being siloed and valuable time being wasted trying to get access to the right information.

Founded in 2016 by Joost Bruggeman, a surgery resident, Arvind Rao, and Onno Bakker, founder from mobile messaging app eBuddy, Siilo breaks down healthcare communication barriers and keeps patient data secure. Personal and professional data is kept separate on the device, with patient information and related discussions stored in a secure encrypted vault created by Siilo. Content is not automatically backed-up to the cloud and synced across multiple devices in the household (as with consumer apps) and messages in Siilo are deleted every 30 days unless healthcare professionals request otherwise.

The app ensures medical teams can better manage their workflow, securely collaborate on patients’ treatments and discuss challenging cases with their peers. As well as having instant, direct access to colleagues working in their organization, doctors can also tap into a broader network of expertise by searching Siilo’s verified user base.

Siilo has achieved level 3 status assessed as a NHS Business Partner organisation type as defined by the NHS,​ ​which is the NHS’ highest level of Information Government compliance. With more 7.5 million messages processed per month and more than 100,000 users in renowned institutions such as St. George’s Hospital, London, and Charité Berlin, Germany, Siilo is already Europe’s largest secure messenger for healthcare. Organic adoption has also occurred in smaller home healthcare teams in California, US, and entire transplantation teams from Astana, Kazakhstan.

Joost Bruggeman, CEO and co-founder of Siilo stated: “Having worked in the trenches as a surgery resident, I’ve experienced the challenges that healthcare professionals face firsthand. With Siilo, we’re connecting all healthcare professionals to make them more efficient, enable them to share patient information securely and continue learning and share their knowledge. The directory of vetted healthcare professionals helps ensure they’re successful team-players within a wider healthcare network that takes care of the same patient.”

The Siilo founders coin this phenomenon ‘network medicine’, which is in contrast to the current old-fashioned, siloed medicine. The goal is to improve patient care overall, and patients have a network of doctors providing input into their treatment. Together with EQT Ventures, and the team’s knowledge of scaling businesses, Siilo is now looking forward to moving the world of healthcare into the era of ‘network medicine.

Siilo’s secure messaging application is free for medical team players. Siilo Connect is the company’s subscription service for organisations and professional associations, providing extensive management, administration, networking and software integration tools.

Climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our society, and many governments, cities and corporations stand united in the fight against it. Startups are also joining this fight by using new technologies and innovative business models with both environmental and financial sustainability. We’re regularly witnessing novel products and services that aim to avert environmental disaster. It’s time to highlight some of them. Below you’ll find 10 European startups leveraging innovation to protect our society from global warming. 

Altered Company: Founded in 2015, this Stockholm-based company developed a water nozzle that reduces water usage up to 98 per cent, by turning your tap’s flow of water into a heavy mist. The nozzle can be installed in 30 sec into an existing tap, it is made from lead-free eco brass and it comes in the five different colours. The startup also just got awarded as winner of the 2018 Climate solver award.

Olio: Described as Tinder for food, Olio is a food exchange app, connecting people with their neighbours, local shops and cafes so that surplus food can be shared, not thrown away. Founded in 2015 in London, Olio is tackling the world’s food waste epidemic by combining mobile technology with the power of the sharing economy and an engaged local community, with over $8.2 million in funding.

PHYSEE Technologies: Founded by two applied physicists in 2014 as a spin-off Delft University of Technology, Physee Technologies has developed and patented transparent windows that convert light into electricity, PowerWindows.In addition, their SmartWindow can analyze environmental conditions like light, temperature and humidity and communicate them through the EESYapp. The young company also got awarded as Technology Pioneer by World Economic Forum.

Sympower: Named as one of the Global Cleantech 100 Ones to Watch, Sympower’s unique smart platform is a demand response aggregator that enables smarter energy use for a carbon-free future. The Climate- KIC alumni raised €1 million investment in 2017 to scale up their business,  significantly reducing CO2 emissions and potential saving €80 billion.

The Great Bubble Barrier: The winner of the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge 2018 is a revolutionary air bubble curtain that tackles plastic pollution without affecting river traffic. The Amsterdam-based startup creates a barrier of air bubbles that directs waste to the side of the river or canal, where it can be collected while allowing passage of fish and ships. The first Bubble Barrier is due to be piloted in the Netherlands this year.

MaaS Global is the company behind the Whim app, a revolutionary mobile app, giving people access to a huge variety of transport options while eliminating the necessity of car ownership. The app has combined all the city’s mobility options into a single app, making city travel as seamless as possible and bringing into reality the concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS). The startup also just got awarded as winner of European Startup Prize for mobility 2018.

Amber Mobility: The Eindhoven-based startup Amber Mobility comes with a combination of an intelligent car-sharing platform with a modular, autonomous, and customizable electric car, Amber One. Amber is a next-generation car sharing platform developed with partners such as TomTom for maps, Nvidia for image and sensor data processing, and Microsoft for use of Azure and AI software. The startup plans to drive us towards the future.

BioCarbon Engineering was founded in 2014 in the UK with the ambition to plant 500 billion trees by 2060 through the use of drones. Their drone technology is adapted to survey environments and then disperse seeds at high speed across massive areas. According to the young company, this is 10 times more effective than traditional hand-planting, being able to plant as many as 100,000 trees in a single day. 

BeeBryte is an energy intelligence solution provider, providing a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platform to help commercial buildings, factories, EV charging stations or entire eco-suburbs to consume electricity in a smarter, more efficient and cheaper way while reducing their carbon footprint. The Winner of the “Smart Cities Global Innovation Award 2017” by Le Monde just completed a $3 million funding round.

The Ocean Cleanup: The winner of the United Nations Champion of the Earth award by the UN is a Rotterdam-based startup, founded by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat. In an effort to cleanse oceans of 90% of their plastic by 2040, The Ocean Cleanup will deploy tube barriers to act as an artificial coastline and passively catch and collect ocean debris. Time Magazine placed it on its 25 Best Inventions of 2015 list.

A whole cluster of new sleep apps, sites and devices are literally waking up the digital health industry, from data analysis to innovative wearables – exciting startups are working on our day-to-day sleep problems.

The digital health sector experienced incredible highs in funding over the last three years, for instance 2015 reaching an all-time-high of $4.5 billion, as well it was forecast that the funding of devices to help diagnose and/or treat the 56% US citizens, 31% of Western Europeans and 23% Japanese suffering frequent sleeping disorders, would reach a funding of $130 million in 2017, which was completely accurate. Even though these disorders had usually been consulted with a physician, the most that has been done, is giving drug prescriptions – mainly in the USA and Japan, where 90% of the sleep deprived had been prescribed some type of medicine, where as in Western Europe “only” 50% had been treated with similar prescriptions. This is a very worrying and large number of humans who need to fight with this burden in their every-day-lives.

Given the studies that some major Universities have released, this boom of funding these types of “helping hands” is not surprising. A quick search on any crowdfunding platform shows many innovative, exciting and forward-thinking sleep products promised to help the consumer better his sleeping pattern.

Parallel to the boom of consumers wanting to better their overall sleeping patterns, there has been a hype in the past years of being much more active in their health care. Consumers are spending more money on their health than before. Meaning that such devices help keep consumers engaged and aware of their health care, without needing an overly frequent record of visits at a physician, as well as knowing that these devices could be way less harmful than the typical prescription drugs.

Yet doctors have noticed this trend as well. Michael Breus, a sleep specialist and author has seen a skyrocket in patients visiting him with their sleep trackers. He remains suspicious of the accuracy, yet he appreciates that it is in some way forcing people to make it a habit of looking at their sleep pattern, and wanting to improve the weaknesses. Yet what happens with all this data that is being collected? The National Sleep Foundation of the United States requested that companies that monitor need to create a set of standards so that the consumer can, if wanted, decipher what has been collected.

And just that example Beddit shows. The Finnish startup offers consumer focused sleep tracking in form of a thin mattress sensor, showing the consumer how he has slept, their resting heart rate, respiration, sleep cycles, snoring and much more.

Yet, on the market there are also many so called “active” devices that interpose with horrible sleep cycles. For example, Oura, a ring which measures pulse waveforms, heart rates and body temperature and creates daily charts for the consumer to compare. This Finnish health technology company secured €12.5 million last July through private funding to start targeting US markets.

We have finally come to the age where most consumers and more interested than ever in their health, much more than ever before, meaning it is a great to see the continuous development of these fascinating startups that are really tackling a large problem of the consumer.

Let’s continue with Nyxoah, a Belgian-Israeli MedTech startup that has developed a device to treat sleep apnea and snoring through electrical stimulation has raised incredible funding and continues to help its consumers with sleep improvement.

Another Startup, and more like the market leader, is an App Calm. In 2017 it was named App of the year by Apple. It does not only conquer the difficulty of sleeping better, but also offers meditation for anxiety relief, stress and all sorts of daily issues we tend to face. The App is filled with soothing music and smooth re-tellings of classic stories such as Cinderella or The Ugly Ducklings.

Very worrying, but the truth, that in 2017 40% of 25 to 54-year olds “enjoy” less than seven hours of sleep every night in the USA. Whereas many physicians warn, that a human body needs minimum eight hours of sleep a night to feel refreshed and ready to take on all daily tasks ahead, and above that it is most likely to happen that females might end up needing even more sleep than the eight hours males tend to need.

The Italian startup Balluga has released a smart bed that includes an anti-snoring system and London-based SleepTech startup Simba which produces the first dual spring and memory foam mattress of its kind, has completed their Series B investment round.

And LumosTech who will be launching a mask that tailors consumer’s sleep to their schedule in order in avoid the effects of jetlag’s – Attention Digital Nomads and Business Travelers! Might be worth checking out!

As one can see, there is something on the market for everyone’s taste.

As well as the science and tech company LifeQ who has officially claimed to “take health monitoring to the next level” by developing trackers to measure all types of health metrics, not only the sleeping rhythm, enough that the data that they collect could be used for doctor’s diagnosis, making it less consumer-based and more oriented to medical accuracy.
The platform Sleepio, created by Big Health is helping millions of users with digital medicine in form of a sleep improvement program which helps them overcome poor sleeping patterns and, in the process, improves their mental health and wellbeing. Big Health works with some of the world’s biggest market leaders to improve sleep and mental health of their employees and is known to be the pioneer of nondrug-solutions like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Last but not least, there is the Dutch founded NightBalance, which is focused on sleep apnea, which is a disorder when one has one or more pauses in breathing or very shallow breaths while you sleep. The health and sleep quality is known to suffer dramatically when suffering from sleep apnea. NightBalance is a wearable device that constantly measures its users sleep positions and lightly vibrates in order for you to subconsciously change to a healthier position. Doctors and Hospitals in the Netherlands have extensively tested this device, reckoning it is highly effecting. It has been optimized to be even more comfortable while wearing. Yet more important than that, the device collects a large amount of data which the user can access on the device itself or on the computer. The data is meant to be analyzed by the personal physician and to give feedback and treat the disorder accordingly.
With all these exciting inventions, we are only waiting for major players in the tech industry to fully enter the sleep-tech playground and start taking over massive amounts of consumers by developing more supporting products of the future.

MRIguidance, a spin-off company of the UMC Utrecht, has secured a seed investment from health-tech investor Health Innovations and a strategic informal investor for the development and the market roll-out of BoneMRI.

BoneMRI is a software solution that enables unprecedented 3D visualisation of the bone anatomy with conventional MRI scanners, which until today were mainly used to assess soft tissues. BoneMRI allows for a one-stop-shop in medical imaging; one exam to characterize all human tissues and without making use of harmful radiation. The fresh capital will be used for further clinical validation and market roll-out. MRIguidance was founded in 2016.

Peter Seevinck, Co-founder of MRIguidance and inventor of BoneMRI, stated: “Like all radiologists, I have been trained with the idea that MRI is mainly suitable for soft tissue imaging and X-ray based techniques are required to visualize bone. But during my work as a scientist in the UMC Utrecht, I was getting more and more convinced that MRI data, when acquired in the right way, contains all the information necessary to also visualize bone. I am very happy that we proved the concept in a clinical setting and with this investment we are now going to bring BoneMRI to the patient.”

BoneMRI is currently being developed and clinically validated at the UMC Utrecht and several large hospitals in the Netherlands and in Belgium. The investment will help the MRIguidance team to accelerate their efforts to bring BoneMRI to the patient.

Since women are still heavily underrepresented in the startup world, we think it’s time to shed some light on all those amazing female entrepreneurs and investors out there!

That being said, we’re happy to announce that we just completed the 2018 edition of our annual overview regarding Europe’s most influential women in the startup / VC world. In total we screened more than 200 potential nominees and did our best to narrow this list down to 50. If you have a suggestion about who we should make sure to include in next year’s edition, please comment below this article.

And here they are! This year’s 50 most influential women in Europe’s startup and venture capital space:

Alice Bentinck is a London-based entrepreneur who co-founded Entrepreneur First, one of the world’s leading company builders, as well as Code First:Girls, a free part-time course for female students.

Alice Zagury is the co-founder and CEO of The Family, a Paris-based startup accelerator with the mission to empower entrepreneurs in their quest for a repeatable, scalable and profitable business model.

Alisée de Tonnac is a Swiss entrepreneur who co-founded Seedstars World, a global startup competition covering 65+ emerging and developing markets. Alisée now serves as Seedstar World’s CEO.

Alix de Sagazan is the Paris-based co-founder of AB Tasty – a leading European optimization platform for e-marketers which enables them to modify their website without technical knowledge through AB Testing & personalization.

Avid Larizadeh Duggan is a London-based entrepreneur who co-founded Bottica.com, an online luxury bazaar of fashion accessories, and is now General Partner at Google Ventures.

Brigitte Baumann is the Founder and CEO of Go Beyond Early Stage Investing. In 2015 EBAN (the European Business Angel Network) named her European Investor of the Year. Born in France, Brigitte and her family live in Zurich.

Candace Johnson is a serial entrepreneur and co-founded organizations like SES and Europe Online Investments. She is also an active investor and serves as president of EBAN (the European Business Angel Network).

Celine Lazorthes is the Paris-based founder and CEO of the FinTech success story Leetchi Group – which includes Leetchi.com, an online money pot (+5M users), and MANGOPAY, the disruptive B2B payment solution.

Colette Ballou is the founder of Ballou PR, a European public relations agency that works with high-growth technology and technology-enabled companies, as well as technology investors.

Corinne Vigreux is a Dutch entrepreneur and co-founded TomTom. As a leader of one of the few consumer electronic companies from Europe to become a global brand in the recent history, she is a champion of European innovation.

Delia Fischer is a Munich-based entrepreneur who co-founded Westwing, a leading online platform for interior design products. Westwing raised more than $200 million in funding, did an IPO, and Delia serves as Managing Director.

Diva Tommei is an Italian entrepreneur who co-founded Solenica and runs the company now as CEO. Solenica builds smart natural lighting systems with an Italian design that are beautiful, affordable and easy-to-use.

Dörte Höppner is the former CEO of Invest Europe and represented Europe’s private equity & venture capital sector. Today, she’s the COO of the Riverside Europe Fund, which invests in growing businesses valued at up to $400 million.

Eileen Burbidge is Partner at Passion Capital, one of Europe’s leading early-stage technology VC firms, which is based in London. Eileen is also a member of the advisory group of the UK’s Prime Minister.

Elizabeth Varley is the founder and CEO of TechHub. The global tech startup community is headquartered in the UK, and operates TechHubs in seven cities around the world.

Fausta Pavesio is a Milan-based entrepreneur, board member and advisor who was named IBAN Business Angel of the Year 2015. In addition, Fausta is the Independent Director of the coworking space Talent Garden Milano.

Ida Tin is the co-founder and CEO of Clue, the world’s fastest growing female health app. Berlin-based Clue helps you understand your cycle so you can discover how to live a full and healthy life.

Jessica Butcher is the London-based co-founder and Director of Blippar – the world’s leading visual browser, harnessing augmented reality and image-recognition technology.

Jessica Stark is a co-Founder and board member of SUP 46, Sweden’s startup hub and membership-based community. She’s also the CEO of StyrelseAkademi, Sweden’s leading forum for the professional development of board members.

Judith Clegg is the founder & CEO of London and New York based innovation and strategy consultancy Takeout. She’s also an investor and advisor in a range of startups including True Office, Onalytica, NSFWcorp and Sofarsounds.

Julia Bösch is the founder and CEO of Outfittery. The Berlin-based company, one of Europe’s leading e-commerce startups which aims to revolutionize the shopping experience for men.

Justine Roberts is a London-based entrepreneur and the CEO of Mumsnet, the UK’s most popular parenting website, and Gransnet, a sister site dedicated to the over-50s.

Kaidi Ruusalepp is the founder and CEO of Funderbeam, a marketplace where startups get funded and traded across borders. Estonia-based Funderbeam combines startup analytics, investing and trading on the secondary market.

Karen Boers is the co-founder and Managing Director of Startups.be – a unique organization which supports startups in Belgium. Karen is also a board member and former CEO of the European Startup Network.

Karoli Hindriks is an Estonian entrepreneur who founded her first startup at the age of 16. Today she’s the CEO of Jobbatical – a platform where global employers borrow the skills of techies and creatives.

Kinga Stanislawska is the founder and Managing Partner of the Warsaw-based Venture Capital firm Experior Venture Fund, which manages PLN 80 million and has made 16 investments to date.

Laura Kohler is the founder and CEO of European Innovation Hub, which aims to grow tech startups in Europe and beyond. The European Innovation Hub also connects corporates with startups driving their innovation strategy.

Laura Urquizu is the CEO at Red Points, a company dedicated to bring innovation to IP protection in the internet. Laura leads the Barcelona-based company from the early days, she joined the initial founding team in 2014.

Lea-Sophie Cramer is the founder and Managing Director of Berlin-based Amorelie – a fashionable online-shop for your love life. Before Amorelie, Lea-Sophie served as VP International at Rocket Internet and Groupon.

Madeleine Gummer v. Mohl is the co-founder and CEO of Betahaus, a coworking space with offices in spaces in Berlin, Hamburg, Sofia and Barcelona. Madeleine is also the co-founder of the accelerator Hardware.co.

Mar Alarcon Batlle is the founder and CEO of SocialCar.com, a leading peer to peer car rental company (P2P carsharing) operating in Spain. She’s also a board member of Barcelona Tech City, Adigital and a mentor at Conector Accelerator.

Marie Helene Ametsreiter is a Partner at the Vienna-based VC firm Speedinvest. She’s also part of the TV show “2 Minuten 2 Millionen“, the Austrian version of Shark Tank.

Maria Pennanen is the CEO of the crypto/blockchain startup Santiment and Co-founder of Accelerator Frankfurt. With over 20 years of entrepreneurship experience, Maria already has advised over a hundred startups.

Martha Lane Fox is a London-based serial entrepreneur who co-founded companies and organizations like lastminute.com, Lucky Voice, Antigone, Go On UK, and Doteveryone.

Mette Lykke is the co-founder of Endomondo – a super successful social fitness community based on free real-time GPS tracking of running. Since the acquisition by Under Armour, Mette now serves as VP International.

Nancy Cruickshank is a London-based entrepreneur who founded MyShowcase, a personal beauty shopping service, helping clients to discover and try tailored makeup, skincare, bodycare and haircare recommendations.

Natalie Massenet founded Net-a-Porter back in 2000 in London as a website in magazine format for selling designer fashion. Today, Net-a-Porter employs over 3,000 people around the globe.

Nathalie Gaveau is a London-based entrepreneur who co-founded Priceminister (sold to Rakuten for $250M). Now she’s the co-founder & CEO of Shopcade, the style cheat sheet that keeps you updated on fashion celebs.

Nicola McClafferty joined Draper Esprit as Investment Director in 2017. Before that, she was the Co-founder and CEO of the online marketplace Covetique, and prior to that, Nicola was an investor at Ravensbeck and Balderton Capital.

Paola Bonomo is an Italian angel investor who previously served as Member of eBay’s European leadership team, led the online business of Italy’s largest financial newspaper, and worked as Marketing Solutions Director at Facebook.

Raffaela Rein is the founder and CEO of CareerFoundry, a Berlin-based startup which today is Europe’s leading online education destination, training the next generation of technical talent and digital leaders.

Reshma Sohoni is a co-founder and Partner of Seedcamp, a London-based organization which describes itself as ‘Europe’s seed fund’ – identifying and investing early in world-class founders attacking large global markets.

Roxanne Varza is the Director of the Paris-based Station F project, which set out to become the largest startup campus worldwide. Prior to her current role, Roxanne was the lead for Microsoft’s startup activities in France.

Sarah Wood is the co-founder and former CEO of Unruly. The London-based company gets videos seen, shared and loved across the open web for brands that want to move people, not just reach people.

Sherry Coutu lives in London and is a former CEO and angel investor who serves on the boards of several organizations, chairs Founders4Schools and is a Non-Executive Director of Zoopla and the London Stock Exchange Group.

Sissel Hansen is a young Danish entrepreneur who founded Startup Everywhere, the publishing company behind the awesome ‘Startup Guide’ book series, often described as the Lonely Planet for startups.

Sonali De Rycker joined the venture capital firm Accel Partners in 2008 and today helps lead the London office as General Partner. Sonali serves as board member at companies like Wallapop, Calastone and IAC.

Steffi Czerny is the co-founder and Managing Director of DLD, one of the world’s most exclusive events for topics like digital life, future design and entrepreneurship. Steffi and her company DLD Media are based in Munich.

Stephanie Hospital is the founder of One Ragtime, a global technology investment fund and advisory. Prior to this, she was a Executive Vice President of Orange Digital and served as a board member at Dailymotion.

Tanja Kufner today is the Partner & Head of dynamics.vc. Before that, she served as Managing Director of Startupbootcamp Berlin, and of Rainmaking Innovation. Prior to this, Tanja was Country Manager Germany for Wayra.

Fake news has been around for a very long time. Some may argue that it has always existed or, better still, that it came along at the exact same time as mass media. However, the need for finding a way to unmask it (especially via social media channels), has become more relevant than ever before. That is because, in the era of internet, news – and fake news as well – travels very fast and reaches more people than ever before. Also, the phenomenon of fake news becomes even more pressing if you consider that it has played a large role in swinging the results of the latest political elections and has most likely helped to handle the victory to populist parties across Europe and, even more evidently, to Donald Trump in the US. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has brought to light the fact that a ‘shadowy global operation’ might be at play to hijack democracy as we know it and that misuse of data during electoral campaigns is its weapon of choice.

Since the stakes are so high, actions have been taken to tackle the problem of fake news and data privacy breaches across the globe. In the US, efforts to fight fake news and disinformation online have been mostly thrusted upon corporates. However in Europe, the European Commission and national governments have jointly stepped in a number of ways. Their efforts include funding a number of media-related NGOs, fostering policy research, give free newspaper subscriptions to the youngsters, supporting trusted media institutions and subsidize non-dominant newspapers.

All these laudable deeds, however, are still not sufficient. Even the attempts of tech giant Facebook – partially responsible for the countless security breaches and unlawful propagation of big data by Cambridge Analytica – at damage control have yet to be proven effective.

Fortunately, European startups have come to the rescue and are developing tools to counter fake news narratives once and for all. We have listed 10 bright examples of startups that are disrupting the news industry either with technology or by building communities of gatekeepers to protect your data. All of these are leading by example in the battle against misinformation, fake news and data breaches.

Fabula AI: Founded in London, United Kingdom, just a few months ago, in April 2018, Fabula AI has an ambitious yet simple mission: eradicate fake news, for good. In order to do so, Fabula AI developed (and patented) Geometric Deep Learning – the first AI technology able to learn from social networks. This AI delivers unbiased authenticity scores for any piece of news, in any language. To achieve this, they have assembled a world-class team of data scientists at the forefront of AI, together with successful entrepreneurs and seasoned technology leaders. They have also already secured seed funding to scale their model and add APIs, allowing any platform or app to validate news – quickly, objectively and cost-effectively.

Logically has been already featured among the European startups fostering social change. This tech startup powered by machine learning has as its main mission to identify fake news and misinformation. The British company – that is in the process of launching its namesake platform – can already boast quite many titles: from “fake news search engine” to “the credibility layer to the internet.” In brief, Logically aims at using natural language processing, machine learning and human oversight to battle bias and misinformation in the news on any given topic. The Logically platform will ultimately act out as a filter and will make sure that users quickly consume information that is “credible, balanced with factual counterpoints and logically coherent”. Born in 2017, the company has already secured £1 million in seed funding.

Nwzer is the world’s first Artificial Intelligence & Blockchain-powered platform of Citizen Journalism. Citizen journalism is the collection and dissemination of news and information submitted by the general public, especially by the means of the Internet. Nwzer is a user-generated news agency that uses the so-called Wisdom of Crowds to source its news. In other words, this company plans to use high-end tech to give citizen journalism something it always needed: an extra layer of reliability. This Maastricht-based company also plans to give power back to those who consume news, the people, and – at the same time – to restore journalism’s goals and values of fairness and impartiality. By giving the power of creation and publication back to the news creators and by opposing advertisement-driven, quantity-driven business models trending in journalism, Nwzer is ready to challenge the traditional media status quo and to disrupt the news industry as a whole. In just one year of existence, this news agency is on its way to start alpha testing.

Right of Reply is a company providing technical solutions to the problems of cyber defamation and fake news. Right of Reply offers an innovative and patented service that provides a rapid,  low-cost, definitive, and legally sound solution to a particularly sensitive problem: counter the negative effects on a person’s reputation which has become the target of various forms of web content – whether it be in the form of articles, images, videos, blog comments, or web forums. Founded in 2016 in London, the startup has built a leading online reputation platform that addresses defamation issues, one individual at a time. In March 2018, Right of Reply Ltd. has acquired IT solutions company, BSS-ONE Dueenne Group, for an undisclosed amount.

Factmata: Contrarily to other startups in this list, Factmata doesn’t believe in replacing humans with unaccountable machines when it comes to fact-checking the news. For this reason it uses a combination of AI and a human community to build a better media ecosystem. The company has also developed patent-pending technology to deal with hate speech, propaganda, fake news and clickbait. This London-based startup was born in 2017 and is arguably the most popular of the anti-fake news tools existing on the market. The startup has already been backed by the likes of ‘Shark Tank’ star Mark Cuban who is funding the British venture for a million dollars. The startup has also closed a second seed round of $800K.

Userfeeds: The fake news problem emerged partially because social media allow users’ likes and engagement with content to make it “trend” across the internet. This means that the metrics quantifying online content’s popularity just systematically ignore potential inaccuracy and unreliability of this same content. This also means that simple bots boosting likes and engagement on a post can also boost attention towards potentially dangerous or completely fake news content. UserFeeds, a startup born in Warsaw, Poland, in 2017, uses blockchain technology to create a system in direct opposition to the above described “trending content” consumption model. The company is instead developing a platform for content networks that relies on “ranking algorithms” to discern the quality or attention-worthiness of information. In just one year, the startup has already managed to amass a whopping $800K in seed funding.

Bloomsbury AI is a company based in London that offers web services enabling individuals to create, use, and share text-understanding computer applications. The startup uses natural language processing (NLP) technology and has developed an AI called “Cape,” which can read documents and then answer questions about their contents. Bloomsbury AI was launched by Guillaume Bouchard, Tim Rocktäschel, Matko Bosnjak, Sameer Singh, Luis Ulloa, and Sebastian Riedel in April 2015 and has recently signed an acquisition offer for the ages: it was reportedly acquired by Facebook for a value between $23 million and $30 million.

FakeNewsGuard uses AI to detect fake news among the thousands of bits of information that crowd the internet. FakeNewsGuard works passively inside the browser checking every webpage that users visit and any link that ends up in their Facebook feed. The content is then analyzed by artificial intelligence combining a linguistic approach with network analysis. The final bit of analysis is left to a human. The result is a tool that is able to assess veracity of online content. The platform has also created and populated a blacklist of content to improve their AI tech. The company was founded in 2017 by Italian data engineer Mattia Spinelli and is based in London.

Digital Fingerprints is a company that offers to solve all of your authentication problems and dilemmas with one solution. Their solution is based on Artificial Intelligence and provides continuous authentication based on behavioural biometrics. Digital Fingerprints, has sworn off credentials, tokens and other methods of logging in to systems that they deem inconvenient and easy target of attacks such as session hijack or account and credential stealing. The company, that was founded in 2017 in Katowice, Poland, instead promises to continuously check the behaviour of users to react in case of a fraudulent action in order to keep your data secure at all times.

Trueinchain uses blockchain to track fake news and to flag it in just one click. The startup also aims at creating a community made of users that are experts in exposing fake news (debunkers), who will contribute to the activity of reporting. Trueinchain is an all-Italian startup founded by journalist Marco Franco, data analyst Nicolò Russo and marketing director Lorenzo Echeoni who are in the process of starting testing and are already looking forward to earn the title of “fakenewsbuster” on the field.

Cities grew in the 20th century, and are exploding in the 21st. By 2100, the UN projects that 80-90% of the global population will live in them – with an additional six billion people on the planet. With this rapid population growth and the problems that come with it – like pollution, waste, natural resources management, housing shortages, and transportation – cities around the world will face major challenges in meeting the needs of residents and providing public services.

Fortunately, technology is starting to help cities deal with these issues, and the new trend is for cities to become “smart”. Smart cities use information and communications technology (ICT) and IoT technology to foster sustainable development, improve the quality of life of residents, and encourage citizen participation and feedback. Smart cities utilise technology to monitor and manage everything from transportation to waste management, development projects, events, air and water quality, and to communicate with their residents. The smart city concept began in Europe, though it has taken off in US and Asian cities in recent years. Still, 12 of the top 25 smart cities are European, according to a study by the IESE Business School, with London, Paris, Reykjavik, and Amsterdam ranking among the top 10.

The market for smart urban services is estimated to be worth €350 billion per year by 2020, and new startups, apps, and government initiatives for smart cities are emerging to create ways for us to connect with the cities we live in and make them more sustainable. Below are 10 European startups that are helping to make cities smarter.

Public Square: Founded in Romania in 2014, Public Square is a community network startup that connects residents with each other as well as with local authorities, utility companies, and local agencies to improve the quality of city services. Its app uses geolocation to connect users to each other within their neighborhoods and build a sense of community. Local authorities can then directly ask communities for input on public services, for example about priorities, new services, or investment plans. Municipalities can also use the app to inform residents about local news and to send alerts about maintenance plans or events. Neighbours can also use the app to communicate with each other, to post classifieds, announce events, or even ask for help.

Mapillary: This Malmo-based startup has crowdsourced 392.6 million images of street-level imagery spanning 5.9 million kilometers to help companies and governments create better maps and extract geospatial data. Founded in 2013, Mapillary’s data is a resource for urban planning that can be used to evaluate and plan many aspects of a city such as street maintenance, transportation, accessibility, land use, and property appraisals.

Onhys: Onhys specialises in tracking the movement of people by simulating pedestrian behavior, providing a useful tool for urban planning. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in France, Onhys’ simulations help urban planners and other decision-makers to make informed decisions in their cities, with applications such as designing public transport, planning events or football games, improving traffic flows, and creating security systems.

Sigfox: This French IoT services startup offers range of smart city applications. To make cities more efficient and sustainable, Sigfox’s IoT sensors can be used to measure air quality, detect available parking spots, inform city services when a dumpster is full or a street light is out, and monitor municipal water facilities. It can also track bikes in city bike sharing networks through geolocation. Using a Low Power Wide Area network, the startup has also been able to significantly bring down costs and energy consumption for connecting IoT sensors to the cloud. Founded in 2009, the startup has raised €277 million to date.

Osoigo: This Spanish civic engagement startup has created a platform where any citizen can join and pose questions directly to politicians. The startup was founded in 2014 by Eneko Agirre after analysing the way politicians use social media. “I saw that 90% (of politicians) have an account on Twitter and other platforms. But in general they are not used as a means for real communication with the public,” Agirre told the newspaper El Pais. That’s when he came up with the idea to build a platform to promote dialogue between voters and politicians. So far, 487 politicians have signed up with the platform, giving over 6,000 responses to over 1,000 questions on social and political issues from Spanish citizens.

Peerby: Amsterdam-based Peerby is a sharing economy app founded in 2011 by Daan Weddepohl and Eelke Boezeman. The app connects neighbours so that they can borrow, rent, or sell goods to each other, eliminating the need for “everyone to own a power drill”. On why he founded Peerby, Weddepohl told the Financial Times, “The sharing economy will help us make better use of natural resources while having a richer life with access to everything we need.”

CityMapper: London-based CityMapper is an urban mobility app to help people get to their destinations giving step by step directions. The app is available in 39 cities around the world, and integrates all types of urban transit, including trains, buses, trams, walking, Uber, and even incorporates public bikes, e-bikes, and scooters. Founded in 2011, it was highlighted as one of the best apps of the year by both Apple and Google Play in 2016 and 2017.

Tier Mobility: Berlin-based Tier Mobility is an e-scooter startup that offers an alternative to public transport and cars for people to get around cities in an inexpensive, fun, and environmentally friendly way. Founded in 2018, Tier’s e-scooters are accessible through an app which you can use to locate a scooter, unlock it, and find your destination. The e-scooters cost €1 to unlock, and €.15 per minute to ride. For now, the e-scooters are only available in Berlin and Vienna, but the startup just raised €25 million to expand across Europe.

Enevo: The Finnish startup Enevo helps cities and companies handle waste management more efficiently by automating waste and recycling logistics. The startup uses sensors that provide real-time data on dumpster fill levels, so that they only need to be emptied when they are full. Helping cities to be greener, the company’s services also help clients to reduce their overall waste and increase recycling. Founded in 2010, Enevo counts among its customers the City of Amsterdam, and major international brands such as McDonalds and Burger King.

eLichens: French IoT startup eLichens uses sensors to monitor indoor and outdoor air quality, helping industries and cities to reduce pollutants. The startup has developed a complete platform for smart city applications, using data from its network of air quality stations that measure and predict air quality with very high accuracy. eLichens also offers impact studies to help citizens and governments take actions to improve air quality, such as creating pedestrian-only streets, reducing or increasing speed on roadways, increasing green spaces, and optimizing city energy sources.

There are several apps already for ordering take-out, but what if you want to order groceries from your phone? Enter Crisp, a new app-based supermarket that just launched in the Netherlands, with a premier selection that can only be found at farmers markets and specialty stores.

Founded in 2018, Crisp’s mission is to make the best quality food available to more people, offering a wide range of vegetables, fruit, super fresh fish, handmade pastas, over sixty cheeses, eighty wines, and award-winning pancakes. The app shows fresh products from over 200 different suppliers, including small, local specialists. Crisp offers next day delivery, throughout the country, six days a week, within an hour time slot.

In 2017 alone, €38 billion was spent on groceries in the Netherlands, with just 2.5% online – a number that is projected to grow to 20% in 2025.

Tom Peeters, co-founder & CEO said: “As a father of two young children, I know the challenge of getting fresh, good and healthy food on the table every day all too well. With Crisp, our mission is to make better quality food accessible for more people. We see people changing not only the way how they shop, but also what they are shopping for. The source of food is rising in importance. Sustainably grown produce saw an increase in sales of 25% in 2017 alone.”

The Amsterdam Student Investment Fund – or ASIF – is a new VC fund that is run for students, by students, to empower young entrepreneurs. The fund is managed entirely by students, and was set up to invest exclusively in startups founded by students or recent graduates in Amsterdam. Of the €1 million managed by ASIF, half is provided by the University of Amsterdam, while the other half has been raised from various private investors with connections to the Amsterdam startup ecosystem.

In addition to the investing activities of the fund, ASIF organizes a range of events where students can learn about entrepreneurship and VCs, meet startups and other potential employers, and network with like-minded students. The goal of ASIF is to engender a more diverse, accessible startup scene in Amsterdam, and to build bridges between the city’s booming entrepreneurial ecosystem and its student community.

Only a year old, ASIF made its first investment last week in the fintech startup Dyme.

Dyme gives users an overview of their recurring expenses and enables them to switch or cancel subscriptions with one click from within the app. The money raised from ASIF will be used to make the app available throughout the Netherlands.

Former board member Gijs Schot noted that: “After a year of preparation and months of research, we have found a party with enormous potential – a very innovative start-up that we really believe in and fully support.”

Dyme co-founder Joran Idema explains: “Because of the growing number of subscription services, complicated contracts and direct debits, more and more people are losing sight of their finances. As a result, many people end up spending too much money- and not even realizing it! We do not just show users what they are spending and how much they can save; we do that and also enable them to act on this information with just one click.”

Amsterdam-based hotel booking platform Bidroom, which offers savings to hotels and customers through its membership model, has just raised €15 million. The startup plans to use the new funding to fuel its international expansion. We previously covered Bidroom as one of the 10 European startups making big waves in the travel industry.

Founded in 2014 by Casper Knieriem and Michael Ros, Bidroom works with over 120,000 hotels in 128 countries, and boasts over 12k searches daily. Other hotel booking platforms take up to 30% commission from each booking – taking a toll on smaller, independent hotel operators. Bidroom, in contrast, does not charge a commission to the hotels it works with. Instead, the startup uses a membership model, in which hotels pay a small, flat annual fee. The model results in more profits for the hotels, and the traveller gets a better price, offering an average of 25% savings, according to the company.

According to CEO Bas Tolmeijer, Bidroom plans to expand its workforce to 200 employees within the next year, after the company moves into a new, hypermodern office in Kraków in April 2019. He says that right now, the company is focused on the recruitment of IT specialists, marketeers and customer service employees. Bidroom will also use the new funding to develop smart technology, and expand its availability by partnering with more large chain hotels.

Since 2011, each year we’re publishing a ranking of Europe’s biggest startup hubs. The previous edition of this renowned ranking was published in October 2017. It’s time for the 2018 edition. Let’s see what has changed since last year.

In order to come up with the new ranking, we first collected the following info: a) The top 50 cities in relation to this year’s visits on EU-Startups.com – and the associated number of unique visitors; b) The number of startups registered for each of these European cities on CrunchBase (since the beginning of 2016); c) The number of startups registered on AngelList for each city. After that, we gave each of these numbers specific weights to get the right ratio. Overall, we applied the same algorithm to our list as in the past years. The number of unique visitors per city obviously received the lowest weighting, since this metric is clearly influenced by our editorial work.

Please note that the resulting ranking isn’t a final judgement about the real importance of each of these cities for the European startup world. It’s more like a mirror of the digital presence and visibility of these cities in the English speaking startup universe. Here you go:

Comparing this year’s results with our ranking of 2017, we found that the first 9 rankings have not changed. But Munich, which used to be number 11, has now moved up to number 10, while Milan moved down a notch. Helsinki went from number 12 to 13, while Lisbon, again, moved up and now ranks as number 12. Vienna, which ranks as startup hub number 16, almost reclaimed its position at number 15, but in the end, Zurich once again won the race. Maybe next year!

Again: Our ranking isn’t meant to be a final judgement about the real importance of each of these cities for the European startup world. Investment activities haven’t been measured either. But we think that the ranking above is a good indicator for recent developments and trends regarding startup hubs in Europe.

Tired of the corporate world? Underemployed in the hospitality industry despite your advanced degree?

Consider joining one of Europe’s up and coming startups, which offer laid-back work cultures and opportunities for advancement in exciting new industries. The EU-Startups job board has a listing of over 400 jobs from startups across Europe. Here’s a small sample of some of the positions available in Europe’s growing startup scene:

Copenhagen-based startup Tame, which has created an easy-to-use, all-in-one platform for event planning, is looking for a Senior Frontend Engineer, and a Senior Backend Engineer. Candidates for both positions should have a strong background in Javascript. One of the perks is that you don’t have to relocate to Demark; they’re cool with you working remotely.

HousingAnywhere is a housing platform offering mid to long-term rentals to students in over 400 cities. The startup is hiring for several positions at its Rotterdam office, including an English Copywriter, a German Speaking Content Marketer, a Dutch Speaking Content Marketer, an Account Manager, and a Lead Product Designer. HousingAnywhere offers its staff a diverse working environment, a low-hierarchy culture, and Friday Cheers and Beers.

SlidePresenter, a growing startup that specialises in producing and distributing video trainings for businesses, is hiring at its office in Frankfurt, Germany. Available positions include Business Development Trainee, an Operations and Strategy Intern,  a Marketing Trainee, a Marketing Intern, a UI/UX Designer, and a Product Owner. The startup offers the opportunity to actively participate in the development of a young company, and to bring your own ideas to the initiative.

EIT Health offers solutions to enable European citizens to live longer, healthier lives by promoting innovation. They are looking for a Project Coordinator based in their London office to organise events, represent the organisation, and come up with content for its branding and marketing activities. The right candidate should be well-connected to the startup scene and prepared to travel throughout Europe.

By the way: If you’re a startup CEO and also looking for some rockstar employees for your company, make sure to publish a job opening with us now. While basic job ads are free, the standard option of Featured Job posts is available for just €49 and provides you with additional visibility.