The SXSW Accelerator winners represent the hottest, most in-demand startups at the Interactive festival, and we sat down with organizer Chris Valentine to talk about what it took to win this year.
The accelerator pitch competition sets 48 startups against one another in front of a panel of judges. The eighth annual competition saw a lot of software projects and a better suite of products and ideas than Valentine saw the year before, which he attributes both to the companies and to the organization getting “smarter” in their choices of the companies selected to compete.
Two companies that found unique ways to use video were named winners in the six categories: Splash, a virtual reality social network, was downloaded tens of thousands of times during 24 hours at SXSW alone, Valentine said. The winner of the Most Innovative award, given for an accomplishment outside the realm of what the judges at the pitch competition usually see, was Vantage TV, VR software designed for live events.
Splash isn’t strictly virtual reality – it enables sending 360 degree video from one smartphone to another or to a VR headset– but it was a big hit. Valentine said that after the Splash team made their first pitch, many of the younger volunteers at the event had already downloaded it.
“It’s very interesting to know how [the pitches] were received by a younger generation and fascinating how quickly they adopted it,” Valentine said.
Vantage TV’s virtual reality streaming, which includes social elements, was an “incredible opportunity,” Valentine said. “There’s so much potential, and that’s so creative on so many levels.”
Other winners were chosen in part because of their capacity to change the world. The winner in the Best World Technologies category was Rorus, a startup developed in the United States for humanitarian relief around the world. Rorus makes water purification filters that reduce heavy metals and some pesticides.
“For us, what really made them special was that they were truly doing something that was changing the world and making the world a better place,” Valentine said. “They’re impacting hundreds of thousands of lives with their technology.”
Another winner was MUrgency, which took the winning spot in the health and wearables segment. MUrgency connects smartphone users with emergency medical responders in areas without 911 services.
The majority of developments were in software this year, Valentine said, but that changes year to year. The other pattern was not in platform but in purpose – Valentine said that it was notable how many “social innovation” companies stepped forward this year with products designed to help large numbers of people and encourage social good.
