Here’s The 22nd Batch Of 500 Startups Companies
Source: TechCrunch, Matthew Lynley (@mattlynley)
Photo: TechCrunch
500 Startups is ramping up its next batch of companies in its early-stage startup program, which this time consists of 36 startups.
The firm’s pitch to companies entering the accelerator has generally been that it can better help support growth and marketing efforts. So a lot of the companies you’ll find in this batch are ones that align neatly with those needs, from financial tech to digital health. They’re the kinds of businesses that may look better at scale, but need help getting off the ground.
This one might be an awkward one, though. Frontman Dave McClure, known to show up to demo days with costumes and generally running around, resigned from the firm after admitting to “multiple” advances toward women and being a “creep.” This time around, McClure will likely be somewhat of a specter as the company closes in on its next demo day.
Still, time marches on. Here’s the list of companies participating in the most recent batch:
Agentbong — A home care marketplace in Asia that helps families hire qualified and trustworthy caregivers.
Botsociety — A design tool for previewing, prototyping and testing conversational interfaces.
COR — Project management software for helping professional services firms increase profitability by intelligently optimizing project costs and cash flows.
Core Labs — Helps knowledge workers early in their career access mentorship, build a reputation and unlock the value of their professional connections with goal-oriented “micro-networks.”
Cryptomover — Developing index funds to allow investors to diversify their crypto portfolios with minimal time and effort.
curio.io — Listen to curated, professionally narrated articles from premium publications like The Financial Times, The Guardian and Aeon at home or on the go.
Cushion — Trains bots to fight bank fees on customers’ behalf.
Elyse28 — An online subscription service that helps women live free of chronic illness by offering personalized health coaching.
FalaFreud — An online subscription service that helps Brazilians get therapy from certified therapists over audio, text and video on their mobile device.
FreightRoll — Makes shipping predictable through an open marketplace of connected shippers and truckers.
Fyodor Biotechnologies — Developing a non-invasive technology that helps people with a fever diagnose malaria in 25 minutes using a few drops of urine instead of blood.
Jones — Automated insurance compliance that helps enterprises kill the headache of hiring independent contractors.
Judolaunch — A tool that helps small e-commerce brands expand internationally by engaging a global community of online consumers.
LaborVoices — Protects apparel brands through intel on factory conditions sourced directly from workers.
MailHaven — An electronic mailbox that helps suburban homeowners secure and monitor their deliveries without the need for wired power or home Wi-Fi.
Mediation Online — A web service that helps Brazilian corporations and consumers resolve legal disputes quickly and inexpensively with an automated, binding mediation process.
Mira — Streamlines the life insurance experience for the higher-risk population using technology and machine learning.
Mobile Forms — A platform for local and international businesses to crowdsource reliable market data in Africa.
Myndlift — Offers a therapist-guided solution to help people improve their attention ability using “brain wave” training.
Next Play — Powers personalized employee mentorship at scale.
Ohalo — Blockchain-based data management solution to help financial institutions prove data provenance and compliance.
OpenUp — Measures the impact on purchase behavior across online and offline ads.
Payment24 — A fuel payment and fleet management system that integrates into gas stations and vehicles to reduce fraud and increase efficiencies.
Plum — A chatbot that automates your money so you can effortlessly save, invest and avoid rip-off bills.
Prodsmart — Provides a tracking system to help factories eliminate paperwork and collect real-time data by using smartphones on the shop floor.
Public Goods — Health-focused consumer-packaged goods.
Rapa — Alternative mortgage lender for U.S. customers to buy homes abroad.
reDock — A proposal automation solution that mines and tailors corporate information on-demand to help professional services companies win complex RFPs.
Rever — A mobile application that helps a global community of motorcycle riders discover, track and share their riding experiences together.
Sendoso — Helps B2B companies grab the attention of prospects and customers with an all-in-one platform for sending things like direct mail, handwritten notes and custom gifts.
ShortPoint — A subscription software that helps department managers build gorgeous intranets with no coding from their existing content systems, such as Office 365.
Sofy.ai — Intelligent, trainable bots for software developers to end daily repetitive tasks like testing, deploying and monitoring and live support.
Texel — Enables efficient streaming of VR and AR content over existing networks by using viewing data and behavioral analytics to reduce the bandwidth by more than 50 percent.
TrueFace.Ai — A turnkey facial recognition solution for privacy-conscious enterprises.
VCV — AI-powered recruiting bot that helps enterprises hire smarter and faster by autonomously searching resumes, conducting automated phone screens with voice recognition and recording video interviews.
WayPay — Streamlines the accounts payable process for SMEs by connecting to any AP system and automatically reconciling payments sent to local or international suppliers from any combination of bank and credit card accounts.