Cannes Lions Start-Up Academy talent announced
Represented in the group are a diverse range of technologies impacting branded communications, including natural language processing, artificial intelligence and virtual reality, as well as tech that advances consumer engagement and the craft of storytelling.
The 10 companies chosen are:
1. Clarif.ai (United States): an artificial intelligence company that excels in visual recognition, solving real-world problems for businesses and developers.
2. Codec (UK): empowering marketers and creatives with the empirical evidence needed to make better decisions through AI and machine learning.
3. CrowdAnalyzer (UAE): uses groundbreaking technologies such as proprietary machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing to make computers as linguistically proficient as humans in Arabic.
4. Journy (United States): creating tailor-made travel plans with recommendations from top chefs, sommeliers, and local experts.
5. Klickly (United States): the data-driven impulse payment solution for social streams and mobile experiences.
6. Mush (UK): the simple, free way to meet local, like-minded mums.
7. Relative Insights (UK): objectively and comparatively analyses how brands, competitors and consumers use language, delivering the results as data that illustrates how language resonates with and/or is perceived by audiences.
8. StriVR (United States): connects brands and sports organisations with powerful VR activations, delivering custom 360° experiences, interactive VR storytelling, and branded spherical content to engage fans and consumers.
9. Twyla (Germany): an artificial intelligence messaging platform that puts a smart chatbot in your live chat channels, to answer questions, deflect tickets and free up your agents.
10. Wanderbrief (Netherlands): a global community where people can exchange their creative skills for meaningful work-life experiences abroad.
The companies will undertake a special programme during the festival to sharpen their identity, focus business development plans, and market themselves to international brands and advertisers more effectively. Led by R/GA and Google Zoo CCO, Patrick Collister, the Start-up Academy programme features mentoring, insights and inspiration from speakers including IPG chairman and CEO Michael Roth, former P&G CMO Jim Stengel, AOL digital prophet David Shing, R/GA founder Bob Greenberg and more.
At the culmination of the programme, participants will have the opportunity to pitch their products and services to key brand and agency decision-makers at a showcase on Friday, 24 June on the YouTube Beach.