We have a guest post from Ashwin Bhambri, founder of StartupVille and one of the teams accepted into the Startup Reykjavik 2012 program. I have offered to open up the Startup Iceland Blogging platform to the community in Iceland. This is the first post and I would encourage all the startups to reach out to me if you would like to use the Startup Iceland Blog to promote a message. The requirement is very simple, it has to be something to do with Startup ecosystem or Entrepreneurship or Startup Community here in Iceland or anything that you feel would help Entrepreneurs and Startups.

StartupReykjavik is Iceland’s first startup accelerator program however quite different from the run of the mill accelerator programs. First of all the investor is institutional, Arion Bank who is also a chief sponsor of the program. Secondly, the program has the right mix of mentoring and coaching with mentors from varied industries across Iceland and in-house coaches from the Innovit Entrepreneurship Centre and Klak an innovation catalyst initiative. The coaches are actively involved in setting deliverables for each startup and helping them achieve the deliverables within the timeline and towards the end of the program lead mentors take over who have repeated sessions with start-ups they feel they can help

It is interesting that the start-ups in this program are not the ‘usual suspects’ and are quite different from the lot you would generally find at accelerators, all have well defined revenue streams and some are even making money. The diversity here includes a hardware device startup, enterprise applications, subscription based services, search technology and social gaming.

The accelerator here also offers the Icelandic advantage – it’s a flat society here so getting an appointment with say the Director of a Large Airlines and pitching your product is relatively easy and fast also you get a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ quickly. It’s a small place so you can cover ground fast, just amazing for business development and most of all it’s about the people here who are very enthusiastic about the place becoming a startup hub. Also, the accelerator is open to applicants from all over the world

Here’s a look at the start-ups,

  1. Mymxlog – Mymxlog enables the management of licences, certificates, training and experience necessary to comply with European Aviation regulations.
  2. Cloud Engineering – Cloud Engineering provides data extraction technology. We create tools which will revolutionize the way you gather content from the web
  3. Guitar Party – GuitarParty provides music enthusiasts with a way to learn their favorite songs using a unique user interface,  songbooks and video lessons
  4. Live Shuttle – Live Shuttle is a free service for smart phone users where they share their experience Live with their friends, family and the world.
  5. StartupVille – StartupVille is a place for investors and start-ups to play. A social game where investors make virtual investments in start-ups
  6. Stream Tags – Watch movies online with friends via webcam. Now, you can get information on anything onscreen you see or hear and buy it.
  7. Automatic 3D – Creation of high accuracy three-dimensional models using standard two-dimensional photographs and computer vision.
  8. Heilsufar – internet health-bank for individuals. All your health related data in one place including diet and fitness
  9. When Gone – WhenGone is a web based tool to record messages where people leave their last words/advice to their loved ones, to be viewed after passing.
  10. Eski Tech – We are developing RemindMe, an automatic medicine dispenser. Many people struggle with their medicine intake and RemindMe is aimed at making that process easier.
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