Evegreen, Influee, Grid instruments, InstaText and Mouzen are the startup companies competing as finalists for the prestigious title of Slovenian start: up of the year in 2020. The prize, awarded for the thirteenth consecutive year in a row by Start:up Slovenia in cooperation with the Slovene Entreprise Fund, the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology and active stakeholders of the Slovenian ecosystem, goes to a company or team representing a new generation of innovative Slovenian entrepreneurs.

The winner will be announced at the closing event on Friday 22 May, which will be broadcasted live on the Start:up Slovenia Facebook page.

Meet the 5 finalists who convinced the expert commission the most and get to know their products and services.

Evegreen

Pollution of the environment by plastics has become one of the biggest challenges of modern society, therefore it is a necessity to find nature-friendly solutions to preserve the environment for our descendants. A suitable alternative to plastic is bio-plastic, but due to its composition, it is often not 100% biodegradable.

The startup company Evegreen develops 100% biodegradable, nature-friendly materials based on organic waste produced by various industrial and importing companies. In this way, they relieve them of waste costs on the one hand and replace part of their supply with green, innovative products on the other. So far, they have used wheat straw, rice and wheat husks as well as coffee waste in the creation of new formulas.

In 2019, Evegreen entered into cooperation with Gorenje, BSH, Plastic Skaza, Chemistry Institute, Sveča, and in 2020 with the Atlantic Group and the Slovenian microbrewery ClefBrewery. Their potential has already been recognised by many organisations from the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce to the European Commission.

Influee

An American entrepreneur blogger and pioneer of marketing said: "People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic". In today's flood of products, our attention is more limited than ever. People are paying less and less attention to advertising, so companies today are building relationships with their users through influencers and real content creators. They are faced with the challenge of where and how to find the product best suited to their brand.

Influee is the platform where companies can find content and influencers for their audience in one place. With just a few clicks on the extensive Influee database, they select influencers based on their interests, nationality, authenticity and the responsiveness of their followers. Companies can monitor the analysis of all campaigns from one place, generate new content for other advertising channels and track the impact achieved.

The Influee team successfully works with global brands such as EQUA, Luna/TBWA, Studio Moderna, Sensilab, Ličila.si, Bob Filippo Loreti and Layoners.

Grid instruments

We are experiencing exponential growth worldwide in renewable energy sources, heat pumps and charging stations for electric cars. The problem of inaccurate knowledge of the topology began to express itself in overloads of phase conductors and pre/undervoltage events.  For a safe and reliable electricity supply, new approaches to infrastructure management have to be introduced, which requires a good knowledge of the network.

The Grid Instruments team developed Gridscope, the topology identification system that enables operators of electricity distribution networks to clearly identify the network topology and consequently to make well-thought-out plans for the extension and amplifying of their infrastructure.

The solution consists of several parts, namely measuring equipment in the form of reference and portable devices and a Saas platform that converts, analyzes and monitors the collected data from devices in real-time. They identify and evaluate the parameters of their network that are required for use in other advanced network monitoring and control systems.

The team has already successfully completed a pilot project for part of the solution at a Slovenian power supply company.

InstaText

Entrepreneurs, university professors, book authors, lawyers, employees of translation agencies and government institutions often write in English at their work. For those whose words do not flow as fluently as in their mother tongue, this causes a lot of stress and, above all, takes up a lot of time. For better comprehensibility and readability, they often use existing tools that offer them only grammatical correction of the texts.

InstaText is an online platform that uses artificial intelligence to develop immediate recommendations and ideas on how the content of the text can be improved, made more readable and understandable. Unlike Grammarly, which focuses on grammatical corrections, InstaText enriches texts by offering the author suggestions for improved vocabulary and more appropriate use of words, as well as the correction of grammatical errors. If necessary, it transforms the entire sentence and puts it into context.

In the first three months alone since the team launched the solution, it has sold more than €30.000 in licenses to academic staff. They currently have more than 3.000 active users.

Mouzen

Did you know that office workers spend an average of about 1.900 hours per year in front of a computer screen? This poses a major challenge for employees, especially when it comes to health and well-being. Statistics show that the number of musculoskeletal problems has increased significantly in recent years and with it the number of sick days.

Mouzen is an armrest, an ergonomic accessory designed to optimize the position of your arm and reduce the tension of your wrist and shoulder when working behind the computer. A special ErgoFlow mechanism allows the user to move the arm freely and comfortably in all directions, while the support promotes an upright posture of the spine. Mouzen, which can be easily installed on the desk in just 6 seconds, is a product of technically advanced knowledge and beautiful design.

A study has shown that the use of mouzen reduces wrist strain by up to 72 percent. The product was successfully launched on the Kickstarter and Indiegogo platforms, where the company exceeded the set target within three days. They currently have more than 900 users.

These are our finalists. Do you wonder who will carry the flattering title this year? Tune in live on Friday 22 May at 8pm on the Start: up Slovenia Facebook page.

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