# UpNext Global > The infrastructure layer connecting startup ecosystems to founders expanding into them. Events, media, and community powered by the UpNext World Tour. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### About UpNext Global URL: https://upnext.world/about/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T02:31:52.000Z We cover the global startup circuit — from South Summit Madrid and Web Summit Rio to GITEX Africa, Hello Tomorrow, START Summit, and CIX Toronto — through editorial, events, and community. Thirteen events and 300+ founder companies profiled across six regions in 2026, with 45+ more on the calendar. We don't just report on ecosystems. We connect them. --- ## What We Do ### UpNext World Editorials, founder spotlights, and a weekly newsletter reaching ecosystem builders, founders, and investors across North America, Europe, MENA, Latin America, and Africa. We tell the stories of the companies positioned to scale beyond their home market — global readiness, early traction, breakout momentum. ### UpNext Events Virtual and in-person events running alongside the biggest conferences on the international startup circuit. Webinars, collaborative showcases with our platform partner Gatherly, and the UpNext Global Summit — where the ecosystems we cover all year come together in one room. ### UpNext Space A curated founder community for companies in the messy middle — past launch, before scale. Application-based, mentor-supported, and built for the founders doing the hard work between funding rounds. --- ## Founding Partner **Flashpoint Global** is UpNext's founding partner — the soft landing experts for international companies entering North America. Flashpoint clients get published through UpNext World, access to UpNext Events, and mentorship through UpNext Space. Two organizations, one infrastructure layer. --- ## Spotlight Criteria We focus on companies positioned to scale beyond their home market. What we look for: global readiness, early traction, and breakout momentum from leading competitions and accelerators. If you're building something that matters beyond your borders, we want to hear about it. --- ## Events, Accelerators, and Ecosystems If you run an event, accelerator, or ecosystem program and want your pitch competitions, demo days, or showcases covered by UpNext — reach out. We're always looking for the next stage worth watching. [**hello@upnext.world**](mailto:hello@upnext.world) --- ## Partner We partner with accelerators, venture funds, corporate innovation teams, government trade agencies, service providers, and brands that want to reach international founders at the moment they're expanding. If your audience is the global startup ecosystem, let's talk → [Partner](https://claude.ai/work-with-us/?ref=upnext.world) --- > *UpNext Global — the infrastructure layer connecting startup ecosystems to the founders expanding into them.* ### About Event Recaps URL: https://upnext.world/about-event-recaps/ Last updated: 2026-03-21T03:46:49.000Z UpNext Global publishes editorial recaps of leading startup events across the world tour, covering founders, companies, and the signals shaping each ecosystem. Part of the UpNext World Tour, the F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem, these recaps track breakout founders across global pitch competitions. View a recent recaps here: [UpNext World Tour | F1 Circuit of the Startup EcosystemUpNext World Tour tracks the global pitch competition circuit, the F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem, covering breakout founders and the next wave of tech.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-32.png)UpNext.WorldAqeela A. Somani, Edwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg)](https://upnext.world/tag/world-tour/) --- ### **How founders are included** Founders and companies are included based on participation in the event and editorial research. Every recap aims to reflect the breadth of companies shaping the cohort. --- ### **How to improve your feature** Founders who submit additional context are featured more prominently, with full context and a clearer point of view. --- ### **What we ask from founders** A short set of responses (5–7 minutes) to ensure accuracy and stronger representation. Submissions are managed by invitation to ensure accuracy and alignment with each event’s cohort and editorial timeline. --- ### **What you get** - Inclusion in the event recap - A structured editorial profile of your company - Distribution across UpNext Global channels --- ### **Timeline** Recaps are published shortly after the event. Submissions are reviewed based on editorial timelines and may not be included after the deadline. --- ## **FAQ** **Do I need to submit to be included?** No. Founders may still be listed through editorial research. **What’s the benefit of submitting?** Submissions are featured more prominently with full context and point of view. **Can I update my information later?** Updates are not guaranteed after publication. **Is this paid?** No. Inclusion in recaps is editorial. ### Work With Us URL: https://upnext.world/work-with-us/ Last updated: 2026-08-07T02:08:46.000Z **UpNext Global is ecosystem infrastructure for international founders expanding into new markets.** We cover the global startup circuit — from South Summit Madrid and Web Summit Rio to GITEX Africa, Hello Tomorrow, and CIX Toronto. Through our editorial, events, and community, we reach the founders, investors, and ecosystem builders connecting markets. --- ## The Audience Our audience isn't browsing — they're building. International founders scaling into new markets, the investors backing them, and the ecosystem operators connecting them. - **44% average open rate** — nearly double the industry standard - **13+ global events covered** across six regions in 2026 - **300+ founder companies** profiled and spotlighted - Reach across North America, Europe, MENA, Latin America, and Africa - A growing subscriber base of ecosystem builders, founders, and investors --- ## How to Work With Us We keep it simple. Three ways to reach our audience — each one puts your brand in front of the people shaping international startup ecosystems. ### Newsletter and Editorial Reach our subscriber base directly. Sponsored placements in the UpNext newsletter, sponsored editorial content, and branded founder spotlights. Your message, distributed to the ecosystem. ### Event Sponsorship Our World Tour runs virtual and in-person events alongside the biggest conferences on the international circuit. Title and premium sponsorship gets you stage time, branding, attendee data, and distribution through both the event partner's audience and ours. ### Ecosystem Partnership Not every partnership needs a budget. Mentors, advisors, service providers, and ecosystem operators can join as ecosystem partners — get visibility, access the community, and participate in our events. If you're helping founders grow, there's a seat at the table. --- ## Who Partners With Us We work with accelerators, venture funds, corporate innovation teams, government trade agencies (EDOs), service providers, and brands that want to be in front of international founders at the moment they're expanding. If your buyer is a founder entering a new market, we're already in the room. --- ## Let's Talk We'd rather have a 15-minute conversation than send you a deck. Tell us what you're looking for — we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit. **hello@upnext.world** --- > *UpNext Global — the infrastructure layer connecting startup ecosystems to the founders expanding into them.* ## Posts ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-10-08/ Last updated: 2026-10-08T15:22:27.000Z Leeds just wrapped two weeks of programming. An NHS data startup, a school software team, and an AI consultancy took the top prizes at Leeds Digital Festival 2026\. TechCrunch Disrupt is opens Monday. And we have two new events on the calendar. Nehha Bahl is running an IP strategy workshop on October 26 for founders getting ready to raise. The Landing Narrative series launches October 28 for founders expanding into North America. This week's Final Thought comes from a trip to Erindale Park to watch the salmon run. Transplanted fish and international founders have more in common than you would think. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) **Jump to:** [Leeds Digital Festival Recap](#leeds) · [TechCrunch Disrupt](#disrupt) · [IP Moat Workshop](#ip-workshop) · [The Landing Narrative](#landing-narrative) · [Spotlights](#spotlights) · [UpNext Events](#events) · [Final Thought](#final-thought) --- ## Event Recaps ### Leeds Digital Festival 2026: Three Winners, One Pattern **September 21 to October 2, 2026 | Leeds, UK** Leeds Digital Festival ran 213 events across two weeks. The programme leaned into applied AI, with sessions on using it in small firms, law, and the boardroom. The awards night was October 1 at The Wardrobe in Leeds city centre. The winners had a shared thread. All three sell into sectors that still run on manual paperwork. Each one started by turning a task people already do by hand into software. **Start-up of the Year: Avenue3.** Founder Phil Bottomley runs the company from Platform in Leeds. Avenue3 is a technology partner to the NHS and public sector. It builds on the openEHR data standard, which separates patient records from the apps that use them. The company is building a patient portal and digital cancer referral system for The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. It also provides architecture support to Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust. **Growth Company of the Year: Enablis.** Founder Sarah Pawson grew this AI consultancy to £5.6 million in revenue, up 33%. The team is 42 people. They help firms turn AI plans into working systems. Enablis opened a London office this year. **Tech4Good Award, Small Company: Senflow.** Primary school teacher Lucy Stephens and software engineer Dom Newmarch built this in Garforth. The platform brings student profiles, EHCP plans, and intervention tracking into one place. It cuts the paperwork load for Special Educational Needs Coordinators. Senflow launched in September 2025 and is used by 110 schools from Newcastle to East Sussex. The signal: the companies winning awards in Leeds are not building flashy consumer apps. They are digitizing the daily grind inside the NHS, schools, and mid-size firms. Paperwork problems. Solved with software. That is where the real demand is. *Read the full recap →* [Leeds Digital Festival 2026: Winners and Standouts](https://upnext.world/leeds-digital-festival-2026-an-nhs-data-startup-a-school-software-pair-and-an-ai-consultancy-take-the-top-prizes/) [Leeds Digital Festival 2026: An NHS Data Startup, a School Software Pair and an AI Consultancy Take the Top PrizesAvenue3 took Start-up of the Year at the Leeds Digital Festival Awards, Enablis won Growth Company of the Year, and Senflow won Tech4Good with software already in 110 schools. Each one sells into a sector that still runs on paperwork.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-8fe4cf91-5808-434a-a138-e9864fa4c056.png)UpNext GlobalEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Leeds_Digital_Festival_Logo_new-again.jpg-1-234c9cbb-3f34-4a98-aa43-d8d2da117e74.webp)](https://upnext.world/leeds-digital-festival-2026-an-nhs-data-startup-a-school-software-pair-and-an-ai-consultancy-take-the-top-prizes/) --- ## UpNext Briefs ### TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Starts Monday **October 13-15, 2026 | Moscone West, San Francisco** *Event Overview.* TechCrunch Disrupt returns to San Francisco next week. Three days. Over 10,000 attendees expected. The Startup Battlefield puts 200 early-stage companies on stage for equity-free prize money. Battlefield alumni have raised over $32 billion combined. This is still the biggest stage for early-stage founders in tech. *Current Signal.* The speaker lineup shows where the market is pointing. RJ Scaringe (Rivian) on building real things in the real world. Toni Schneider (Bluesky Social) on what comes after the old social platforms. Amjad Masad (Replit) on AI-native development tools. Alexa von Tobel (Inspired Capital) on what investors are looking for right now. *Why It Matters.* Disrupt has launched companies like Dropbox, Mint, and Cloudflare. If you are building something and want the right people to see it, this is the room. [Learn more →](https://techcrunch.com/events/techcrunch-disrupt/?ref=upnext.world) [https://techcrunch.com/events/techcrunch-disrupt/](https://techcrunch.com/events/techcrunch-disrupt/?ref=upnext.world) ****Running a tech week, demo day, pitch night, or cohort showcase?** This is what ecosystem coverage looks like inside What's UpNext. We are actively looking for the next ecosystem partner to feature. If you are managing an accelerator, innovation hub, or startup program, let's put your founders in front of the UpNext network. Reply to this issue or reach us at upnext.world. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Leeds Digital Festival 2026: An NHS Data Startup, a School Software Pair and an AI Consultancy Take the Top Prizes URL: https://upnext.world/leeds-digital-festival-2026-an-nhs-data-startup-a-school-software-pair-and-an-ai-consultancy-take-the-top-prizes/ Last updated: 2026-10-08T14:35:32.000Z Leeds Digital Festival ran from 21 September to 2 October with 213 events across the city. The program leaned toward applied AI, with sessions on using it in small firms, law and the boardroom. The fortnight closed with the awards night on 1 October at The Wardrobe in Leeds city centre. ## Start-up of the Year [Avenue3](https://avenue3.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] won Start-up of the Year. Founder Phil Bottomley runs the company from Platform in Leeds, and it works as a technology partner to the NHS and the public sector. Avenue3 builds on the openEHR data standard, which keeps patient records separate from the apps that use them so records can move between systems. It is building a patient portal and e-referral system for The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, which includes a digital cancer referral system. It also gives architecture support to Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Trust. ## Growth Company of the Year [Enablis](https://enablis.co/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Enterprise\] won Growth Company of the Year. The Leeds consultancy helps firms turn AI plans into working systems. Founder Sarah Pawson grew revenue 33% to £5.6 million and the team now numbers 42\. Enablis also opened a London office this year. ## Tech4Good Winner, Small Company [Senflow](https://senflow.co.uk/?ref=upnext.world) \[EdTech\] won the small company Tech4Good award. Lucy Stephens, a primary school teacher, and Dom Newmarch, a software engineer, built it in Garforth. The platform puts student profiles, EHCP plans and intervention tracking in one place so SENCOs spend less time on paperwork. Senflow launched in September 2025 and is used by 110 schools from Newcastle to East Sussex. ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network The three winners sell to the NHS, to schools and to businesses buying AI help. Each one started with a job that people in those sectors already do by hand. Leeds is turning out founders who pick a slow, paper-heavy problem and fix it. [Join the UpNext network](https://upnext.world/) to meet more founders like them. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-10-02/ Last updated: 2026-10-02T11:47:07.000Z Welcome back. September was full. Nrth (formerly Elevate) brought 10,000 people to Toronto. ALL IN packed 6,500 into Montreal. LiONS LAIR gave $55,000 to health founders in Hamilton. And Switzerland just named its top startup for the second year running. We have recaps from all of it, plus the Italian Trade Agency's first delegation to a Canadian tech festival. October starts with TechCrunch Disrupt two weeks away. Let's get into it. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) **Jump to:** [Nrth 2026 Recap](#nrth) · [Italian Delegation](#italy) · [LiONS LAIR](#lions) · [Swiss Top100](#swiss) · [Spotlights](#spotlights) · [TechCrunch Disrupt](#disrupt) · [UpNext Events](#events) · [Final Thought](#final-thought) --- ## Event Recaps ### Nrth 2026: Winners and Standouts From Toronto's Startup Stage **September 22–24, 2026 | Toronto** Elevate is now Nrth. The rebrand came with an expanded format. Multiple pitch sessions ran across seven venues and partners. DMZ, Moneris, the Italian Trade Agency, University of Toronto, QueerTech, and the Brampton Innovation District each hosted their own stages. The result was less one big room and more a connected set of smaller, sharper ones. The big winner: Moro Technologies. Mohamed Ali took home $50,000 from the Tangerine From Pitch to 50K competition. MoVA Realities (Sophie Jiang) won $10,000 in the Moneris eCommerce North Showcase. Cotriply (Faith Oloruntoba) won the Brampton Innovation District Audience Choice award. SCOOTY took runner-up. ReaDI, an Irish company that records R&D work as it happens and turns it into tax credit documentation, stood out on the international side. The company works with clients like Combilift and Saint-Gobain and just opened a Toronto office. It is one of a growing number of European companies using Toronto as their entry point to North America. One moment from opening night stuck with me. Julio Himede took the stage. He is the designer behind the Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show and the Eurovision 2023 stage in Liverpool. He builds worlds for the biggest live audiences on the planet. But the part that landed was not about scale. It was about a phase he called the romantic period. You fall in love with a design. A solution. It feels perfect. Then the next day, you fall out of love with it. He said that is not failure. That is the process. You have to go through it. I thought about that all week. It is the same thing founders do. You find an idea. You fall for it. You build around it. And then something shifts. The ones who make it are the ones who let the first version go. They do not marry the first solution. They marry the problem. The shift from Elevate to Nrth signals something bigger. The festival is moving toward year-round founder programming alongside the annual event. Worth watching. *Read the full recap →* [Nrth 2026: Winners and Standouts From Toronto's Startup Stage](https://upnext.world/nrth-2026-pitch-winners-startups/) [Nrth 2026: Winners and Standouts From Toronto’s Startup StageElevate became Nrth, and its startup stage ran seven pitch sessions plus Tangerine’s $50,000 elevator pitch. Moro Technologies, MoVA Realities and Cotriply took home the prizes. Here is every company that pitched and what they are building.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-2cc2f937-3bbd-4073-86c1-6f5c81a6a7b5.png)UpNext GlobalEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/260921_18H05M_BRANDANNOUNCEMENT__02706-004.jpg-width-1120-upscale-true-name-260921_18H05M_BRANDANNOUNCEMENT__02706-004-1-6c920ab5-9d19-41c5-8220-960be4804b41.jpg)](https://upnext.world/nrth-2026-pitch-winners-startups/) --- ### Italy Comes to Toronto: Six Startups Looking for Canadian Partners **September 23, 2026 | Nrth 2026, Toronto** The Italian Trade Agency brought six companies to Nrth. It was the only international delegation on the programme. Deputy Trade Commissioner Paola Furno hosted the 40-minute session. Her message: Italian startups have always looked to the U.S. first. That is changing. Stronger ties between Italy and Canada are making Canada a real option. The companies came market-ready with specific asks. Nano-Tech makes advanced composite materials and already supplies F1 teams and aerospace firms. They want Canadian racing and aerospace partners. Fast Charge Engineering builds high-performance battery packs and is raising €3 million to set up Canadian operations. Therness uses thermal cameras and AI to catch welding defects in real time. Prometeo has been doing supply chain math since 1994 and is looking for North American manufacturers. PickEat runs mobile ordering inside Italian sports stadiums and wants to expand to Canadian venues. BCC Studio simplifies startup investment paperwork across Europe. And Avacam monitors landslides and glaciers with AI time-lapse cameras. These were not early-stage pitches. These were companies with products, customers, and a plan to land in Canada. Toronto as a soft-landing city for international founders is becoming a real pattern. *Read the full article →* [Italy's Startup Delegation at Nrth 2026](https://upnext.world/italian-delegation-nrth-2026/) [Italy’s Startup Delegation at Nrth 2026: Six Companies Looking for Canadian PartnersSix Italian companies pitched at Nrth 2026 with the Italian Trade Agency. We met them after the stage to find out what they build, why they chose Canada, and who they want to meet here.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-2419fc38-1786-4584-8e47-c01c9c77a6ba.png)UpNext GlobalEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/ITA-Delegation-at-NRTH-2026-1-1-64f4b35c-ce26-4f89-bfb8-5c77dedf0db2.jpg)](https://upnext.world/italian-delegation-nrth-2026/) ****Leading a delegation abroad?** Whether you're bringing companies into Toronto or taking them to Dubai, Lisbon, Helsinki or Singapore, UpNext can cover them on the ground. We produce editorial showcases for trade agencies, startup associations and accelerators, with on-site interviews, video, a published feature and a direct introduction channel to our network of 150,000+ founders, investors and innovation leaders. [Talk to us about your next delegation.](mailto:edwin@upnext.world?subject=Delegation%20showcase) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Italy's Startup Delegation at Nrth 2026: Six Companies Looking for Canadian Partners URL: https://upnext.world/italian-delegation-nrth-2026/ Last updated: 2026-09-28T14:08:37.000Z ## Through Toronto Featuring the Italian Trade Agency delegation at Nrth 2026 Toronto's biggest tech festival opened its 2026 edition under a new name. Elevate became Nrth on opening night, with more than 10,000 attendees expected and a plan to move from one annual festival to year-round programming. The Italian Trade Agency brought the only international delegation on the programme, and on the afternoon of September 23 six Italian companies pitched in the Meridian Hall Lower Lobby. UpNext was on site as a Nrth media partner, running popup interviews as each speaker came off the stage. ## Rocket Pitches: Italian Trade Agency The 40-minute session was hosted by Paola Furno, Deputy Italian Trade Commissioner to Canada. Six companies covered advanced materials, battery engineering, fintech infrastructure, applied mathematics, industrial AI and stadium food service. Most of the speakers were operators and business development leads, and two were North American hires. Fast Charge Engineering and PickEat both sent people already based on this side of the Atlantic, a sign that their North American plans are well past the scouting stage. ****From the Italian Trade Agency** Speaking with us after the session, Paola Furno described the program as a way for Italian companies to come to Canada, make connections and showcase what they have built. Italian companies used to look first to the United States, she said, but stronger relations between Italy and Canada are making Canada a more popular destination. Distance is still the main challenge for companies based in Italy, she said, but Canada offers them a real opportunity to open new markets. Her colleague Carlo Angelo Bocchi, Italian Trade Commissioner in Canada, puts it in numbers: "While most are familiar with Italian design, fashion, culinary culture, delectable wines, fewer people know that Italy ranks amongst the top global producers and exporters of technology." Sales of Italian products into Canada reached a record C$13.6 billion, the best figure in five years. 0:00 /0:39 1× ## Meet the Delegation ### [Nano-Tech](https://italnanotech.com/?ref=upnext.world) Nano-Tech makes advanced composite materials, using nanotechnology to build parts that are lighter, stronger, fire-resistant and safer to produce. Andrea Giovannelli, who leads business development, told us the company already supplies almost all Formula 1 teams along with prominent aerospace and defence companies, and projects about €2.5 million in turnover for 2026. With a €10 million round closed, Nano-Tech came to Toronto looking for customers and partners, and it is scouting North America as a possible production site. Giovannelli described a long relationship with ITA that has taken the team to Japan and to the JEC Composites show in Paris. ****Sector** Advanced materials ****HQ** Ascoli Piceno, Italy ****On stage** Andrea Giovannelli, Business Development ****The ask** Hypercar and racing builders, aircraft interior makers, UAV and electric aircraft companies [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=ita-nrth-2026&company=Nano-Tech) ### [Fast Charge Engineering](https://www.fceitalia.it/?ref=upnext.world) Fast Charge Engineering designs high-performance battery packs and management systems that extend runtime and pull heat away from cells under constant load. The Rome-based manufacturer has been operating for five years and, according to North American business development manager Garrett Cownden, works with European names including Airbus. A pilot with Ford convinced the team it needed English-speaking people on the ground here, which is how Cownden, a childhood friend of COO and co-founder Filippo Morani, came to lead the Canadian push. The company is raising €3 million to set up operations in Canada. ****Sector** Battery engineering / Energy ****HQ** Rome, Italy ****On stage** Garrett Cownden, BD Manager, North America ****The ask** Partners in high-performance batteries, and companies that want to electrify products they didn't think could be electrified [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=ita-nrth-2026&company=Fast%20Charge%20Engineering) --- ### [BCC Studio](https://www.bccstudio.biz/?ref=upnext.world) BCC Studio built a tool that gives Italian and European startups an equivalent of the SAFE, taking a complicated piece of Italian law and making it simple to apply. COO Marco Cipriani said the product has been validated by an Italian notary, has been in use for a year, and is being distributed through three major Italian accelerators in the north, centre and south, with a multi-user platform coming next. BCC Studio is raising €4 million to serve a market Cipriani sizes at 300,000 European startups, and he sees Canada as a future base, possibly with a dedicated company here. ****Sector** Fintech ****HQ** Italy ****On stage** Marco Cipriani, COO ****The ask** Investors at any ticket size, and ecosystem partners in Canada [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=ita-nrth-2026&company=BCC%20Studio) --- ### [Prometeo](https://www.prometeonet.it/?ref=upnext.world) Prometeo was founded in 1994 as a University of Siena spin-off and applies mathematical modelling to business decisions that need verifiable answers. CEO Giulio Ancilli argues generative AI can't offer that certainty on its own, and he summed up the pitch simply: bring us your problem, and if the solution works, we talk about sharing the value. Prometeo works with large chemical, pharmaceutical, mechanical and consumer goods companies on production scheduling and supply chain monitoring. ****Sector** AI / Applied mathematics ****HQ** Siena, Italy ****On stage** Giulio Ancilli, CEO ****The ask** Canadian system integrators who can bring its models to their clients [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=ita-nrth-2026&company=Prometeo) --- ### [Therness](https://www.therness.com/?ref=upnext.world) Therness is a Politecnico di Torino spin-off that uses thermal cameras and AI to inspect every weld as it is made, catching defects while parts are still in the fixture. Operations Director Pietro Paolo De Crescenzo represented the company on stage. Therness is backed through CDP Venture Capital's Tech4Planet program. ****Sector** Industrial AI ****HQ** Turin, Italy ****On stage** Pietro Paolo De Crescenzo, Operations Director ****The ask** Pilot customers on robotic welding lines, and integration partners for in-process inspection [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=ita-nrth-2026&company=Therness) --- ### [PickEat](https://pickeat.it/?ref=upnext.world) PickEat lets fans at stadiums, arenas and festivals order food and drinks from their phones and skip the line. The Genoa startup is live with Italian basketball and volleyball clubs, including Varese Basket. Partner Patrick McGuire pitched for the company as part of its push into North American venues. ****Sector** Venue tech / Food and beverage ****HQ** Genoa, Italy ****On stage** Patrick McGuire, Partner ****The ask** Stadiums, arenas and festival operators in North America [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=ita-nrth-2026&company=PickEat) *Also in the ITA Canada Start-Up Program delegation:* [*Avacam*](https://avacam.io/en/?ref=upnext.world)*, which uses AI time-lapse cameras to monitor landslides and glaciers.* ****About the program** The [Italian Trade Agency](https://www.ice.it/en/markets/canada?ref=upnext.world)'s Canada Start-Up Program 2026 brought seven Italian companies to Toronto and Montréal from September 21 to 25\. Over the summer, [DMZ](https://dmz.torontomu.ca/?ref=upnext.world) coaches prepared the companies in virtual sessions on the Ontario and Québec ecosystems, the legal side of market entry, and pitching. In Toronto, DMZ led ecosystem immersion, corporate and investor meetings, and a pitch at its Dundas Street space before the delegation moved to Nrth. DMZ has supported more than 800 venture-scaled startups that have collectively raised over $3.25 billion. The week closes in Montréal with [Centech](https://centech.co/en/?ref=upnext.world), which hosts a second pitch along with meetings with manufacturers, research institutions and industry clusters. Garrett Cownden of Fast Charge Engineering called the program "the express entry." Marco Cipriani of BCC Studio, on his first trip to Canada, said it let the companies skip the time they would otherwise lose gathering information alone. --- ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network Through Toronto tracks European companies that enter North America through this city, and the ITA delegation is its first edition. Every company arrived with a product in market, and their asks were specific: system integrators, pilot customers on robotic welding lines, racing and aerospace buyers, battery partners and stadium operators. Two already have North American staff, Prometeo has been operating since 1994, and Nano-Tech has closed a €10 million round. Several pointed to Canada's closer alignment with Europe as the reason to come now. The week also showed how a delegation partnership works. A national agency brings the companies, a local accelerator prepares them, a festival gives them a stage, and a media partner puts their stories in front of a network that can act on them. > **Want to meet one of these companies?** Use the intro links above, or email us with who you'd like to meet and why. We'll make the connection. ****Leading a delegation abroad?** Whether you're bringing companies into Toronto or taking them to Dubai, Lisbon, Helsinki or Singapore, UpNext can cover them on the ground. We produce editorial showcases for trade agencies, startup associations and accelerators, with on-site interviews, video, a published feature and a direct introduction channel to our network of 150,000+ founders, investors and innovation leaders. [Talk to us about your next delegation.](mailto:edwin@upnext.world?subject=Delegation%20showcase) ### Nrth 2026: Winners and Standouts From Toronto's Startup Stage URL: https://upnext.world/nrth-2026-pitch-winners-startups/ Last updated: 2026-10-02T02:59:47.000Z Elevate became Nrth, and its startup stage ran seven pitch sessions plus Tangerine's $50,000 elevator pitch. Moro Technologies, MoVA Realities and Cotriply took home the prizes. Here is every company that pitched and what they are building. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### LiONS LAIR 2026: Health Founders Sweep the Podium URL: https://upnext.world/lions-lair-2026-health-founders-innovation-factory/ Last updated: 2026-09-25T19:53:14.000Z On September 24, Innovation Factory ran the 16th edition of LiONS LAIR at the Oakville Conference Centre, with more than 350 founders, investors and ecosystem leaders in the room and over $55,000 in cash and in-kind prizes on the table. The ten finalists came out of Founders Fast Track, Innovation Factory's training program, which worked with 40 companies this cycle before narrowing the field. Seven of the ten are building in health and life sciences. ## What Stood Out - Seven of the ten finalists are building in health and life sciences. - The top two prizes went to medical devices, a kidney screening cup and a stroke thrombectomy system. - Two finalists are based at McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton. - Every finalist came up through Innovation Factory's Founders Fast Track program. ****From the winner's circle** **"It's been quite a journey, starting with Founders Fast Track, where the coaching and support from the Innovation Factory team helped us make it to the top ten."* Mazhar Shahen, Co-Founder, NewGen Health --- ## The Winners ### [NewGen Health](https://newgenhealth.ca/?ref=upnext.world) NewGen Health took first place and the $30,000 top prize. The company is building an accessible urine-based screening device, paired with software, for rapid early detection of kidney disease. Its SmartCup analyzes samples at home alongside vital signs and feeds a care-coordination platform meant to support patients between clinic visits. Chronic kidney disease, prenatal risk monitoring and cardio-metabolic care are its target use cases. The kit is still in development and has not yet been cleared by the FDA or licensed by Health Canada, which makes the win an early signal worth tracking through regulatory milestones. ****Result** First place, $30,000 ****Sector** Healthtech / Diagnostics ****Founder** Mazhar Shahen, Co-Founder ****Stage** In development, pre-regulatory clearance [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=NewGen%20Health) --- ### [Sensible Vascular](https://sensiblevascular.com/?ref=upnext.world) Sensible Vascular placed second and won $15,000\. The company is building a fully integrated thrombectomy system designed to remove stroke-causing clots in a single pass. Complete retrieval on the first attempt happens in fewer than half of procedures today, and it is strongly tied to better recovery and lower hemorrhage risk, so first-pass performance is the number Sensible Vascular is chasing. ****Result** Second place, $15,000 ****Sector** Medical devices / Stroke care ****HQ** Hamilton, Ontario (McMaster Innovation Park) [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=Sensible%20Vascular) --- ### [TOMI Nutrition](https://hellotomi.com/?ref=upnext.world) TOMI placed third and won $7,500\. The company makes clean, plant-based nutrition mixes for toddlers and kids, dairy-free and free of refined sugar, designed to stir into milk, smoothies and other everyday foods. TOMI manufactures in Canada and sells direct to consumers with a subscription option. ****Result** Third place, $7,500 ****Sector** Consumer health / Food ****HQ** Barrie, Ontario [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=TOMI%20Nutrition) --- ### [Tiny Tube Bio](https://tinytubebio.com/?ref=upnext.world) Tiny Tube Bio won the $2,500 People's Choice Award for its next-generation micropipette with a novel auto-calibrating sensor. It's a precision pipette control system aimed at one of the most-used and least-reinvented tools in any life sciences lab. ****Result** People's Choice Award, $2,500 ****Sector** Biotech / Lab tools [Request an intro](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=Tiny%20Tube%20Bio) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/09/09-24-2026-Lions-Lair-20-1.jpg) **LiONS LAIR 2026 prize winners on stage in Oakville. Photo: Innovation Factory.* --- ## Meet the Finalists ### [HumanisRx](https://www.humanisrx.com/ca?ref=upnext.world) HumanisRx builds MedMonitor, a medication safety platform that helps group health insurers close gaps in adherence, safety and cost by reviewing drug claims data with pharmacist expertise. The team of pharmacists, doctors and technologists lists Canada Life, Desjardins and Wealthsimple Trade among its partners. ****Sector** Healthtech / Insurtech ****HQ** Toronto (North York), Ontario [Request an intro →](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=HumanisRx) --- ### [Gasner HealthTech](https://gasnerhealthtech.com/?ref=upnext.world) Gasner HealthTech makes the PhysioJaw, a patented handheld device for treating temporomandibular disorder (TMD). The clinical method behind it comes from co-founder Dr. Jon Gasner, a dentist with more than 15 years treating TMD, and the company holds five issued North American patents with seven pending. In its home-device pilot, the company reports a 70% average reduction in symptoms. ****Sector** Medical devices / Dental ****Team** Maria Shibaeva-Escarraga, CEO · Dr. Jon Gasner, DDS [Request an intro →](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=Gasner%20HealthTech) --- ### [NexScale AI](https://www.nexscale.ai/?ref=upnext.world) NexScale built Chloe, an AI business partner for boutique fitness and wellness studios that spots member disengagement, sends personalized outreach and handles follow-ups. It already integrates with Mindbody, Mariana Tek, WellnessLiving and other studio management systems, and was also a top-three finalist at TiE Women 2026. ****Sector** AI / Vertical SaaS ****HQ** Toronto, Ontario ****Founder** Soodeh Farokhi, PhD (founded 2024) [Request an intro →](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=NexScale%20AI) --- ### [Remmen Brakes](https://remmenbrakes.com/?ref=upnext.world) Remmen Brakes is building NEMB, a nonlinear electro-mechanical brake-by-wire system that removes hydraulics from the vehicle entirely. The company says its system cuts braking reaction time by 50% and stopping distance from 100 km/h by more than three metres, at roughly 10% lower cost than hydraulic systems. Remmen was selected for MobilityXLab Batch 16 earlier this year. ****Sector** Mobility / Automotive hardware ****HQ** Ontario [Request an intro →](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=Remmen%20Brakes) --- ### [LIVESENS](https://livesens.ai/?ref=upnext.world) LIVESENS turns vehicles into mobile data-gathering platforms, using modular sensor suites and edge computing to capture traffic, environmental and geographic data in real time. ****Sector** AI / IoT ****HQ** Hamilton, Ontario (McMaster Innovation Park) [Request an intro →](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=LIVESENS) --- ### [VascuBio Innovation](https://vascubio.com/?ref=upnext.world) VascuBio is a McGill University spin-off working in bioprinting, bioreactor design and microfluidics, with platforms for vascularized tissue engineering and point-of-care diagnostics. ****Sector** Biotech / Tissue engineering ****Origin** McGill University spin-off [Request an intro →](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=VascuBio) --- ****About LiONS LAIR** [LiONS LAIR](https://lionslair.ca/?ref=upnext.world) is the annual pitch competition and gala run by [Innovation Factory](https://innovationfactory.ca/?ref=upnext.world), the regional innovation centre serving Hamilton and Halton. Finalists earn their place through Founders Fast Track, a training program that worked with 40 companies this year. Since 2010, LiONS LAIR has supported more than 180 companies and awarded over $1 million in cash and in-kind prizes. This year's judges were Mark McQueen, Director at Deloitte Burlington Gi3, Kevin Shipley, Patent Agent, Lawyer and Head of Mechanical & Industrial Processes (Canada) at Marks & Clerk, and Emily Porta, Executive Director of Maple Leaf Angels. Innovation Factory also presented its Pillar of Innovation Award to [Geotab](https://www.geotab.com/?ref=upnext.world), accepted by Mike Branch, Vice President of Data & Analytics. Founded in Oakville in 2000, Geotab grew into a global telematics leader. --- ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network Seven of the ten LiONS LAIR finalists are building in health and life sciences. The judges' top two picks were both medical devices, and the room's favourite was a lab tool. For a competition run out of Hamilton and Halton, that tracks with what the region is building around McMaster Innovation Park, home to two of this year's finalists. The other thread is the pipeline. Every finalist came through Founders Fast Track, and the winner credited the program directly. Regional programs like this one surface companies well before they show up on national stages, which is where the UpNext network can be most useful to them. Congratulations to Shannon Graszat, Gagan Kaur and the Innovation Factory team on sixteen years of LiONS LAIR. > **Want to meet one of these founders?** > Use the intro links above, or [tell us](https://form.typeform.com/to/AQEkDOgr?ref=upnext.world#event=lions-lair-2026&company=LiONS%20LAIR%20cohort) who you'd like to meet and why. We'll make the connection. ****Running a pitch competition, accelerator or demo day?** UpNext produces editorial showcases for innovation centres, accelerators and trade agencies, putting your cohort in front of a network of 150,000+ founders, investors and innovation leaders, with a direct introduction channel to every company. Talk to us about your next cohort. ### Top100 Swiss Startup Award 2026: Corintis Repeats URL: https://upnext.world/top100-swiss-startup-award-2026-corintis-repeats/ Last updated: 2026-09-25T19:24:09.000Z Zurich handed out the sixteenth Top100 Swiss Startup Award on Wednesday night at Theater 11\. A jury of 100 investors and startup experts built the list. Each juror named ten companies under five years old, and the points were added up. The room leaned hard toward deep tech: chips, spacecraft, robots and drugs. --- ## The Winner [Corintis](https://corintis.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Hardware\] took the top spot for the second year running. The EPFL spin-off builds cooling that works inside the chip itself. Liquid moves through tiny channels cut into the silicon, some of them ten times finer than a human hair. The method cools about three times better than standard approaches, which matters because cooling eats roughly 30 percent of the power a data center draws. CEO Remco van Erp, COO Sam Harrison and EPFL professor Elison Matioli founded the Lausanne company. It raised a $24 million Series A in September 2025 and added about $25 million more in December. --- ## The Rest of the Podium [DeepJudge](https://www.deepjudge.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[LegalTech\] finished second. The Zurich company builds search and document analysis for law firms, so lawyers can find what they need across decades of case files. Three ETH Zurich PhDs founded it in 2021, all former Google researchers: CEO Paulina Grnarova, CTO Yannic Kilcher and COO Kevin Roth. Freshfields, Holland & Knight and Gunderson Dettmer are among its customers. It raised a $41.2 million Series A led by Felicis in November 2025. [PAVE Space](https://pave.space/?ref=upnext.world) \[Robotics / Hardware\] finished third in its first year on the list. The Villeneuve company builds a kick stage that carries satellites from a rocket's drop-off point to their final orbit in under 24 hours. CEO Julie Böhning, CTO Jérémy Marciacq and Simon Both founded it in 2024, and all three came out of EPFL's Gruyère Space Program. They have signed eight reservation agreements with satellite operators and manufacturers, and raised a $40 million seed round in March. --- ## Special Awards [Dexterous Endoscopes](https://dexterousendoscopes.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] won best newcomer in the ranking. CEO Yegor Piskarev and CTO Yi Sun spun the company out of EPFL's Laboratory of Intelligent Systems. Their endoscopes change stiffness as they move through the body, starting with a scope for ear, nose and throat surgery. The company has raised over CHF 1 million and finished seven rounds of preclinical trials. [Aukera Therapeutics](https://aukera-tx.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech\] was named best-ranked biotech. CEO Stefan Imseng co-founded the Basel company out of the Biozentrum at the University of Basel. It develops drugs that target the mTORC1 pathway, which controls how cells grow. [Voltiris](https://voltiris.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Cleantech\] took best-ranked cleantech. CEO Nicolas Weber, CTO Jonas Roch and CPO Dominik Blaser founded the Lausanne company in 2021\. It sells solar filters to greenhouse growers as a service, so the same roof grows plants and makes power. [Flexion Robotics](https://flexion.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[Robotics / Hardware\] won best-ranked robotics. The Zurich company writes the software layer that lets humanoid robots move on their own. Five people founded it: CEO Nikita Rudin, CTO David Höller, ETH Zurich robotics professor Marco Hutter, Julian Nubert and Fabian Tischhauser. It raised a $50 million Series A in November 2025 with backing from Nvidia's venture arm. [Kandou](https://www.kandou.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[Hardware\] was recognized for the largest financing round of the year, a $225 million raise announced in March. Amin Shokrollahi founded the chip interconnect company out of EPFL in 2011 and now serves as CTO, with Srujan Linga as CEO. [Memo Therapeutics](https://memo-therapeutics.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech\] was recognized for the largest exit. Christoph Esslinger founded the Schlieren company in 2012 to find antibodies against viral infections and cancer, and its lead drug targets a virus that attacks kidneys in transplant patients. Ipsen closed its purchase in July for EUR 200 million up front, with milestones that could push the total past EUR 700 million. Erik van den Berg has run the company as CEO since late 2023. --- ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network Four of the nine companies honored this year build physical things: cooling hardware, medical scopes, greenhouse filters and spacecraft. Swiss deep tech keeps producing teams that need labs and factories, and Swiss investors keep writing checks big enough to pay for them. Since 2011 the Top100 has recognized 677 startups that raised CHF 19 billion, created more than 27,000 jobs and produced 11 unicorns. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### The Salmon Feed Additive That Activates Natural Immunity and Removes Antibiotic Dependency URL: https://upnext.world/salmon-feed-additive-antibiotic-resistance/ Last updated: 2026-09-24T19:49:49.000Z Daniela Allerbon graduated from economics school in 2001 as Argentina's economy collapsed. Five presidents in two weeks. But the real hit was to its citizens: GDP per capita plummeted by over 60%, from $8,085 to just $2,998 by 2002\. Rather than chase security, Daniela Allerbon spent twenty years building things that mattered. She published four million books for families entering government housing. She convinced a cabinet secretary to publish the first gender manual in Argentina, changing how women understood their lives. She ran clinical trials where chronically ill patients recovered. Now, as a founder addressing antibiotic resistance, she's solved the problem the same way she solved every other problem. Not by replacing what exists, but by amplifying it. Her first product is a salmon feed additive that activates the fish's own immunity, eliminates antibiotic use, and achieves the best survival rates the industry has ever reported. ## She Spent Twenty Years Building Concrete Impact Before She Ever Heard of Fish Farming Allerbon's path to founding Aquit was anything but linear. After the economic crisis in Argentina, she could have pursued traditional finance work. Instead, she chose cultural management. She ran poetry workshops in neighbourhoods. She published and distributed books as director of Argentina's National Reading Program. *"Feeling that you are giving all this impact or that you are impacting all the people, there's something very concrete that you are doing that's making others' lives better in some sort of way,"* she says. That conviction never changed, even as the work did. When she moved into R&D at an Italian company developing plant-based animal health products, she brought the same instinct. She wasn't a biologist. She had no medical training. But she understood how to coordinate expertise around a problem that mattered. She helped formulate products, navigate regulatory frameworks across four countries, and eventually coordinate international clinical trials. The skills were different. The principle was identical. Impact had to be concrete and measurable. ## Eighty Percent of Global Antibiotics Enter Animals, Not Humans The crisis Allerbon encountered in aquaculture is staggering in scale. More than two million people die annually from antibiotic resistance. Of all antibiotics used globally, 80% are administered to animals rather than humans. When salmon farms use antibiotics to fight bacterial infection, that resistance enters the ocean, contaminates ecosystems, and accelerates the evolution of superbugs faster than humanity can develop new antibiotics to replace them. The World Health Organization calls antimicrobial resistance the greatest threat to modern medicine. It projects that within 25 years, resistance will kill more people than cancer. For producers, the cost is immediate. Antibiotic resistance drains six billion dollars annually from aquaculture in infection losses alone. Consumers refuse to buy antibiotic-treated salmon. Regulators demand producers eliminate antibiotic dependency. Everyone sees the problem. Nobody had solved it because most solutions offered the same answer. Add an external additive. Build another platform. Override biology with technology. Allerbon's co-founders in Chile, both fish immunology experts, asked a different question. ## Can We Amplify What's Already Working? Instead of relying on conventional immune stimulants that can trigger excessive inflammation, Allerbon and her team identified a protein that salmon naturally produce and that plays a key role in regulating immunity. They produce the protein through fermentation using yeast and add it to standard feed pellets for seven days. Because the protein is naturally present in salmon, it works with the fish's own immune system, activating a protective response without triggering harmful inflammation. *"Something that's from inside the fish, the fish already recognizes it and self-regulates it instead of giving something from the outside which at first produces inflammation,"* Allerbon explains. The results speak for themselves. Aquit achieved the best survival rates reported anywhere in the industry against Piscirickettsia salmonis, the bacteria driving antibiotic use in Chilean salmon farming. Protection arrives in seven days instead of a month. Broad-spectrum resistance emerges across multiple pathogens. The product integrates directly into existing feed production and requires no new infrastructure. This year, Allerbon moved from lab validation to the ocean. Multi X, the second-largest salmon producer in Chile, is running an industrial pilot with one million fish. Aquit was selected as one of the Deep Tech Pioneers by Hello Tomorrow, chosen from 5,000 startups worldwide and one of only seven food tech companies recognized. The answer to antibiotic resistance was never more technology. It was amplifying what already worked. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-09-18/ Last updated: 2026-10-02T03:01:00.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Canada Fintech Forum 2026: Fireraven Takes the Pitch Battle URL: https://upnext.world/canada-fintech-forum-2026-pitch-battle/ Last updated: 2026-09-18T03:27:29.000Z The 13th edition of Canada Fintech Forum returned to the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal on September 14 and 15\. Two days of panels, meetings, and deal-making. Financial institutions, fintechs, investors, and public decision-makers, all in one room. And one idea kept surfacing across every session: financial services runs on people believing that when they move money, it actually gets where it is going and gets handled properly. That is the baseline. Everything else is layered on top. Open banking showed the tension clearly. The promise is speed. Move money faster, more easily, between more places. But the moment you ask someone to hand their bank password to a third-party app, you are spending down trust to get that speed. Stablecoins carry the same tension in a different spot. The utility is obvious: weekend settlement, reconciling accounts without waiting for banking hours, money moving on a schedule that matches how business actually happens. But then the question becomes whether you can trust the stablecoin itself. Canada is doing reasonably well on the regulatory side. That does not mean the question is answered. The Pitch Battle put these ideas in a room with ten startups and five of Canada's most active fintech investors. ## The Pitch Battle Winner ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/09/WhatsApp-Image-2026-09-15-at-15.09.41-1.jpeg) [Fireraven](https://fireraven.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Enterprise\] won the Pitch Battle at Canada Fintech Forum 2026\. The Montreal-based company builds a no-code platform for AI security and governance, working from a simple premise: every message going through every AI agent needs to be secure. As financial institutions rush to deploy AI tools, Fireraven gives them a way to set guardrails on large language models without writing code. Founded by JS Patenaude and rooted in Polytechnique Montréal's AI research ecosystem, the company is answering the question the whole conference kept asking. Can we trust the AI that is now writing and running financial infrastructure? ## The Pitch Battle Startups [Kavodax](https://kavodax.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech / Blockchain\] builds blockchain-based cross-border payment infrastructure, including a CAD-backed stablecoin pegged one-to-one to Canadian dollars. Founded by Vaanu Thanesh, Kavodax pitched a specific number: $1.25 million lost annually for every $15 million routed through legacy cross-border rails. The company has processed over $10 million in transactions across 150+ countries, holds a FINTRAC Money Services Business license, and won CodeLaunch Canada 2025\. The stablecoin argument is simple. Weekend settlement, faster reconciliation, money that moves when the business needs it to. Whether the trust follows the utility is the open question Kavodax is betting it can answer. [Nezz](https://www.nezz.io/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech\] operates high-value transaction and escrow infrastructure for large purchases. The company reports a pipeline of roughly $300 million and has a letter of intent from a major manufacturer. The team includes former leaders from RBC, Interac, and Deloitte. Nezz banks through Wells Fargo via Priority and is led by Lopsii Olagoke. [BIASafe](https://biasafe.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech / AI\] offers a no-code quantitative portfolio management platform. Founded by Teric Greenan, the company has earned SOC 2 Type II certification and joined both the NVIDIA Inception and Google Cloud programs. BIASafe operates across Montreal, New York, and Casablanca. [Agnic.AI](https://agnic.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Enterprise\] is building payment infrastructure for AI agents. The company calls it a "trust layer for agentic commerce," letting autonomous software agents handle financial transactions securely. Ali Moghadam leads the team, which brings over 40 years of combined fintech experience. Agnic.AI runs on Solana and is positioning for a future where AI agents need their own payment rails. [OnGuardAI](https://getonguard.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[Cybersecurity\] detects scam calls in real time using AI, with a focus on protecting seniors from voice fraud. Richard Gotlieb's company launched in the U.S. market in August 2026\. Fraud is a direct attack on trust, and anything that reduces it is trust-building by another name. Contract-It, led by Ahmad Sobh, won two prizes at HEC Montréal's Gala révélations La base 2026, signaling early traction in the Quebec startup ecosystem. *Also in the Pitch Battle: Novalytics (Charly Bastard), Datacove.ai (Vivek Ghartan), and Coalesc (Anthony Uyende).* ## The Judges ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/09/WhatsApp-Image-2026-09-15-at-15.09.41--1--1.jpeg) The Pitch Battle panel brought together five investors and ecosystem leaders active in Canadian fintech: Karim Gillani (Luge Capital), Ricky Lai (Portage Ventures), Simon Dandavino (Station Fintech), Adriana Vega (Fintechs Canada), and Jan Christopher Arp (Holt Accelerator). ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network The pattern across the day was consistent. Open banking, stablecoins, AI security. Every one of these technologies is trying to buy speed or convenience. And every one of them has to answer for what it costs in trust to get there. Half the Pitch Battle companies were applying AI to compliance, security, or fraud. The next wave of Canadian fintech looks less like consumer apps and more like infrastructure for institutions trying to deploy new technology without breaking the thing the whole system depends on. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-09-10/ Last updated: 2026-10-02T03:02:02.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### A Tech Founder's Question About Who Controls What You Think URL: https://upnext.world/founder-decentralized-ai-architecture/ Last updated: 2026-09-09T15:24:21.000Z Abhishek Dixit had won by every measure that mattered in technology. He scaled a company from $500K to $70M revenue in seven months through product strategy alone. He was stable, well-compensated, and respected across his organization. Yet success felt hollow. When the AI boom arrived in 2024, he began asking questions that nobody around him seemed to be asking. He built a simple chat application and collected user data from early adopters. By his tenth conversation with each user, he could predict their psychological patterns with striking accuracy. He had discovered what others in the industry were reluctant to acknowledge. Artificial intelligence had become the most sophisticated weapon for manipulation ever built, and a handful of companies controlled it entirely. The realization would not leave him. He came to understand that the underlying architecture itself was the problem, not merely the models built upon it. ### From Product Strategy to a Question He Couldn't Ignore Abhishek grew up in a small village, Singhpur, in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, the first person from his community to attend IIT Madras. After completing his undergraduate degree at India's premier technical institute, he pursued applied research in vision-based machine learning. Princeton offered him admission to its doctoral program following a collaborative research project. He declined the offer without fully understanding what he was declining. Instead, he accepted a position at a startup in Delhi. Within months, his work on product strategy had transformed the company's trajectory. He was compensated generously, had security within the organization, and earned respect among his peers. By technology's external measures, he had achieved what most engineers aspire toward. Yet he felt profoundly unfulfilled. He had built a life that worked. He had not built a life with meaning behind it. The AI boom of 2024 shifted something within him. He became consumed with understanding how artificial intelligence actually operated, not how to use it but how to study it at a fundamental level. He made an observation that most practitioners had overlooked or chosen not to discuss publicly. These applications understood human psychology with an unsettling degree of precision. They knew what would sustain engagement, which emotional appeals would resonate, what vulnerabilities someone had, and how to shift thinking without being detected. He decided to test this hypothesis empirically. He constructed a chat application and began collecting behavioural data from users who volunteered to participate in his experiment. By the tenth exchange with each participant, he had gathered sufficient information to construct an accurate psychological profile. Ten conversations were all that was required. ### AI Companies Understand Your Psychology Better Than You Do The implication crystallized in his mind with uncomfortable clarity. Artificial intelligence had become the most sophisticated instrument for psychological manipulation ever created, and a tiny number of corporations possessed exclusive control over it. They understood the people who used their systems more completely than those individuals understood themselves. "I did a small experiment," he explains when reflecting on this period. *"By just ten conversations, I could accurately predict their psychological behaviour with precision. It's a very powerful weapon."* The question that followed was unavoidable. If companies could construct detailed psychological profiles from casual conversation, what prevented them from deploying that capability to manipulate cognition at industrial scale? This was not a technology problem that could be solved through optimization or better engineering. This was architectural. Every large language model developed in the preceding eight years operated according to the same fundamental design, originally conceived in 2017 for massive GPU data centers controlled by wealthy nations and corporations. The models themselves were not the liability. The foundation was. The architecture itself concentrated power exclusively in the hands of whoever could afford the necessary computational infrastructure. ### Architecture Is Power, and Power Should Not Concentrate Abhishek left his position and recruited a team of PhD researchers based at IIT Madras to investigate a single essential question. What if an entirely new architecture could be designed from first principles specifically for consumer CPUs rather than GPUs? What if artificial intelligence could run locally on individual devices, so that personal data is never transmitted to remote servers and power could not concentrate within a few corporate entities? They demonstrated that this was possible. Their creation, which they named CNMA, enabled a 70-billion-parameter model to run on just 3GB of RAM, on any consumer laptop, at speeds between 150 and 200 tokens per second. No GPUs were required. No reliance on cloud infrastructure. No data leaving the user's device. He is currently collaborating with India's defence department and Samsung on deployment cases. For Abhishek, the technological achievement is secondary to the principle driving it. He is demonstrating that frontier artificial intelligence can be developed ethically, that decentralization and profitability need not be opposed, and that access to powerful computational tools should not be determined by geography or national wealth. The future he envisions does not require AI companies to renounce profit or operate as charities. It requires them to become accountable to broader consequences. If your infrastructure does not concentrate power, if personal data never leaves your device, if decentralization becomes the default condition rather than an exception, then the incentive structures change fundamentally. *"I can still get money because money already exists in the economy,"* he observes. *"Instead of creating something unethical, you can create something ethical and earn money through that approach."* It is a vision that challenges everyone currently building artificial intelligence, not because it is technically impossible, but because it demands choosing principle over the pursuit of unrestricted growth. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Elevate Festival Is Two Weeks Away: September 22–24 URL: https://upnext.world/elevate-festival-2026-two-weeks-away/ Last updated: 2026-09-09T14:55:23.000Z If you are building a company, investing in one, or leading a team through a rapidly changing tech landscape, Elevate Festival is worth having on your calendar. *UpNext Global is an official media partner of Elevate Festival 2026.* From September 22 to 24, more than 10,000 founders, investors, executives and tech leaders will come together in Toronto for three days of talks, meetings, networking and new business opportunities. For the UpNext Global community, the biggest draw is access to the people building companies, deploying capital and making decisions across the tech ecosystem. ***For C-Suite and business leaders***, Elevate is a chance to get outside the day-to-day and hear how other leaders are approaching some of the biggest shifts in business. From AI and quantum to fintech, product and innovation, the Festival brings together people who are actively building and applying these technologies. It is also an opportunity for capital-ready startups to meet some of the [110 investors at the event through Meeting Exchanges](https://elevatefestival.ca/meeting-exchanges/?ref=upnext.world) that could play a role in your business. ***For investors***, thousands of entrepreneurs and founders will be in the room. Elevate offers a chance to discover emerging companies, meet founders across different stages and sectors, and connect with other investors from Canada and beyond. ***For entrepreneurs***, the value extends well beyond the sessions. Potential investors, customers, partners, mentors and future hires are all part of the Elevate community. Whether you are raising capital, looking for your next customer or simply want to meet more people who understand what it takes to build a company, there are plenty of reasons to make the trip. [This year's lineup](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260831905304/en/Elevate-Festival-Returns-to-Mark-Nearly-a-Decade-of-Growth-Unveils-New-Headline-Speakers?ref=upnext.world) includes leaders from ***Clio, Xanadu, DuckDuckGo, Reddit, Cohere, Figma, Coinbase, 1Password*** and more, bringing perspectives from across Canada and the global tech industry. Don't miss Opening Night, where Toronto Raptors legend and NBA Champion ***Kyle Lowry*** takes the Main Stage to talk about leadership, performance and his next chapter as an entrepreneur and investor. For the UpNext Global community, it's three days to learn, make new connections and see firsthand what's being built and who's building it. ### Walk in already knowing who to find One thing we have learned covering events this size: most people spend day one working out who is in the room, and day three wishing they had known sooner. So we are running *The Head Start*, a virtual pre-networking session for Elevate ticket holders. *Thursday, September 10, 11:00 AM ET*. Ninety minutes, free, produced with Gatherly. Not a webinar. A venue you move around in, with speed networking rounds and AI matchmaking from Boardy. [The Head Start: Advance Networking for Elevate · LumaUpNext Global presents The Head Start Advance Networking for Elevate · Powered by Gatherly Virtual · Thursday, September 10 · 11:00 AM ET Why come Elevate…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/favicon-541cdac3-5c97-4e91-93b7-8127b41fc858.ico)UpNext Global![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/1d9c43fd-44fd-4183-989c-a9e0d4a50a6a-5a1f8c33-a495-407f-bdf1-1de16bc6117b.png)](https://luma.com/oqs184vv?ref=upnext.world) ### Before you go ***Save $100 on a General Admission pass*** before the discount ends at midnight tonight, and [download the Festival app](https://go.elevatefestival.ca/app-download?ref=upnext.world) to stay connected and make the most of the experience. Can't wait to see you there. [Join us at this year’s Elevate Festival!Join us in Toronto for Elevate Festival, Canada’s most influential tech + innovation event, taking place from September 22-24!![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/cropped-favicon-1-270x270-cef5361c-cab4-4db4-9a8f-b1ad1d7ef38e.png)Elevate Festival![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/elevate-2026-35cb8bbf-d1de-4adb-90e4-1c7f2bbf4c6d.jpg)](https://elevatefestival.ca/?ref=upnext.world) ### AI-Powered Wearable Ultrasound Brings Cardiac Imaging Home URL: https://upnext.world/wearable-ultrasound-cardiac-monitoring/ Last updated: 2026-09-09T03:02:58.000Z Understanding your own body is the first step to caring for it. That philosophy has guided Sai Zhou's entire career, from his early work in biomedical engineering to his current mission at CircuCare, where he's built an AI-powered wearable ultrasound device that brings cardiac imaging home in minutes instead of the 32 days most outpatients currently wait. When technology doesn't require gatekeeping, healthcare becomes accessible. ## Who am I? The question that shaped everything Sai's questions aren't typical startup origin stories. They're foundational. Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? These questions drove him to pursue understanding in the most literal way by studying the human body itself. In his undergrad at a university in China, he started in materials science because the program ranked highly. But material science felt incomplete. It studied structures and components outside the body. What he wanted was to understand what was happening inside. By his third year, he was building biomaterials on the side, exploring how materials could work within human physiology. By the time he applied to graduate school, he accepted the offer from UC San Diego, well known for its strength in biomedical engineering, so he could study the human body directly. That choice followed a conviction. Understanding yourself, literally understanding your own body, is how you gain agency over your health. Ultrasound became his tool for that understanding. Unlike electrical sensors that only capture signals at the skin's surface, ultrasound could see deep inside, revealing what no wearable had accessed before. ## Sonographers, the accidental gatekeepers When Sai entered graduate research, he began exploring wearable sensors beyond the electrical ones already common in devices like the Apple Watch and Oura Ring. He studied strain sensors, mechanical sensors, and light sensors. Ultrasound stood out immediately. It was non-invasive, used no radiation, captured real-time images, and could see deep inside the body rather than just surface signals. Ultrasound is the gold standard for cardiac imaging in hospitals and clinics. But it's also intensely operator-dependent. An ultrasound image is a 2D slice of a 3D structure. A minor shift in probe position or angle produces completely different images. Getting consistent results requires years of training. Operators need certification. They're called sonographers. The shortage is severe. There are 25,000 unfilled sonographer positions in the US. Wait times stretch beyond a month for outpatient imaging. Patients with chest pain wait weeks to know if something is wrong. In hospitals, scans happen episodically, meaning critical cardiac events can occur between imaging sessions and go undetected. The industry accepted this as inevitable. The technology was scarce because the expertise was scarce. The real bottleneck was the assumption that ultrasound requires human expertise to operate. CircuCare's solution inverts that assumption. The device itself became intelligent. AI guides the device to automatically locate the heart, acquire optimal images, and interpret results. A nurse or medical assistant can place it on a patient's chest. The device does the expert work. Data streams to physicians for remote diagnosis. "You don't have to get trained to use it," Sai says. "You just apply it on your chest, and the device is going to just do the scan by itself." ## A new vision for healthcare Sai sees healthcare shifting fundamentally in the years ahead. Hospitals will handle acute care and surgery. Monitoring, prevention, follow-up all move home instead. "Your home will be a hospital or your home will be a clinic for you," he says. Devices like CircuCare's make that possible. A patient recovering from cardiac surgery currently stays in the hospital for days, monitored episodically. With CircuCare, they go home after two days instead of ten, conducting daily scans themselves while physicians monitor remotely. Early detection of heart failure progression happens at home, not in a clinic months later. Preventive screening becomes continuous. The clinical validation is building. CircuCare was selected as the earliest company in the Medtech Innovator program 2025 cohort and won 1st place at the American Society of Echocardiography conference in Hawaii. Clinical trials are underway at UC San Diego Health and many other top institutions. FDA submission is planned for next year. Sai was also recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. Healthcare shouldn't be something that happens to you in a waiting room. When you understand your own body, when access replaces gatekeeping, when technology serves your agency instead of limiting it, that's when control becomes possible. That's what Sai is building toward. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-09-03/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T11:11:56.000Z Welcome back. If this is your first issue, What's UpNext tracks founders, momentum, and signals across the global startup circuit. Each week we cover the events, the founders, and the ideas shaping the ecosystem. September is here and the calendar is stacked. Intersekt opens tomorrow in Melbourne. Nordic Tech Week runs five days in Stockholm starting Sunday. Global Fintech Fest brings over 100,000 people to Mumbai. The Head Start is eight days out. And Elevate Festival is less than three weeks away in Toronto. Let's get into it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. **Jump to:** [Intersekt Melbourne](#intersekt) · [Nordic Tech Week](#nordic-tech-week) · [Global Fintech Fest](#gff) · [Spotlights](#spotlights) · [The Head Start](#head-start) · [Storytelling Workshop](#workshop) · [Elevate Festival](#elevate) · [Final Thought](#final-thought) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Aging in Place Without Being Watched URL: https://upnext.world/aging-in-place-privacy/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T15:03:23.000Z For years, the aging care technology market has assumed that better visibility means better safety, pointing families toward cameras and wearables. Muxin Ma, the COO of Pontosense, arrived at a different conclusion. Seniors do not refuse safety. They refuse being watched. That insight became the foundation of a platform that detects behavioural changes using sensors invisible to the eye, letting families know what is happening without them having to watch. Based in Toronto, Pontosense is reshaping how Canadian families think about caring for aging parents. ### **She Lived the Problem Before She Built for It** Muxin grew up in Japan, in a country where 30% of the population is over 70\. The aging crisis was not abstract for her. It was embedded in everyday life, visible in the way the media covered the issue, in infrastructure decisions, and in families stretched thin, trying to care for parents while raising children. After studying economics at the University of Toronto, she moved back to Asia and worked her way through consulting roles in Singapore and Shanghai, deliberately building a broad view of how business works at scale. She landed a role in the Japanese fashion industry, eventually becoming VP of HR at one of the country's largest brands, managing a workforce of 6,000\. The role demanded the kind of operational thinking that makes complex organizations function. Her life made joining the Pontosense team the next logical step. When she moved back to Canada for personal reasons, she finally had the conditions to act on it. She has two young daughters in Toronto. Her parents still live alone in Japan. Suddenly, the aging crisis she had long observed from a distance was something she lived herself. ### **The Moment Safety Stopped Requiring Sacrifice** When the Pontosense team began talking to families about what they actually needed, they found that everything the aging care industry assumed was contradicted. Seniors did not refuse safety. They refused the price of safety, which meant refusing cameras in their bedrooms, wearables on their wrists, and the loss of autonomy built into every existing solution. 70% of falls occur in bathrooms and bedrooms, the most intimate spaces in a home. These are also the rooms where cameras violate privacy so deeply that seniors will refuse protection rather than accept surveillance. Ninety-five percent of caregiving for aging parents is unpaid family work, and families already overwhelmed are left struggling to balance concern for a parent with everything else in their lives. Without cameras or wearables, Pontosense places sensors in the critical rooms. The technology detects movement patterns, gait changes, bathroom frequency, and time in bed, all of which are behavioural signals that show whether something is changing. A shared family app lets multiple caregivers see what is happening in real time and receive alerts when the pattern shifts. "Our technology is the only way to provide that safety and then peace of mind and dignity for seniors," Muxin says. ### **Peace of Mind as a Right, Not a Trade** Customer feedback drives Muxin. Some customers have told her the platform saved their parents' lives. When someone falls and nobody finds them for hours, the recovery is never the same. Referrals are growing organically as families tell other families about the solution without any formal incentive. "I believe everybody is a caregiver," she says. "At some point you become one, and at the end of life, you become the one needing care. It's really attached to everybody." Her parents are aging in Japan. Her daughters will one day care for her. She is building for the experience every family eventually faces. Pontosense started in B2B partnerships and has since expanded into direct-to-consumer, appearing on Dragon's Den and being featured in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. Muxin wants to reach retailers like Costco and Amazon so that families across North America and beyond can access the technology without friction. By 2030, 1 billion people will be over 70\. The solution does not require families to choose between independence and safety, and Muxin is betting that once they understand that, they will not look back. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### One Breath Test Reaches the Billions of Women Mammography Never Could URL: https://upnext.world/breath-test-reaches-unscreened-women/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T15:01:41.000Z Jilma Peruvangat spent a decade inside hospitals learning what doctors need and what patients fear. She started as a service engineer at Larsen, moved to Philips Ultrasound Systems, studied the dangers of X-ray imaging, and worked at one of India's leading medical centers. Every job taught her precision, empathy, and the gaps the industry ignores. Then she saw something that stopped her cold. Over 90% of medical equipment in that hospital was imported. Rural clinics had nothing. Women in villages died of breast cancer at stage three and four because they never had a choice. That moment broke something in her. She left to pursue research and built CanScan, a breath test that detects breast cancer with 95% accuracy for $20, deployable anywhere on earth, without radiation or pain. ### Watching Women Die From a Problem That Shouldn't Exist In India, breast cancer is often discovered far too late. Almost 60% of women die from the disease because they never had access to screening at all. The barrier is not science. It is geography, money, and the simple fact that mammography only exists in urban hospitals. Rural women don't have it. Young women in their 30s face a different problem. Cancer progresses fast, sometimes from stage one to stage three in six months. Doctors can only recommend screening every two years because the radiation risk outweighs the benefits of early detection. Yet almost every woman Jilma talked to said the same thing. They don't want to go for screening. They know it could save them. They skip it anyway because the experience is something they dread. Compressing the breast, exposing yourself to radiation, enduring pain that feels unnecessary. Mammography saves lives. It also punishes women for trying to survive. ### A Breath Test That Works Anywhere and Hurts No One Jilma's insight came from studying volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath. Cancer changes the molecular signature of a woman's exhaled breath before it shows up on any image. She collected breath samples from women with confirmed breast cancer and women without it, ran statistical analysis, and found something beautiful. Certain compounds were present at dramatically higher concentrations in cancer patients. Some compounds appeared nowhere else. She developed patented sensor technology sensitive enough to detect these markers at parts-per-trillion concentrations, far more precise than gas chromatography. In clinical validation with 600 subjects, over 100 with confirmed breast cancer, CanScan detected the disease with 95% accuracy. It caught tumours mammography missed. It showed negative when cancer was removed and localized. It works without radiation, without compression, without infrastructure, without pain. A woman simply breathes into a device and gets results in 15 minutes. She can take it yearly instead of risking radiation every two years. It costs $20 instead of $300\. It works in a rural clinic just as well as in a hospital. ### Removing the Pain Women Accept as Necessary Jilma's mission extends beyond early detection. She wants to transform what women's health innovation looks like. For decades, solutions were designed around what technology could do, not what women needed. They centred male biology, allowed pain and stigma, and delayed diagnosis. Now something is shifting. Innovation in women's health is moving toward accessibility, personalization, and technology designed with empathy. She speaks about this with quiet conviction. *"My aim is to remove one small pain of compressing the breast for cancer screening that women have to undergo every year; that is going to be a huge victory for me."* CanScan is one small pain removed. But it is a pain that millions of women endure unnecessarily. Early detection should be available to every woman, not just those within the walls of urban hospitals. That is the future Jilma is building. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What Hospitality Taught a Tech Founder About Healthcare URL: https://upnext.world/hospitality-healthcare-patient-communication/ Last updated: 2026-09-01T15:00:02.000Z Luis Furtado spent twenty years in education technology before returning to Brazil from Portugal. There, he met an odontologist who understood the broken core of healthcare. Clinics were drowning in fragmented patient communication, losing leads and revenue to chaos. Together, they built HubMédica, a hybrid model that combines trained secretaries, software, and AI workflows. But Luis's real insight came from watching the industry chase automation. Every platform promises to replace human work. Every doctor said the same thing when asked about AI. High-value patients do not want machines. They want people. HubMédica chose to keep humans at the center, with technology amplifying them. ## Service at Scale Was Never Part of Healthcare's Design Patient communication in clinics is broken. Messages come through WhatsApp, email, phone calls, and scheduling systems. Front-desk teams juggle everything at once. A staff member who answers messages, takes calls, and schedules appointments will miss things. Leads get lost. Patients wait longer than necessary. The operational layer between doctors and patients was not understaffed. It was not designed. Clinics understand the problem. Doctors want to provide great care. Patients expect fast digital communication. But the layer connecting them is chaos. The industry's solution was always the same. Build another platform. Launch another SaaS tool. Automate with AI. Make it cheaper. Make it scale without people. Luis watched companies raise money on exactly this premise. They offered AI-powered chat platforms to handle patient communication. Clinics bought them hoping they would solve the problem. They did not. ## What Clinics Actually Need Is an Operating Layer, Not Another Platform HubMédica became something different. Instead of selling software, they built a managed operating layer. Trained secretaries handle patient communication. Software coordinates their work. AI automates background tasks like appointment reminders, schedule confirmations, and agenda summaries. Most clinics using HubMédica are private specialists. Cardiologists, surgeons, and cosmetic clinics work with HubMédica. High-ticket consultations mean conversion matters and patient experience drives business growth. When clinics integrated HubMédica, they did not replace existing systems. Luis built integrations instead. HubMédica connects with more than twenty healthcare platforms. A secretary works in HubMédica's interface. The platform quietly handles connections to the clinic's other tools. No switching between systems. One interface for the team, multiple systems working in the background. The results justified the model. HubMédica grew to 30 paying clinics, generating R$51.5k in monthly recurring revenue, with 4.7x growth. The platform handled 463,000 patient messages, served 30,000 unique patients, and automatically confirmed 8,800 appointments. Clinics kept using it because it worked. "Every minute from our secretaries is worth gold," Luis says. "Human interaction is expensive, and it needs to be preserved." HubMédica's secretaries handle the high-touch moments. An elderly patient gets voice communication. A complex medical case gets careful handling. A cosmetic clinic's Instagram leads get nurtured by real people. These moments cannot be templated. Automation happens in the background, but moments that build trust stay human. ## The Future Belongs to Teams That Keep Humans at the Center Luis refuses to chase the AI trend, even though it would be easier. Every platform building in healthcare now promises that automation solves the problem. Doctors ask the same question repeatedly. "Do you use AI to answer my patients?" HubMédica's answer is no. Not for work that matters. High-value patients want human conversation, not machines. This is not a limitation. It is the business model. Technology is a commodity. Anyone can build a chatbot. What they cannot build overnight is a team of trained healthcare secretaries who understand patient communication, handle sensitivity, and convert leads into loyal customers. Luis knows scaling a business built on human execution is harder than scaling pure software. But moving to SaaS means losing the operational layer that actually works. It means losing service. "Technology is a commodity," Luis says. "Everyone can open a cloud and create a system. It will not deliver differentiation or a final service." HubMédica's next milestone is scaling from thirty to 100 to 150 clinics while deepening system integrations and expanding across Brazil. The center remains unchanged. Trained human teams, supported by technology, provide the service layer that healthcare is missing. That is not a limitation to overcome. It is the entire point. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-08-27/ Last updated: 2026-08-27T12:12:49.000Z Welcome back. If this is your first issue, What's UpNext tracks founders, momentum, and signals across the global startup circuit. Each week we cover the events, the founders, and the ideas shaping the ecosystem. TechBBQ in Copenhagen and Techsauce in Bangkok wrapped this week. Now the calendar shifts to September and it does not slow down. Intersekt opens in Melbourne next week. Nordic Tech Week runs five days in Stockholm. Global Fintech Fest brings 100,000 people to Mumbai. The Head Start is two weeks out and Elevate Festival is less than a month away. Let's get into it. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) **Jump to:** [Intersekt Melbourne](#intersekt) · [Nordic Tech Week](#nordic-tech-week) · [Global Fintech Fest](#gff) · [Elevate Festival](#elevate) · [Spotlights](#spotlights) · [The Head Start](#head-start) · [Storytelling Workshop](#workshop) · [UpNext Space](#upnext-space) · [Final Thought](#final-thought) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-08-20/ Last updated: 2026-08-26T10:56:36.000Z Welcome back. If this is your first issue, *What's UpNext* tracks founders, momentum, and signals across the global startup circuit. Each week we cover the events, the founders, and the ideas shaping the ecosystem. Next week is the busiest week on the global startup calendar. TechBBQ in Copenhagen and Techsauce in Bangkok run the same week. Elevate Festival in Toronto is five weeks out. We just opened registration for The Head Start, our pre-Elevate networking session on September 10. Let's get into it. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) **Jump to:** [TechBBQ Copenhagen](#techbbq) · [Techsauce Bangkok](#techsauce) · [Spotlights](#spotlights) · [The Head Start](#head-start) · [Elevate Festival](#elevate) · [Storytelling Workshop](#workshop) · [UpNext Space](#upnext-space) · [Final Thought](#final-thought) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-08-14/ Last updated: 2026-08-14T11:50:13.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-07-30/ Last updated: 2026-07-30T11:32:26.000Z It is midsummer. Most people slow down. We did the opposite. On Tuesday we ran the first Founder Engine session with 70 founders in the room. This week we are spotlighting two founders building things worth paying attention to. Three events are coming up across Latin America and Scandinavia. And the Final Thought connects a 58-year IMAX story to what every founder gets wrong about timing. Let's get into it. --- ## Founder Engine Recap ### 70 Founders, One Live Build, Zero Slides **July 28, 2026 |** [**Powered by Gatherly**](https://gatherly.io/?ref=upnext.world) 129 registered. 70 showed up. They had 78 group conversations and 138 one-on-one conversations before the night was over. Almost two interactions per person. Nobody came to watch. They came to work. The format was simple. Edwin opened with the core problem most revenue-stage founders face. You built the company. Now you are the company. If you stop selling, pipeline dries up. If you stop posting, nobody sees you. If you stop following up, deals go cold. The session was built around fixing that. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-07-23/ Last updated: 2026-07-23T12:12:02.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-07-17/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T14:22:15.000Z Every revenue-stage founder knows the feeling: if you stop selling for a week, pipeline dies. If you stop posting, nobody sees you. You built the system, and now you are the system. On July 28, Founder Engine goes live with a working session designed for exactly that inflection point — the shift from founder-led to operator-led, using AI to build the infrastructure that lets a founder step back without everything stalling. That theme showed up everywhere this week. At Startupfest in Montreal, $825K in investment prizes went to founders solving problems in agricultural biotech, sovereign tech, and diagnostic acceleration. Across the border, Johns Hopkins held its first Alumni Accelerator showcase with a roster of founders who had already built and operated before returning to build again. The pattern across all of it: founders who have moved past the pitch and into the operational work of scaling. Let's get into it. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Women in Tech Investment Prize Stole the Spotlight at Startupfest 2026 In Montreal URL: https://upnext.world/women-in-tech-investment-prize-stole-the-spotlight-at-startupfest-2026-in-montreal/ Last updated: 2026-07-16T21:25:19.000Z Ten founders took the stage in Montreal for Startupfest 2026's $100,000 Women in Tech Investment Prize, funded by The Firehood and judged by a panel of women angel investors. The 16th edition of the festival closed on July 10 with founders, investors, and ecosystem players from across Canada converging for three days of pitches and networking. The cohort spanned fertility diagnostics, hormone care, blockchain payments, and hive health, with one team walking away with the check and a second taking home a separate award the same weekend Announcement ****The Founder Engine** You have revenue. If you stop, everything stops. This is where we fix that. A live working session where I build the growth system from scratch, on screen, using a real founder's business. July 28 | 1-3pm ET | Free [Save Your Spot ](https://luma.com/founderengine?ref=upnext.world) ## The Women in Tech Prize Winner ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-15-011020-1-1.png) Image Captured by LimeAlert [LymeAlert™](https://www.linkedin.com/company/lymealert/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] won the $100,000 Women in Tech Investment Prize at Startupfest 2026\. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company makes an at-home test kit that detects the bacteria behind Lyme disease directly from a tick, delivering results in about 30 minutes instead of the days a lab test takes. Founder and CEO Erin Dawicki, a physician associate, built the company with co-founders Brenda Ong and Dr. Michelle Rauch Ewy as MIT Sloan Fellows in 2024\. LymeAlert also won Startupfest's Audience Choice Award, taking two prizes from the same festival. ## The Top Three The Women in Tech competition's top three finishers were [LymeAlert™](https://www.linkedin.com/company/lymealert/?ref=upnext.world), [July Health](https://www.linkedin.com/company/julyhealth/?ref=upnext.world), and [SciCortex Technologies Corporation](https://www.linkedin.com/company/scicortex-technologies-corporation/?ref=upnext.world). [July Health](https://www.julyhealth.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — Founder Julie Mai, a registered dietitian who was diagnosed with PCOS and ADHD herself, built a virtual clinic connecting Canadians with dietitians, therapists, and nurse practitioners for hormone and neurodivergent care. The Toronto-based platform has been featured in The Globe and Mail and the National Post. [SciCortex Technologies Corporation](https://www.linkedin.com/company/scicortex-technologies-corporation/?ref=upnext.world) \[Hardware\] — Led by CEO Ania Muller and CSO Dr. Eilif B. Muller, this Montreal hardtech team is developing hardware infrastructure through the Centech accelerator program. ## Special Awards [AgroGene Solutions](https://ca.linkedin.com/company/agrogene-solutions?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech / AgTech\] won Startupfest's separate $100,000 Best of the Fest Investment Prize the same weekend. The Moncton, New Brunswick team, led by CEO Dr. Pascale Michaud alongside co-founders Dr. Luc Boudreau, Dr. Nicolas Pichaud, and Dr. Gilles Robichaud, builds a molecular diagnostic and data platform that lets beekeepers detect hive infections before symptoms appear. ## Standouts [Kavodax](https://kavodax.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech / Blockchain\] — Founder and CEO Gharsa Amin is building a Canadian dollar-backed stablecoin and cross-border payments rail designed to cut multi-day bank wire transfers down to 30 to 60 minutes. The platform holds one physical Canadian dollar in a custodian bank for every token issued and is pursuing Money Services Business registration while engaging with the Bank of Canada. Kavodax won $25,000 at the Startup World Cup Ottawa Regional Competition in 2026, with Amin named the event's most fundable founder, and is headed to the global final in San Francisco to compete for a $1 million investment. [Begin Fertility](https://beginfertility.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — Co-founders Jacob Ruiter and Layla Freig are building a digital health platform for early-stage fertility care, combining at-home hormone testing with algorithm-informed diagnostics and virtual follow-ups from licensed providers. The Westmount, Quebec company is a member of the Femtech Canada network. [ValorixAI](https://www.valorixai.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — Co-founder Filip Valocký's tool turns a single product photo into a complete Etsy listing, generating SEO-optimized titles, tags, and descriptions in seconds. Eamico \[Fintech\] — Toronto-based fintech venture co-founded by COO Kalen Johnson. *Also in the cohort: L'Officiel Unofficial and LogikBee. We were unable to confirm founder identities for these two companies in time for publication and will update this post if that changes.* Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network Two of Startupfest's marquee $100,000 prizes this year went to founders solving problems inside the body: a tick test that shortcuts a week-long lab wait, and a hive diagnostic that catches bee infections before a colony collapses. The rest of the cohort points at where founders are placing bets right now: rebuilding cross-border payment rails on stablecoins, and building AI tools thin enough to run a one-person e-commerce shop. ### John Hopkins's Pava Marie LaPere Center First Alumni Accelerator Showcase URL: https://upnext.world/john-hopkinss-pava-marie-lapere-center-first-alumni-accelerator-showcase/ Last updated: 2026-07-16T21:27:07.000Z The Pava Marie LaPere Center for Entrepreneurship closed out its first Alumni Accelerator on July 1 with nine founding teams pitching on the same stage where student ventures usually compete. This showcase skipped moonshot pitches for something rarer: alumni who left Hopkins, spent a few years building elsewhere, and came back to build again. The cohort spans precision psychiatry, drone detection, and K-12 math, but shares one thread. A built and tested product. Most of these founders already had a product in someone's hands before they walked on stage. ### Standouts [Brāv Buddies](https://www.bravbuddies.io/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Enterprise\] — Founder and CEO Josephine B. Tientcheu built a mobilization intelligence platform that lets Army National Guard commanders get a real-time deployment picture over text messages. It's a system responders already use and no new app is required. The platform has won the Pitch George Competition at George Washington University and a Hopkins Ignite Fund Award from Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, and it's been selected for both the NSF Mid-Atlantic I-Corps and U.S. Ignite's AI for DMV Startups cohorts. That's a run of institutional validation that's rare this earlyin the stage. Tientcheu is targeting Army National Guard personnel across all 54 states and territories at $15 per user per month, pitching the platform as a way to turn a 2-to-4-hour phone tree into a decision commanders can make in minutes. [Gargoyle Systems](https://gargoylesystems.io/?ref=upnext.world) \[Robotics / Hardware\] — Co-founder Mike Fraietta, an FAA-certified drone pilot, is building a decentralized drone detection network that uses rooftop units to track registered and unregistered aircraft by RF signal and acoustic signature. The company already ships a consumer product, Gargoyle Sentinel, on the Google Play store, and Fraietta has taken the pitch to NewsNation and the Drone Radio Show as drone-enabled crime rises. Gargoyle is aiming at the gap between military-grade counter-drone systems and the commercial sites — data centers, stadiums, corporate campuses. These organizations need airspace awareness but have neither the budget nor the legal cover for anything more aggressive. [iksa.ai](https://iksa.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech / AI\] — Founded by Shaurya Verma while studying the physician-patient relationship at Johns Hopkins, iksa builds AI treatment companions for longevity clinics running peptide, hormone, and stem-cell protocols between visits. The company says it's customer-funded, HIPAA- and ISO-compliant, and already in use with thousands of patients. [BRAIV](https://braiv.tech/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — BRAIV is building machine learning-powered clinical decision support to help psychiatrists pick the most effective medication on the first try instead of months of trial and error. The company says its recommendations draw on more than 50,000 patient outcomes. [Math Your Mind](https://www.mathyourmind.org/?ref=upnext.world) \[EdTech\] — Founder Magnus Malabre, who failed math twice in high school before earning a physics degree and a master's in nuclear engineering, built a K-12 platform teaching students to think like mathematicians through interactive lessons and simulations. [smartSTAT](https://smartstat.io/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — An RFID-equipped smart code cart giving hospitals real-time inventory tracking on emergency supplies, aimed at cutting the labor and compliance work of manually restocking a crash cart. The company filed a trademark for "smartSTAT: Revolutionizing Code Carts" this spring. [LUMIQO](https://www.lumiqo.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — An AI platform aiming to automate adverse event reporting in oncology trials, a process that can otherwise run 250-plus hours and $15,000 per patient. *Also in the cohort: Athletes Intell, a mental performance platform for college athletic departments, and Teaching Tools, a platform for evaluating and developing college-level teaching.* ### Why It Matters for the UpNext Network Four of the nine companies here are building healthcare software — psychiatry, longevity medicine, oncology trials, hospital inventory — which says something about where Hopkins alumni default when they go build something. The strongest signal in this cohort is how many of these founders had already collected outside validation — NSF I-Corps, a Hopkins Ignite Fund Award, a GWU pitch competition win — before this stage ever happened. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-07-11/ Last updated: 2026-07-10T12:12:22.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### You Have Revenue. You Don't Have a System. URL: https://upnext.world/founder-engine/ Last updated: 2026-07-08T13:57:19.000Z I've been having the same conversation with founders for six months straight. It goes like this. > *Things are going well. Revenue's up.* > *But honestly?* > *If I stop selling for a week, pipeline dies.* > *If I stop posting, nobody sees us.* > *If I don't follow up personally, deals go cold.* Every. Single. Time. Here's what I tell them: You're not running a business. You're running on a treadmill. And the treadmill only moves when you do. --- ## The Messy Middle Is Real You've made it past the idea stage. You've got paying customers. Traction is there. Congrats — most founders never get here. But now you're stuck. You're the sales team. The marketing department. The ops person. The content machine. All at once. And here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud — the hustle that got you here is the same thing keeping you from scaling. The ceiling isn't effort. It's architecture. You don't have a system. You *are* the system. --- ## What I've Been Wiring Up At Flashpoint, we work with founders to build what I call the growth engine. The system that runs when you're not in the room. It starts with narrative. Your story needs to sell without you being there to tell it. Your [*Founder POV*](https://upnext.world/tag/flashpoint-pov) needs to be so clear that your content, your outreach, your pitch — it all carries your voice without requiring your presence. Your narrative is your first scalable hire. Then it's the tools. AI has made it possible to wire this up without hiring a full team. I'm talking ICP-targeted prospecting. Personalized outreach at scale. Content built from your own voice and IP. Lead scoring. Follow-up sequences. All running while you're doing the work that actually matters. This isn't theory. This is practitioner stuff. The exact tools and workflows I use with clients and inside UpNext every single day. --- ## I'm Showing You How. Live. On July 28th, I'm running a live workshop called *The Founder Engine*. No slides-and-script webinar. A working session. Here's what I'm walking you through: **The shift.** From founder-led growth to narrative-led growth — and how AI plugs into each stage. Where to start. What to build first. **The tools.** I'll show you how I build an ICP-targeted prospect list, set up sequences, and use AI-powered messaging to run outbound. Live. On screen. You'll see the actual workflow. **A real example.** A founder who went from doing everything manually to running a system. What changed. What it looks like now. What you can take from it. We're running this on [*Gatherly*](https://gatherly.io/?ref=upnext.world)*,* our virtual platform partner — not Zoom. You'll be in the room. You can move around, ask questions, talk to people. It's the same platform we use for the UpNext community. You'll feel the difference. And if you stick around till the end — I've got something I'm building that I want to share with the right founders. [Save Your Spot](https://luma.com/event/evt-ffUjnsHGGdU6mTT?ref=upnext.world) --- ## The Details **What:** The Founder Engine — From Doing Everything to Building the System That Scales **When:** Tuesday, July 28, 2026 | 1–3pm ET **Where:** Gatherly (link sent after registration) **Cost:** Free **Who it's for:** Founders with revenue who are still the system --- This is the session I wish someone ran for me when I was in the messy middle. I was the founder doing everything. I know what that looks like. I also know what it looks like when the system starts working without you. Let me show you. See you July 28th. Let's go. Gratefully, Edwin [Register for The Founder Engine](https://luma.com/event/evt-ffUjnsHGGdU6mTT?ref=upnext.world) ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-07-03/ Last updated: 2026-07-03T12:48:11.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-06-26/ Last updated: 2026-06-26T11:51:53.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### VivaTech at Ten: The Builders Are Still Building URL: https://upnext.world/vivatech-at-ten-the-builders-are-still-building/ Last updated: 2026-06-22T20:50:22.000Z VivaTech's Decade Edition closed on June 20 as the largest in the event's ten-year history. The new Hall 7 at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles — 70,000 square metres across three floors, 30% more exhibition space than 2025 — doubled conference seating to 5,200 seats, and the edition also marked a formal name change: Viva Technology officially became VivaTech. More than 200,000 visitors and 15,000 startups attended across four days; Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi both took the main stage, with Modi's presence underscoring India's designation as the official AI Country Partner. What the floor made clear was that the capital is moving, the platforms are being built, and the builders are increasingly based in Europe. ## The VivaTech x Bloomberg Awards ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/06/Vivatech-Bloomberg-1.jpg) The 2026 edition debuted the VivaTech x Bloomberg Awards, a new recognition program honoring individuals whose decisions shaped the global technology economy. Seven awards were announced on June 18 at a ceremony hosted by Bloomberg Television's Francine Lacqua and Tom Mackenzie at the VivaTech Theater in the new Hall 7. **Visionary Award —** [**Sir Tim Berners-Lee**](https://inrupt.com/?ref=upnext.world), inventor of the World Wide Web and Co-Founder & CTO of Inrupt. The Visionary Award recognizes lifetime achievement, and there was no ambiguity in this selection. Berners-Lee invented the infrastructure that made everything else possible, and Inrupt — his current venture — is working to restore individual control over personal data through the Solid protocol. **Leadership Award —** [**Joe Tsai**](https://www.alibaba.com/?ref=upnext.world), Co-Founder & Chairman of Alibaba Group. The Leadership Award recognizes a senior leader whose stewardship is shaping the global tech economy. Tsai has guided Alibaba through significant regulatory and structural pressure while positioning the company as a foundation for AI and cloud infrastructure across Asia. **Momentum Award —** [**Yann LeCun**](https://amilabs.xyz/?ref=upnext.world), Executive Chairman of AMI Labs. LeCun left his post as Chief AI Scientist at Meta earlier this year to co-found Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, which raised a $1.03 billion seed round at a $3.5 billion valuation. AMI Labs is building world models as a structural alternative to large language models — a long-held position LeCun is now backing with capital at scale. **Breakthrough Award —** [**Peter Steinberger**](https://steipete.me/?ref=upnext.world), Creator of OpenClaw and Member of Technical Staff at OpenAI. Steinberger built OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent that became the fastest-growing project in GitHub history, crossing 302,000 stars by April 2026 and overtaking React, Vue.js, and TensorFlow in a fraction of the time. The project demonstrated that capable agents could be built and deployed by individuals rather than large research teams. OpenClaw now lives in an independent foundation; Steinberger joined OpenAI's Codex team to scale the next generation of personal agents. **Investor Award —** [**Jeannette zu Fürstenberg**](https://www.generalcatalyst.com/?ref=upnext.world), President & Managing Director of General Catalyst. The Investor Award recognizes capital and conviction that accelerated innovation. Zu Fürstenberg has led General Catalyst's European expansion and has been an active voice on the role of AI in healthcare and industrial transformation. **Rising Star Award —** [**May Habib**](https://writer.com/?ref=upnext.world), Co-Founder & CEO of WRITER. WRITER builds enterprise-grade AI applications for large organizations — deployed with Fortune 500 clients at a time when most enterprise AI is still in pilot. Habib was nominated through a broad-based community process across the VivaTech and Bloomberg networks. **CitizenTech Award — Ukraine**. The CitizenTech Award recognizes a city, country, or region using technology to make a real-world impact on citizens. Ukraine was recognized for maintaining essential public services through its digital infrastructure under wartime conditions. The award was collected by Natalia Denikeieva, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) ## The Startup Prizes VivaTech's own competition program handed out five awards on Stage One on June 19, MC'd by TechCrunch. These are the official VivaTech startup prizes — distinct from the Bloomberg leadership awards and the pavilion pitch battles. **Innovation of the Year —** [**HODOR**](https://www.hodor.ai/?ref=upnext.world), founded by Karim Boussetta. HODOR builds the identity and permissions layer for AI agents — a gateway that controls exactly what each agent can access, at what rate, and with whose authorization. As companies plug agents into billing, CRM, and operations, the governance problem becomes acute; HODOR's answer is centralized identity assignment, real-time guardrails, and full audit logging across every agent action. Paris-based, backed by Hexa's Sprint program. **Tech for Change Award —** [**Alithea Bio**](https://alithea-bio.com/?ref=upnext.world), founded by Fanny Giannou. The Freiburg-based biotech uses immunopeptidomics, mass spectrometry, and machine learning to identify neoepitopes — patient-specific cancer mutations — for precision immunotherapy. Its Neozoom platform targets those mutations directly with cancer vaccines and TCR-engineered T cell therapy, aiming to replace broad-spectrum treatment with something the immune system can actually recognize. **Female Founder Award —** [**Endolith**](https://www.endolithmining.com/?ref=upnext.world), founded by Liz Dennett, PhD. More than 70% of the world's copper sits in low-grade ores that conventional mining can't reach economically. Endolith trains naturally occurring microbes with AI to adapt in real time to those ores and extract the copper anyway. The company raised $16.5 million in Series A funding and operates labs in Arvada and Westminster, Colorado. **AfricaTech Award —** [**SURGIA**](https://surgia.co/?ref=upnext.world), founded by Ahmed Yahia. SURGIA is a digital supply marketplace that connects clinics and hospitals across Africa with medical supplies, combining smart inventory tracking, financing tools, and a regional delivery network. The platform has processed more than 151,000 orders across 45,000+ authenticated products, serving healthcare facilities including those in remote areas. **Next Startupper Challenge —** [**AssisTech Foundation**](https://www.linkedin.com/company/assistech-foundation/?ref=upnext.world), represented by Sasha Ovalle. The inter-school and university competition was won by the ATF Smart Shower project — an assistive technology concept designed for users with limited mobility. --- ## Pitch Battles & Demo Days Beyond the Bloomberg Awards, VivaTech ran three distinct pitch competitions across its four days — none of which had publicly confirmed winners at the time of publication. The **Global Deep Tech Battles**, hosted at the Swiss Pavilion, ran sector-specific rounds across six tracks: Robotics, AI, Space & Security, IoT & Smart Systems, CleanTech, and MedTech. The week closed with a live robot face-off between Swiss and French hardware teams on the pitch stage — less a formal competition than a demonstration of where autonomous hardware actually stands in 2026. The **DACH Pitching Contest** brought together top startups from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland before a joint European investor panel. Germany served as the official Country of the Year, giving the DACH showcase a higher profile than prior editions. At the **HEC Paris Pitch Showcase**, five startups from the HEC Challenge+ program — developed with INPI and WIPO — presented on the pitch studio stage on June 18\. Two of them, FoxBio and HENDDU, are featured in the Standouts section below. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Standouts [XPANCEO](https://www.xpanceo.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Hardware / Healthtech\] — The Dubai-based deep tech company arrived at VivaTech fresh off a $250 million Series A at a $1.35 billion valuation — the largest Series A in the MENA region and the largest globally in AR/VR and wearables. Founded in 2021 by Roman Axelrod and physicist Dr. Valentyn Volkov, XPANCEO is building a screenless AR interface that sits directly on the eye, with current prototypes handling continuous glucose monitoring and glaucoma pressure tracking via tear fluid. Medical and industrial markets come first — aviation, surgical environments, space missions — with consumer wearables to follow. Full integration is targeted for early 2027. [Lattice Medical](https://www.lattice-medical.com/en/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — The French startup is in active clinical trials on MATTISSE, a 3D-printed resorbable scaffold for post-mastectomy breast reconstruction that uses a patient's own fat tissue and degrades completely within 18–24 months. The trial covers 50 patients across France, Spain, and Georgia; CE marking is targeted for 2026, which would open commercial deployment across Europe. [FoxBio](https://foxbio.fr/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech\] — Founded in early 2025 by Sophie Blondel and Julie Gertner-Dardenne, FoxBio is developing CAR-Treg cell therapy for chronic inflammatory diseases, with Crohn's disease as the lead indication. The approach builds on 20 years of R&D from Sangamo Therapeutics, which demonstrated 80% efficacy in earlier studies. A €35 million fundraising round is currently underway. [HENDDU](https://henddu.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate Tech / AI\] — Founded by Dr. Soulemane Ngagine, a researcher with a PhD in atmospheric physics, HENDDU builds satellite and IoT-powered air quality monitoring systems for cities and governments across Africa. Its HOQA platform delivers real-time Air Quality Index readings, pollution hotspot mapping, and forecasting for public health decisions. Backed by ESA BIC NORD and Inria Startup Studio. [HABS](https://www.habs.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Hardware\] — The Paris-based startup ran a live brain-machine interface demo at VivaTech: visitors wore an EEG headset, concentrated on a song, and a Unitree humanoid robot identified the brain signal and pointed to the correct card. No implants, no invasive hardware. HABS recently signed a partnership with Microsoft to integrate its emotional sensing technology into Copilot. --- ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network VivaTech's tenth edition assembled the architects of the current internet alongside the founders building its successor. LeCun left Meta to raise $1B on the thesis that world models are the path to machine intelligence. Berners-Lee is still working on data sovereignty at Inrupt, 35 years after inventing the web. At the demo stage, XPANCEO closed a $1.35B round on a lens that monitors glucose through tear fluid. European DeepTech funding reached a record €7.8 billion in 2025 (Dealroom), and the 2026 edition mapped where the next wave of that capital is being deployed: hardware, biotech, and AI infrastructure, with Europe as the primary theater. *Are you a founder, investor, or corporate partner active in deep tech?* [*Join the UpNext directory*](https://upnext.world/about) *to signal your intent and get on the radar of the next cohort.* ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-06-12/ Last updated: 2026-06-19T11:11:49.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### AccelerateOTT 2026: Ottawa's Founders Take a Global Stage URL: https://upnext.world/accelerateott-2026-ottawa-take-a-global-stage/ Last updated: 2026-06-17T13:54:08.000Z The top 10 finalists walked onto the AccelerateOTT stage at Lansdowne Park on June 11 to compete at the Startup World Cup Ottawa Regional competition. AccelerateOTT is Invest Ottawa's flagship entrepreneurship summit. This year the theme was "Built for the Age of AI." The day's panel discussions centered around the financial realities and how they influence how founders build. There are seven-figure model bills, engineering teams running on Cursor at $2,000 per developer per month, startups migrating between AI providers to chase promotional credits, and serious conversations about open-source alternatives as frontier model IPOs approach. The competition brought something different to the stage. The ten finalists were not debating AI infrastructure costs. They were reporting from the other side. With products in market, clinical validations in progress, and customers already signed, they showed that starts can prevail in the difficult waters. The top three shared $50,000 in non-dilutive grant funding from FedDev Ontario, and first place earned a spot at the Startup World Cup Grand Finale in San Francisco on November 6, 2026, competing against regional champions from more than 60 countries for a $1 million USD prize. ## The Competition Winner ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/06/gharsa_martin_cropped-1-1-1-1.webp) Image captured by [Spark Centre Marketing Team](https://sparkcentre.org/author/spark-centre-marketing-team/?ref=upnext.world) [Kavodax](https://www.kavodax.com/?ref=upnext.world) won the Startup World Cup Ottawa Regional and advances to represent Ottawa in San Francisco this November. Founded in 2025, Kavodax built Canada's first stablecoin which is powered by a B2B payment platform which is specifically for SMEs. Koavdax moves money across borders in minutes, with transparent fees, upfront FX rates, and real-time tracking. They replace bank wires that take days and charge 2 to 5 %. The platform is now live in more than 30 countries across Europe and Latin America, with Africa expansion underway. Founder Gharsa Amin put the company on the map before today's win. Kavodax took top honours at the Africa Economic Summit Pitch Competition, won CodeLaunch Canada 2025, and was named a Top 5 Startup at the EmpowerHer 2025 Showcase. That's strong growth for a company which is less than two years old. ## The Runners-Up ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-06-16-234758-1-1-1.png) Image captured by [https://www.instagram.com/naviolaw/](https://www.instagram.com/naviolaw/?ref=upnext.world) [Celestra Health Systems](https://celestrahealth.com/?ref=upnext.world) took second place with a platform that brings clinical-grade gait analysis into patients' daily lives. The Kanata company's device is FDA-designated Class II. It has an AI software layer running over third-party smart insoles which produces a 98% accuracy compared to a traditional gait laboratories. They deliver with roughly 1/100th the cost and with an 85% patient usability rating. The platform is designed to detect changes in MS progression months earlier than current clinical methods, and the company is preparing trials in Parkinson's disease. Founder Bruce Ford has built the evidence base in collaboration with University of Ottawa researcher Dr. Ryan Graham. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-06-17-000803-1-1-1.png) Image captured by [https://www.instagram.com/naviolaw/](https://www.instagram.com/naviolaw/?ref=upnext.world) [CardiAxis Medical](https://cardiaxis.com/?ref=upnext.world) placed third with SHARP-VT, a precision imaging platform for non-invasive treatment of ventricular tachycardia founded by Connor Haberl. The software integrates multiple imaging modalities to pinpoint arrhythmia sources to guide targeted radiation to the heart. The same ablative approach is used in cancer treatments and is now being applied to a life-threatening heart rhythm disorder. SHARP-VT compresses treatment planning from more than two hours to 15 minutes. The company was spun out of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and is led by Dr. Calum Redpath, who performed the first cardiac radioablation in Canada in 2020, and Dr. Robert deKemp, who previously commercialized Rubidium PET technology out of the same institution. ## Standouts [BioThera Solutions](https://biotherasolutions.com/?ref=upnext.world) is created by Frédéric St-Denis-Bissonnette who has spent years building the scientific credibility that most exosome companies skip. He's a MISEV2023 contributor and a co-author of the field's leading reporting standards document, a Fulbright Canada award recipient, and the PhD behind a biomanufacturing platform producing 30 billion verified exosome particles per mL with full characterization. The company's first commercial product is mPDEV Serum which is a dermo-cosmetic containing plant-derived extracellular vesicles from Aloe barbadensis. BioThera is running safety and efficacy studies running in partnership with practicing dermatologists. The platform is architected to scale across both dermocosmetic and regenerative medicine applications as the regulatory and manufacturing infrastructure matures. [Constant Health](https://www.constanthealth.ca/?ref=upnext.world) built by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff is one of Canada's most recognized obesity medicine practitioners. For over two decades, he has treated more than 10,000 patients and is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Constant Health is the platform built on everything he learned. It delivers chronic disease and weight management programs through registered dietitians, integrating Cognitive Behavioural Therapy via a proprietary behavioural technology stack. The clinical foundation is unusually deep for a digital health company, and Dr. Alexandra Segal, C. Psych. provides the psychological oversight behind the CBT component. [Taskd](https://taskd.ai/?ref=upnext.world) is founded by Ryan Hanley who built Taskd for the problem that every enterprise AI deployment eventually runs into: the answer has to be right, every time, and a language model's best guess isn't good enough. The platform compiles business logic which is extracted automatically from policies, contracts, emails, and regulations documents into a deterministic decision engine that produces sub-second, auditable outputs with a full proof chain from decision back to source document. It's a governance layer for mission-critical compliance workflows where repeatability and auditability are non-negotiable. [Stratotegic](http://www.stratotegic.com/?ref=upnext.world) created by Graeme Daly is developing autonomous high-altitude balloon systems for persistent, low-cost monitoring and surveillance. It's a category getting serious attention as stratospheric platforms prove out as a cost-effective alternative to satellites and traditional drones for ISR missions. *Also in the cohort:* [*CanVeer Biopharma*](https://www.canveer.com/?ref=upnext.world)*, developing a first-in-class therapeutic for bronchopulmonary dysplasia in newborns;* [*Peepal Research*](https://peepalresearch.com/?ref=upnext.world)*, building self-healing intelligence systems for complex multi-vendor networks; and* [*SamSearch*](https://samsearch.ai/?ref=upnext.world)*, an AI-powered platform helping businesses discover and win government contracts.* --- ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Community Ottawa sent a cohort to the Startup World Cup that skews toward hard problems with real evidence behind them: an FDA-designated medical device, a scientific research backed commercial cosmetic product, a University of Ottawa Heart Institute spinout that guides cancer like treatment for the heart, a payments platform live across 30+ countries. The day's keynote discussions made clear that AI is now a cost of doing business, not a differentiator on its own. What the competition stage showed is what still differentiates: a specific problem, solved with depth, validated in the real world. ### No Network. No VC. No Permission. That's the Point. URL: https://upnext.world/no-network-no-vc-no-permission-thats-the-point/ Last updated: 2026-06-16T19:18:11.000Z The startup world promises that merit matters. That the best ideas win. That anyone with ambition and a solid product can build something meaningful. Samim Safaei spent ten years discovering this wasn't true. Working outside Silicon Valley as an indie founder, bootstrapping across multiple companies, he watched the game operate on an entirely different logic: who you knew mattered more than what you knew. That observation became the foundation for siift, an AI-powered operating system designed to return startup success to the people the traditional ecosystem overlooks. ### **An Outsider's Clarity** Growing up as a Persian immigrant in rural Canada, Samim was visibly different from everyone around him. His father was a university professor in a small town where such an intellectual background also stood out. The family moved every five or six years, which meant Samim never had the luxury of settling into a community or taking the unspoken rules of his environment for granted. That constant displacement, combined with cultural difference, forced him to learn what people who belong don't notice. "I got quite good at understanding things without much context," he says. The ability to see systems clearly because you're never fully inside them would shape everything that came next. By the time he entered the startup world, Samim had already worked across several industries, roles, and geographies, and was building his first of five businesses to date. He had the perspective of someone who had never been given a playbook. He had learned to ask why instead of accepting because everyone else did. ### **When Connections Matter More Than Ideas** That outsider perspective was both a gift and a curse when Samim turned to founding. He built real companies, generated real revenue, and sustained real businesses. But he never fit the pattern that would have gotten him noticed by the gatekeepers controlling capital and credibility. He was bootstrapping while peers with less developed products were getting funded because they knew the right people. "The startup game has become more and more pay to play," Safaei observes. "It's become even more selective. There's a growing amount of value extraction happening." The post-COVID era intensified this gatekeeping. Success began depending less on idea quality and more on access to networks and narratives that mattered to people with power. siift is his answer. The platform works as an operational intelligence system, taking the knowledge that naturally accrues to well-connected founders and making it available to anyone building something. It maintains context across a founder's business, scores parallel ideas based on first-party data, continuously validates their strategy, and guides real progress to help them leverage AI with strategic intent. Most importantly, it doesn't ask permission to exist. ### **More Successful Founders, More Effective Ecosystems** What drives Samim isn't scale or funding. It's something closer to justice. After a decade grinding against a system that treated merit as secondary to access, he wants to stop the gaslighting. He wants to help like-minded entrepreneurs find their path without having to spend ten years learning what seasoned operators already know, or keep playing the VC slot machine. "When you dig into the reasons startups fail, going beyond the surface of high-level issues we all hear, such as they didn't validate properly, or they ran out of resources before they hit product-market fit, they didn't have the right team. The root causes come down to the founders' thinking: their inherent bias, blind spots, and distractions. These are unavoidable human limitations that we all have, but unfortunately, AI tools only amplify these issues. Vibe-Founding, as I like to call it." "Look, we don't claim to have all the answers, but we do know how you can find them. That's really satisfying," he says. "To help others succeed faster than I did." ### **Finally Open** siift is just over a year old, with 1,000 early access signups, three channel partners signed, and acceptance into Launch.co's Founder University program. They've been building this entire time, developing new technology specifically designed for the uncertain world that entrepreneurs must navigate. They are finally unblocked on their way to achieving their mission of decentralizing startup success and proving that entrepreneurship works better in the long run when it's based more on merit than luck. "We simply empower a new generation of AI-native founders to navigate better, to get deeper on ideas with more practical validation & reliable guidance than yes-man chatbots, aimless agents or hard to access expert support." > siift is now in open beta. If you're building something and want a breakthrough, check out [siift.ai.](https://siift.ai/?ref=upnext.world) --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Web Summit Rio 2026: Dalton Lab Wins the PITCH on a Record Stage URL: https://upnext.world/web-summit-rio-2026-dalton-lab-wins-the-pitch-on-a-record-stage/ Last updated: 2026-06-15T14:28:36.000Z [Web Summit](https://upnext.world/web-summit-rio-2026-upnext-briefing/) Rio 2026 set a new attendance record — 40,287 people from over 100 countries filling Riocentro for four days in June, alongside 1,572 startups and 688 venture investors. The exhibition floor ran on enterprise AI: OpenAI, Google, AWS, Dell, IBM, and Replit all held ground, with conversations centering on AI sovereignty, enterprise automation architectures, and what it takes to deploy AI across the regulatory complexity of Latin American markets. The city of Rio de Janeiro formalized a commitment to host the event through 2030\. On the main stage, all three PITCH finalists were Brazilian — and all three are in this cohort. ## The PITCH Winner ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/06/daltonlab-1.jpeg) [Dalton Lab](https://daltonlab.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Enterprise\] won the Web Summit Rio 2026 PITCH competition on Center Stage, drawn from 1,572 startups across the event. The São Paulo company builds enterprise AI agent platforms that map existing business workflows and deploy AI to handle the repetitive, rules-based work — giving human teams back the time for the decisions that actually require judgment. Founder Rodrigo Ramos made the case on stage that the right approach is to rearchitect work itself around what agents can reliably execute, rather than patching AI onto software built for a different era. The judges agreed. ## The Finalists [Oncolife Care](https://oncolifecare.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] reached the PITCH final with its B2B platform for oncology interoperability and clinical intelligence at hospitals. Cancer treatment in Brazil runs across fragmented systems that separate diagnosis, treatment protocols, and follow-up — Oncolife Care pulls that data into a coordination layer that helps clinical teams manage the whole picture. Founder Nayàra Mota Souza built the company alongside OncoCria, one of the largest cancer awareness events held in a Brazilian favela, and the Andorinha Community, which supports patients, caregivers, and clinicians through the realities of diagnosis and treatment. [Wedy](https://wedy.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Consumer Tech\] brought the third finalist slot with the digital infrastructure behind Brazilian celebrations — a single platform where couples manage their event site, gift list via Pix, and automated RSVPs over WhatsApp, alongside the vendors and event professionals who run their events. The company has reached 1M+ celebrations, 700K+ couples, and 25,000 professional partners. It runs profitably with a team of under 20 and has grown revenue more than 40% year on year. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) ## Standouts [Hemodoctor](https://hemodoctor.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — AI that reads blood tests and flags critical conditions before a physician sees the result. The core system was validated in a blinded multi-expert clinical study. In a live pilot at a healthcare company's laboratory, it processed over 4,300 complete blood counts and identified 852 cases with critical or high-priority findings ahead of specialist review. A prospective pilot is now active at the largest private hospital in Northeast Brazil, and a deployment in São José dos Campos covers up to 2 million cases. Hemodoctor is listed on InovaSuS Digital — the Brazilian Ministry of Health's innovation procurement platform — and has filed for ANVISA SaMD Class II notification. [Hub Médica](https://hubmedica.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — a platform combining software, trained healthcare teams, and AI-powered workflows to help medical clinics convert, serve, retain, and reactivate patients. Thirty clinics are paying. Monthly recurring revenue sits at R$51,500, up 4.7x over the past 12 months. The platform has processed over 463,000 patient messages, served nearly 30,000 unique patients, and automatically confirmed more than 8,800 appointments. [Hovi](https://hovi.id/?ref=upnext.world) \[Cybersecurity\] — identity infrastructure for the internet, enabling reusable digital trust across wallets for both humans and AI agents. Hovi has paying customers and is a sandbox partner in both the French and German national ID wallet initiatives, conformant in the ETSI EAA Plugtests 2026\. The company is pursuing QEAA issuer qualification under eIDAS 2.0 with Finland's Traficom as its supervisory body, and is working with Brazil's largest EdTech platform (3 million users) and a Japanese enterprise with $11B in annual revenue. [Heyship](https://heyship.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — Brazil's first AI-powered business intelligence platform for foreign trade, classifying products, simulating landed costs, and wiring supplier payments from a single prompt. The platform is live in production with 12M+ import records classified by AI, 500+ importers on the free NCM Finder tool, and five customs brokerages in active pilot — each running over 100 importers as a distribution channel. Backed by Leonora Ventures and the OpenAI Startup Ecosystem. [TEAlliance](https://tealliance.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[EdTech\] — AI-generated inclusion strategies and personalized lesson plans for neurodivergent students. Five pilot schools are live, with 70 students served through 250+ individualized plans. Teachers report a 90% reduction in planning time. Seventy-five percent of students are on track for their expected literacy stage, and the AI suggestion acceptance rate sits at 60%, improving through ongoing teacher feedback. [Teia Studio](https://teiaestudio.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — infrastructure for generative AI auditing, cognitive observability, and algorithmic governance, helping companies control how their brands and decisions are represented in large language models and automation systems. [WeBox.AI](https://webox.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Enterprise\] — builds complex AI virtual assistants and multi-agent workflows for large enterprises, integrated with corporate systems. Clients include insurance and logistics companies handling over 120,000 policies. [DEXCAP](https://dexcap.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech / Blockchain\] — tokenized real-world asset platform combining blockchain, regulatory structure, and legal-financial modeling to reduce cost and friction in asset tokenization. Selected by Ripple for the Fenasbac acceleration program. First deal: R$12M in real estate tokenized in Minas Gerais. [Plantah](https://plantah.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[Sustainability\] — platform that converts marketing budgets into measurable environmental and social impact, tracked against the UN's 17 SDGs through gamification and its own exchange currency. Launched officially at Web Summit Rio 2025. [Realize Edtech](https://realize.pro.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[EdTech\] — L&D platform that helps medium and large companies diagnose learning gaps, build training content, and deliver structured programs backed by data. [Copera](https://copera.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — AI platform for business workflows and operations in the Brazilian market. [ESGscan](https://esgscan.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[Sustainability\] — ESG scanning and compliance reporting for Brazilian companies navigating environmental, social, and governance disclosure requirements. [MaximizaIA](https://maximizaia.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — AI solutions for business productivity and automation. [Kultua](https://kultua.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Consumer Tech\] — platform connecting people to cultural events and local creative experiences. [Buske.ai](https://buske.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — AI-powered automation platform for Brazilian businesses. [NOVOTO App](https://novoto.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[Consumer Tech\] — Brazilian consumer application platform. [ePropi](https://epropi.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[Proptech\] — real estate technology for the Brazilian property market. [Good Casting](https://goodcasting.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Media / Talent\] — digital platform for casting and creative talent management. [fSense](https://fsense.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Enterprise Software\] — workforce analytics and productivity intelligence platform. [Sensify](https://sensify.com.ar/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — AI-driven sensing and automation platform, based in Argentina. [SafeDot](https://safedot.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[Cybersecurity\] — digital safety and compliance platform. [Tia Bete](https://tiabeteoficial.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[EdTech\] — educational technology platform for Brazilian students. [Mastera](https://mastera.com.br/?ref=upnext.world) \[EdTech\] — platform for online teachers and content creators to build and monetize courses. [ConnectLoop](https://connectloop.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — AI-powered platform for connecting businesses and professionals. *Also in the cohort: MEDTREK, ResultPay, Move Compliance, Neurafy, Dinda, Levers, Rocket Med, and OrthoCopilot.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network Web Summit Rio 2026 was a credibility moment for Latin American tech, and the cohort on the ground made the argument without needing to explain itself. Three Brazilian founders reached the PITCH final on Center Stage. One won. With Web Summit committed to Rio through 2030, capital flowing into the region, and a founder base reporting revenue, enterprise pilots, and government approvals — not projections — the moment for LatAm enterprise tech has arrived. This cohort represents what it looks like on the ground. ### Hello Tomorrow 2026: Deep Tech Reports From the Field URL: https://upnext.world/hello-tomorrow-2026-deep-tech-reports-from-the-field/ Last updated: 2026-06-15T06:25:57.000Z [Hello Tomorrow ](https://hello-tomorrow.org/global-summit/?ref=upnext.world)brought its Global Challenge to Amsterdam for the first time, and the city delivered a cohort that made the event's argument better than any stage presentation could. The 26 finalists selected from more than 4,800 applications across 10 deep tech tracks were not pitching moonshots — they were reporting from the field: revenue earned, industrial pilots running, peer-reviewed papers published. The venture panels at the accompanying Deep Tech Venture Summit confirmed what the cohort showed: the correction is real, and the capital is moving toward things that require time, infrastructure, and a working prototype to exist at all. ## The Grand Winner [endogene.bio](https://www.endogene.bio/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] took the €100,000 Grand Prize at the 11th edition of the Hello Tomorrow Challenge. The French company reads the biology of endometriosis from a sample of menstrual blood, turning a non-invasive test into both earlier diagnosis and patient-specific drug development. Founder Cristina Fernández Molina took the Amsterdam stage with what the judges recognized as an outstanding pitch and a well-deserved win — applying molecular diagnostics to a disease that affects roughly 10% of women globally and has historically been underserved by both clinical attention and capital. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/06/endogene-hello-world-2026-1-1.jpeg) ## Special Awards [Remedium Energy](https://remediumenergy.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate Tech\] won the Emerging Pioneers Award. The French company is slashing the cost of industrial carbon capture with Limeloop, a sorbent that captures 36 times more CO₂ at 80% lower cost than conventional approaches, paired with a heat battery that cheaply recharges it for reuse. [Rhizome Labs](https://rhizome-labs.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] won the AI Horizons Award. Also based in France, Rhizome builds lightweight neural networks that run on tiny edge devices with as little as 8MB of RAM and keep learning from real production data, no cloud required. ## Track Champions The full list of 13 track winners will be published by Hello Tomorrow in the coming days. Three confirmed track champions from the competition: [EnKoat](https://www.enkoat.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Sustainable Construction\] won the Sustainable Construction & Infrastructure track with a phase-change thermal coating deployed across one million+ square feet of commercial roofing, DOE-validated for up to 30% energy savings, and nationally distributed. [Bio Clean Carbon](https://biocleancarbon.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate Tech\] won the Climate Tech & Environment track with advanced biological carbon capture and soil-sequestration technology. [Cetos Water](https://www.cetoswater.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Resource Efficiency\] won the Resource Efficiency track with an industrial AI monitoring platform designed to optimize high-volume water recycling loops. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) ## Standouts [Rock Zero](https://rockzero.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] — Circular lithium refining from hardrock, with a process that cuts waste and emissions versus conventional hydrometallurgy. They've run a kg-scale mini-pilot in Cambridge, Massachusetts for over 1,000 hours, tested against 15+ commercial feedstocks, and published peer-reviewed validation in *Science* (May 2026). Toyota Ventures and Azolla Ventures are in. Commercial contracts signed with Tier 1 mining companies. Raising \~$15M Series A to build a large-scale North American pilot refinery. [TETMET](https://www.tetmet.net/?ref=upnext.world) \[Robotics / Hardware\] — Fully automated factory technology targeting western reindustrialisation. €750k in pilots already sold to Airbus, Stellantis, Safran, CNES, Ariane, Volvo, and Renault. Currently building their first factory with a €5.5M/year orderbook. First large-scale structures for space, defense, and nuclear roll out Q4 2027. [Naco Technologies](https://www.naco.tech/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] — Nano-coated components reducing critical material use in clean energy systems while improving durability. Serving 50+ customers globally including Siemens Energy, Toyota, and Hyundai. €1.7M revenue in 2025\. Next: a catalyst coating for data center power generators that cuts emissions \~2x using 10x less platinum and palladium. [Mothership Materials](https://mothershipmaterials.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Materials\] — Molecular feedstock infrastructure for biomanufacturing, recovering glucose and high-purity cellulose from agricultural waste using physics-based separation. Two products market-ready, $100M+ inbound pipeline, signed with several of the world's largest corporates, and four weeks from industrial operational status at time of the summit. [AQUIT](https://www.aquit.net/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech\] — AI-powered biotech modulating natural immunity in livestock and aquaculture, reducing antibiotic use across the supply chain. Backed by Hatch Blue, the leading global aquaculture fund. LOI signed with Multi X — the second-largest salmon producer in Chile — for an industrial pilot treating one million fish in Q3 2026\. Advancing discussions with Cargill Global for Norway trials. [DATALOBSTER](https://www.datalobster.io/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI / Industrial\] — Plug-and-play IoT and AI platform for predictive maintenance on the 50% of industrial equipment that existing solutions can't monitor. Active PoC deployments with TechnipFMC in Brazil and Texas. In partnership talks with Augury ($300M raised) to distribute across 40 countries. Raising €2M pre-seed. [Elonroad](https://www.elonroad.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[EV Infrastructure\] — Automatic, cable-free, high-power charging for industrial fleets. Ten live commercial deployments across ports and logistics sites in Sweden, Norway, France, Finland, the US, and Malta. €7M in signed orders over 12 months. Four of the world's top 10 port terminal operators in active discussions. Selected by the French government for the A10 highway electric road project outside Paris. [HuntX Pharma](https://www.huntxpharma.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — First-in-class oral small molecules restoring axonal transport across 50+ genetically defined neurodegenerative diseases, starting with Huntington's. Cross-disease efficacy demonstrated in Rett syndrome and Parkinson models. €1.7M seed raised. Raising €5M to reach Phase 1. [YAMA](https://yamacarbon.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] — Retrofit electrified carbon capture for gas-fired power, enabling low-carbon electricity for AI data centers. Pilot running in France for over a year. $1.1M from the Temasek Liveability Challenge 2026 for a Singapore demonstration plant. $200M+ commercial pipeline. [AraBat](https://arabat.it/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] — Lithium battery recycling using orange peels and biomass. Lab and pilot-scale validation complete (TRL 4 and TRL 6). Agreement with Japanese multinational Taiyo Yuden. First proprietary pilot facility launching 2026. [FUST Lab.](https://www.fustlab.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Cleantech\] — Ultrasound-based PFAS destruction for semiconductor, apparel, and pharmaceutical wastewater. Validated by Japan's Ministry of the Environment and in Korean groundwater field tests. [Pregnolia AG](https://www.pregnolia.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — CE-marked diagnostic platform for early preterm birth risk assessment. 2,750+ measurements across European and US clinical studies. €12M+ raised. Reimbursement live through Swiss supplementary health insurers. [CircuCare](https://www.circucare.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — Wearable AI-robotic ultrasound for automated continuous cardiac imaging. 55+ patients tested under IRB-approved studies. First-place recognition from the American Society of Echocardiography. FDA 510(k) pathway confirmed. [Kozhnosys](https://kozhnosys.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] — Robotic breath-test device for early breast cancer detection, validated on 600+ participants at 95%+ accuracy. ICMR-supported clinical validation underway in India. Raising $5M for commercial launch and global regulatory filings. [ScreenSYS](https://www.screensys.eu/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech / AgTech\] — AI-powered doubled haploid platform delivering 30x faster screening speed and 20x greater discovery efficiency for crop breeders. Partners include Corteva, Limagrain, Nordic Seed, and the Max Planck Institute. [CryoBio](https://www.cryo.bio/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech / AgTech\] — Biological frost protection for agriculture, targeting $50B+ in annual crop losses. $1.3M pre-seed raised. Small-scale production process ready to scale. [NXW Nutrition from Water](https://nutritionfromwater.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech\] — Microalgae-derived protein and fiber ingredients at industrial scale, targeting the dairy protein supply gap. Partnerships across multiple continents. Scaling production. [alteva](https://alteva.tech/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] — Ultralight batteries made in Europe. Multiple MoUs in place. MVP presentation to customers July 2026. [nanoCaps](https://nanocaps.no/?ref=upnext.world) \[Hardware\] — Carbon nanotube electrodes delivering 3–4x higher energy density for supercapacitors. TRL 6\. First commercial order secured. EIC Seal of Excellence. [Cosmic Soul AI](https://cosmicsoul.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] — CPU-native architecture running 70B parameter models on everyday devices with no GPU or cloud dependency. 2B parameter model validated at under 300MB RAM. Incubated at IIT Madras. [BotBot](https://www.botbot.bot/?ref=upnext.world) \[Robotics / Hardware\] — Universal edge AI brain for humanoid and quadruped robots. BotBrain platform live and gaining traction. Contracts closing with multinationals in healthcare, mining, and oil and gas. NVIDIA Inception program. Series A underway. [Bubble Robotics](https://www.bubble-robotics.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Robotics / Hardware\] — Autonomous underwater robotics for ocean industries. $4M in signed LOIs representing $45M+ ARR upon conversion. $7M raised pre-seed. [Eddytec](https://www.eddytec.eu/?ref=upnext.world) \[Robotics / Hardware\] — Fast defect detection in carbon composites for aerospace and mobility. 9 letters of intent. 4 paid pilots including an aerospace Tier 1 supplier. [syntonym](https://syntonym.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Privacy Tech\] — Visual data anonymization for cameras. Early-stage, pre-Series A. [Shit2Power](https://shit2power.com/en?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] — AI-optimized containerized gasification turning industrial sludge into on-site electricity and heat. €509k pre-product revenue. First pilot at Weinheim wastewater plant, full-scale setup August 2026\. 146 inbound leads. Raising €2.5M seed. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Why It Matters for the UpNext Network Hello Tomorrow has always been where deep tech goes to get serious. The Amsterdam edition confirmed the shift: the hardware cohort has paying customers, the biotech cohort has industrial pilots, and the materials companies are weeks from production. A French healthtech company just took the Grand Prize for making endometriosis diagnosable from a blood sample. If your mandate touches any of this, the back half of 2026 is worth watching closely. ### A New Fit Standard to Replace 80 Years of Outdated Fashion Sizing URL: https://upnext.world/fit-by-shape-standard-fashion-sizing-bodycodes/ Last updated: 2026-07-17T14:55:55.000Z The fashion industry handles $350 billion in fit-related returns on clothing every year. 71% of women report being a different size across nearly every brand they shop. The fit system used in global apparel was created in 1946 from averaged measurements of young military women post-ration, and the basic foundation has not changed in eighty years. Cricket Lee spent twenty-six years studying how women's bodies actually change in shape, building and testing what nobody else in the industry had figured out how to rebuild: a fit-by-shape architecture that replaces traditional sizing. That system is BodyCodes™, and it starts in the factory, not at the fitting room door. ### **She Never Fit the Picture, and Neither Did Most Women** Cricket Lee made her first dress collection at seventeen and sold it in a local boutique. She didn't know what she was doing, but she built it anyway. Two award-winning advertising agencies came next. Then, a packaged brand that did $500 million in its first year at 600 US top department stores. She learned how to package and move product, how to move markets. But she never fit the fashion industry's pictures. She was older, bigger, not the body type the establishment used as its template. She came from outside, from advertising and brand launch. That vantage point let her see what insiders had stopped questioning. The whole system was built around production logic, not consumer experience. When she finally decided to tackle the fit problem that had haunted her across every venture she'd ever built, she carried something most fashion founders don't have. She had no investment in the old way. She had spent her career building things, not maintaining them. ### **Replacing the Foundation Instead of Building on Top of Broken Ground** The standard for sizing in the global fashion industry dates back to 1952, when the U.S. government standardized sizing for women's clothing based on prior studies, but the methodology was so flawed that the data were abandoned and the standard was lifted in 1983, ushering in vanity sizing. What remained became the foundation, and nobody replaced it. Every wave of fashion technology has built on top of that broken ground. From virtual try-on to AI sizing to body scanning, each one added predictions to a system that was never meant to serve the women wearing the clothes. Cricket's lens was different. She couldn't solve this with another filter. She had to rebuild the architecture itself. Twenty-six years of longitudinal trials produced an insight the industry didn't want to acknowledge. Women's bodies change in predictable, codifiable patterns by shape. That insight, paired with testing in Nordstrom, Macy's, QVC, specialty boutiques, and direct-to-consumer channels, produced BodyCodes™. A proprietary body code replaces the size. A woman takes a simple quiz once, and that code follows her across every brand that licenses the system, matching inventory to her actual shape. Lower returns, higher reorder rates, and something else. Women finally get to dress for the way they're actually built. *"You can't solve a problem from the same thought process that created it,"* Cricket said. ### **Her Daughter Chose Not to Go to College to Help Build Her Dream** After twenty years of dedicated work, she had faced overwhelming challenges: the emergence of predatory competitors, aggressive brand imitation and greedy investors – forces larger than her own. She walked away with her legacy team, took with her all the knowledge of how to change the industry, and started over. But this time is different. Her daughter didn't enroll in college so she could work with her mother on this. That choice changed why Cricket keeps going. She wants to finish this for her daughter, as her legacy. She wants to build something real enough to show that one person can change an industry if they refuse to accept the way things have always been done. BodyCodes™ is currently in its third iteration, with over 180,000 transactions already tested direct-to-consumer. In addition to One Jean™ with BodyCodes™ now available in premium denim, three wholesale licenses are ready for launch by spring. She's raising her seed round while filming a documentary about her journey with an acclaimed film company, positioning to move from proof of concept to scaling. The marketplace she's building is one where women's body data by shape, never before available at scale, drives how inventory is manufactured, stocked, and sold. She's not walking away this time. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### South Summit Madrid 2026: Mitiga Solutions Wins, Plus the Standouts URL: https://upnext.world/south-summit-madrid-2026-mitiga-solutions-wins-plus-the-standouts/ Last updated: 2026-06-07T12:25:27.000Z [South Summit](https://www.southsummit.io/e/madrid?ref=upnext.world)'s 15th edition filled La Nave from June 3 to 5 with its most international cohort to date: 100 finalists pulled from more than 4,500 applications across 110 countries, 26 nations represented. Half build AI as their core technology. But the real story is not the AI count, it is where the AI is going. The strongest finalists are pushing into hard, regulated sectors, health diagnostics, capital markets, water, cybersecurity, energy, and this year, defense, where a working product matters more than a slide. The other throughline is geography: South Summit remains Southern Europe's clearest bridge into Latin America, and the LatAm-facing companies here carried real revenue, not just ambition. This was also a mature room. 57 percent of finalists generate more than $150,000 in revenue, 60 percent have raised over $1M, 36 are already at scaleup stage, and 46 hold at least one patent. Madrid opened with a first-ever Defense and AI vertical, NATO's DIANA included, a clear read on where European deep tech and capital are heading. The jury crowned Mitiga Solutions the Global Winner on closing night. Here are the awards, the standouts, and the rest of the cohort. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) ## The Global Winner [**Mitiga Solutions**](https://www.mitigasolutions.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate Tech\] took the Global Winner title. The Barcelona company's EarthScan platform measures and reduces the physical climate risk sitting on a company's assets and infrastructure, combining supercomputing, AI, and its own climate models to price exposure precisely. As extreme-weather events grow more frequent, that turns climate adaptation from a guess into a calculation, and it is exactly the kind of applied, infrastructure-grade AI this edition rewarded. Mitiga also won the Climate Tech and Sustainability vertical. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/06/SouthSummit26Winners1-1.jpeg) Photo Credit: South Summit ## The Category and Vertical Winners Beyond the grand prize, the jury handed out four cross-cutting awards plus a set of vertical wins. - **Most Sustainable:** [**Macadam**](https://www.macadam.app/?ref=upnext.world) \[Consumer\] The walk-to-rewards app also won the Consumer vertical, with users lifting their physical activity by about 25 percent on average. - **Most Disruptive:** [**Floatech**](https://floatech.eu/?ref=upnext.world) \[Industry\] The Getafe company makes next-generation silicon battery anodes through a patented process that drops copper foil, binders and solvents, cutting cost and improving sustainability. It also won the Industry 5.0 vertical. - **Most Scalable:** [**Wise CX**](https://wisecx.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Enterprise\] The Argentine startup runs an AI omnichannel customer-experience platform: chatbots, conversation analytics, social listening and mass messaging in one unified view. It also won the Enterprise Solutions vertical. - **Best Team:** [**Xplora**](https://xploragroup.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[Mobility\] The Italian company uses AI to map underground infrastructure, combining remote sensors and data analysis to locate pipes, utilities and buried risks as precise 3D models. It also won the Mobility and Smart Cities vertical. Other vertical winners: [**LunaLift**](https://lunalift.ai/?ref=upnext.world) took Digital & Tech Solutions, [**Granter**](https://granter.ai/?ref=upnext.world) took Fintech and Insurtech, [**STEMDO**](https://www.stemdo.io/?ref=upnext.world) took Future of Work and Talent, and [**Altum Sequencing**](https://www.altumsequencing.com/?ref=upnext.world) took Health. --- ## The Standouts [**Flomics Biotech**](https://www.flomics.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] A liquid biopsy built on cfRNA rather than DNA, detecting Stage I cancers at around 80 percent sensitivity and pinpointing tissue of origin. More than 6M euros raised (over 60 percent non-dilutive), 700K euros in revenue, and 30+ clinical collaborations including the NHS, Oxford University Hospitals and Clinic Barcelona. One of the more clinically serious companies in the cohort. [**Paynest**](https://www.paynest.co/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech\] An AI finance platform that folds expenses, invoices, cards and reimbursements into one system, with compliance built for Iberian regulation rather than bolted on. Over 200 customers including CTT, Fidelidade, BP and PwC. The wedge is regulatory: a moat foreign competitors keep underdelivering on. [**Secur0**](https://secur0.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Cybersecurity\] The largest network of Spanish-speaking ethical hackers, selling continuous offensive security where clients pay only for validated vulnerabilities. Bootstrapped from 3,000 euros of share capital to 1M euros in revenue in 19 months, with 1,500+ verified hackers and clients including Telefonica via Wayra. A rare profitable security story. [**Ailytics**](https://ailytics.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] Computer vision for safety and productivity in heavy industry, converting single-camera feeds into 3D scene understanding without extra sensors. Roughly 3.9M USD ARR, 400+ active projects across 11 countries, 170+ customers. One of three Singapore startups in the final 100, and proof the cohort reaches well beyond Europe. [**Brokerware**](http://www.brokerware.com.uy/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech\] A front-to-back operating system for capital markets, replacing the 8 to 15 disconnected tools a broker-dealer stitches together today. Runs roughly half of Paraguay's capital markets industry, with Itau and Miami-based Insigneo as anchor clients. The clearest LatAm infrastructure play in the room. [**Macadam**](https://www.macadam.app/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] A European app with 15M users that turns daily steps into rewards, aimed at the sedentary majority rather than athletes. Bootstrapped, profitable, a team of 36, and presence in 51 countries. Scale and discipline that most finalists are years away from. [**Coalex.ai**](https://coalex.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] A vendor-neutral trust layer that governs AI agents at runtime, mapping controls directly to frameworks like the EU AI Act. Early pilots with Fidelidade and Luz Saude, first institutional funding closed. It sits exactly on this year's theme: AI adoption gated by governance, not capability. [**Arq Quantum Technologies**](https://arqtech.eu/?ref=upnext.world) \[Deep Tech\] Quantum repeaters aimed at making a quantum internet viable, with massive multiplexing for high-rate communication over long distances. The technology selected by the Quantum Internet Alliance, already working with Cellnex and holding a Telefonica LOI. The longest-horizon bet here, and a signal of Europe's deep-tech appetite. [**anyformat**](https://anyformat.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] A production layer for document AI that grounds every extracted value to the exact pixel with calibrated confidence. 1M docs processed, customers including L'Oreal, the Government of Singapore and Iberia. [**mettis AI**](https://www.mettis.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] Patented computer vision that makes driving certification objective, approved by Spain's DGT, working with 100+ driving schools and a logistics deal covering 20,000 trucks. [**LunaLift**](https://lunalift.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] Infrastructure that reads AI-search signals and auto-executes optimization for customer growth. Google Scale AI, NVIDIA Inception and Cloudflare partner. [**Soource**](https://soource.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[AI\] A multi-agent platform automating supplier intelligence, compressing weeks of market scouting into days. 800K ARR, 58 enterprise customers. [**Predictheon**](https://www.predictheon.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] AI that anticipates surgical complications before they happen, validated on 4,000+ patients at Hospital Clinic de Barcelona. [**Moonlight AI**](https://www.moonlight-ai.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Healthtech\] Computer vision detecting genomic biomarkers from routine liquid tumor sample images, no extra processing, results in minutes. Seed round closed. [**60Nd**](https://60nd.bio/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech\] NeoMag applies non-invasive mechanical forces to cells so pharma can screen drug candidates under realistic conditions. First revenue in 2025, 2.4M euro EIC Transition grant. [**Nanogrow Biotech**](https://www.nanogrowbiotech.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Biotech\] Localized nanobody therapies for cancer and immune disorders, around 90 percent anti-tumor efficacy in vivo. Five pharma agreements, 750K USD projected 2026 revenue. [**MOBI LATAM**](https://www.mobi.lat/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech\] Subscription electric motorcycles plus battery-swapping and embedded financing, cutting last-mile rider costs by 40 percent. 178 active riders, a Rappi partnership, operating across Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru. [**boxful**](https://goboxful.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Enterprise Software\] Software-powered logistics infrastructure for e-commerce across Latin America. 10M USD ARR and 6,000+ SMEs. [**Ciudadela**](https://ciudadela.eu/?ref=upnext.world) \[Consumer Tech\] An agentic operating system for property management, built by former operators. 2,500+ communities managed, on track to surpass 3M euro ARR in 2026. [**PowerUP Energy Technologies**](https://powerup-tech.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] Portable hydrogen fuel-cell generators as a clean alternative to diesel, deployed across most continents. Series A closed in 2025. [**URAPHEX (Urtech Water)**](https://uraphex.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] Chemical-free water regeneration cutting industrial water use by up to 90 percent, in commercial deployment with Volkswagen, Florette and Cinfa. [**Dottir Labs**](https://dottirlabs.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] Real-time chemical intelligence and control for water industries, platform technology developed at MIT, MOU signed with a Norwegian aquaculture firm. [**NPHarvest**](https://www.npharvest.fi/?ref=upnext.world) \[Climate / Energy\] Recovers nutrients from wastewater and turns them into recycled fertilizers, low operating cost, pilots in three locations with first deals close. [**ZYON Helmets**](https://www.zyonhelmets.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Robotics / Hardware\] A motorcycle helmet with patented air-filtration against pollution and allergens. Global patent secured, an AUDI Startup Challenge win at VivaTech, 6,000+ organic reservations. [**Tangy Market**](http://tangymarket.com/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech\] A marketplace for investing in music royalties and cultural IP like stocks. Roughly 6,000 users and around 15 percent historical annual yields. [**Impressora**](https://impressora.org/?ref=upnext.world) \[Fintech\] Circular-economy 3D printing moving into manufacturing and international sales, with marine reconstruction projects underway. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## The rest of the cohort MedicubeX, iYoni App, NIGAL, Miramoon, Ocean Oasis, UniSCool, Spendbase, ONO, Secrets Vault, Qualla, DeepNeuronic, Stemdo, Initiativ, Libertify, Tissue Dynamics, Service Club, MESPAC, PhenOlives, OmniShelf, Manie, NanoChronia, FindNido, Naltilia, tranSkriptorium AI, Valeria, Dealcar, Metadataworks, EthicHub, Mapsi, simplyblock, Ravenwits, Solfium, Judit, iCook, CryptoMate, LoopOS, Ainwater, Sendsteps AI, Xplorobot, Ubicuity, Worksible, LOVI.ai, Astroteq.ai, Mobi, Autentik AI, Space to Grow, Kincode AI, Fibrazo. --- ## The so-what The center of gravity in Madrid this year was applied AI with a regulated buyer: health systems, capital markets, compliance teams, industrial operators, and for the first time a defense track. That is a maturing cohort, less novelty and more product-market fit. And the strongest LatAm-facing names, Brokerware, MOBI, boxful, carried live revenue, which is the real reason South Summit still earns its place as Europe's gateway into the Ibero-American market. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-06-05/ Last updated: 2026-06-05T12:33:33.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Nobody Was Reading the Data Underground. Until Now. URL: https://upnext.world/contaminated-site-monitoring-remediation-liora/ Last updated: 2026-06-02T17:54:57.000Z Most industrial sites are contaminated. The operators who run them know it. The regulators who oversee them know it. The environmental consultancies hired to manage the risk know it too. What none of them have had, until recently, is a way to see it continuously, accurately, and in real time. LiORA deploys AI-enabled sensor hardware directly into contaminated soil and groundwater, generating live subsurface data that quarterly grab samples cannot provide. The result is the first genuinely predictive picture of how contamination moves underground, and with it, the first credible route to actually closing a site rather than monitoring it indefinitely. ### **Fifteen years in tech taught him to read the signal that matters most** Nick Gray grew up in Toronto, spent fifteen years building and scaling B2B technology companies, and came to environmental monitoring the way most people come to the problems that define them: by accident, through a room he almost didn't walk into. After a post-COVID travel period that took him through South America, Central America, and eventually to Mexico City for nearly two years, Nick and his wife returned to Canada to put down roots. They landed in Calgary, a city Nick deliberately chose for its nature, professional depth, and sense of community. He had joined a Canadian accelerator called Co.Labs, based in Saskatoon, where he worked with portfolio companies on product strategy and growth. That work brought him, through a two-day onsite, to a company then called Environmental Material Sciences, now LiORA, and to its founder, Steven, a world-renowned soil toxicologist who had spent thirty years watching strong remediation science fail because operators lacked the data to act on it. Nick had spent a career reading product signals. What he read in that room stopped him. No client had ever left LiORA except to close a contaminated site. When a site closed, the sensors moved to the next one. That cycle, in a B2B SaaS environment where churn is the number everyone watches, is not normal. It means something is actually working. ### **The industry had been measuring contamination for decades. Nobody had a path to ending it.** The standard approach to contaminated site management runs on grab samples taken at most quarterly, usually annually. Results take months. By the time they arrive, the data is already outdated. The monitoring continues because regulation requires it, not because it provides the clearest understanding of site conditions. In many cases, it's simply the approach people know and have always used. Environmental coordinators who entered the industry to make things better find themselves in a cycle with no finish line. What sits underneath this, and what Nick identified immediately from his product background, is a data problem. Grab samples are imprecise and infrequent. That imprecision flows directly into asset retirement obligations, the accounting line that tells a company how much contaminated land it is responsible for cleaning up. Large multinational clients of LiORA can carry up to $64 billion in AROs, roughly half of which is tied to soil and groundwater contamination. When your baseline data overestimates contamination, your liability is overestimated too, and the finance team has no way of knowing by how much. LiORA's sensors sit below ground and generate continuous, high-frequency subsurface data that manual sampling cannot match. That data trains predictive models that forecast where contamination will move next. Across more than 60 North American sites, with over 500 sensors deployed and a proprietary dataset of more than 450 million environmental records, LiORA gives operators something they have never had. A live, accurate picture of what is happening underground, and a path to closure rather than a path to the next sample. ### **Building Canadian excellence, one closed site at a time** Nick joined LiORA as COO. He has chosen, at several points in his career, to stay in Canada when opportunities elsewhere presented themselves. He describes it as something he owes back to the ecosystem, a belief that world-class companies can be built here and that the talent and diversity of builders in Canada are worth committing to. The commercial picture supports that conviction. In 2026, LiORA released its Chloride product to address brine spills, launching to a waiting list of over 15 logos. The company is focused on scaling its go-to-market efforts to reach $5 million in annual contract value. The problem it is solving touches oil and gas, industrial manufacturing, and real estate, four of the largest industries in the world, measured in trillions. For Nick, that scale is not a pressure. It is room to move. "We all live closer to a contaminated site than we do to a Walmart," he says. He didn't know that before he walked into that room in Saskatoon. He couldn't look away after that. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-05-29/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T03:18:00.000Z The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### Google for Startups Accelerator Canada 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/google-for-startups-accelerator-canada-2026/ Last updated: 2026-05-28T21:07:44.000Z Canada has long held the research credentials. The question this year was whether the ecosystem has built the commercial infrastructure to match. The [2026 Google for Startups Accelerator Canada](https://blog.google/intl/en-ca/company-news/outreach-initiatives/introducing-the-2026-google-for-startups-accelerator-canada-cohort/?ref=upnext.world) cohort answered that. For the second consecutive year, the program required an AI or ML foundation as entry criteria — not a trend, a permanent filter. What surfaced at Demo Day during [Toronto Tech Week](https://www.torontotechweek.com/?ref=upnext.world) was 14 companies building automation into existing workflows, not theoretical applications. Enterprise buyers, not lab researchers. Regulated industries, not sandboxed pilots. The shift is structural. Healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, agriculture, finance. These are industries with long procurement cycles, legacy infrastructure, and risk-averse buyers. The founders who made this cohort understand that deployment is not what happens after product-market fit. It is the product. Since 2020, the program has supported 148 Canadian startups that have collectively raised $580M+ CAD and created 1,400+ jobs. The 2026 cohort is the next generation of that track record. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) ### What Stood Out The cohort reflected a clear thesis: automate the workflow that already exists, not the one you wish existed. Every company presented clear integration points with systems already in production — EMRs, CRMs, factory equipment, municipal databases — and addressed specific operational bottlenecks rather than broad market opportunities. Founders spoke about deployment timelines, regulatory pathways, and buyer workflows with the specificity that only comes from already being in the field. **Five patterns repeated across the 14 companies:** **Integration over replacement** — systems built to work alongside existing infrastructure, not require overhauls, lowering adoption friction in risk-averse industries. **Workflow compression, not feature expansion** — platforms reducing multi-week processes to minutes through automation of manual tasks, not adding capabilities. **Human-AI pairing in high-stakes decisions** — several companies combined automation with expert oversight, acknowledging full automation isn't viable in domains requiring judgment or regulatory accountability. **Domain-specific data as the foundation** — companies treating unstructured industry data (zoning documents, clinical protocols, transaction records) as the core asset, not an afterthought. **Operational bottlenecks as product strategy** — targeting specific capacity constraints where automation directly affects throughput and margins. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-8.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-9.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-10.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-11.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-14.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-20.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-21.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-22.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-31.jpg) Photo credit: Archipelago Productions --- ### The Cohort [**Accord**](https://inaccord.com/?ref=upnext.world) — Ross Rich AI revenue execution platform that embeds sales methodologies like MEDDPICC directly into the seller's workflow, automating account research and executive summaries. Raised $7M from Y Combinator, Stripe, and Matrix. \[Enterprise AI\] [**Actuality**](https://actuality.live/?ref=upnext.world) — Rishabh Gupta Automates RFP responses for architecture, engineering, and construction firms — generating proposal content, checking compliance, and organizing past documentation in one system. Purpose-built for AEC workflows, not adapted from generic tools. \[Construction AI\] [**AllMind AI**](https://allmind.ai/?ref=upnext.world) — Anwaar Malik Research terminal for institutional investors that consolidates broker research, financial data, and agentic workflows to automate document analysis and investment memo generation. Treats research automation as a workflow problem, not a search problem. \[Fintech AI\] [**Amical**](https://amical-ai.com/?ref=upnext.world) — Tony Aubé Screen-free phone with an AI companion for seniors and people with cognitive disorders. Initiates wellness check-ins, provides conversational support, and functions as a standard phone — managed through a web portal for families and care staff. \[Senior Care AI\] [**Banting AI**](https://www.bantingai.com/?ref=upnext.world) — Madison Wright Extracts and structures data from clinical trial protocols, then automates downstream workflows including task management, ethics submissions, and budgeting. Treats the protocol document as the source of truth for the entire operational chain. Backed by Staircase Ventures. Also selected for CancerX 2026\. \[Clinical Trial AI\] [**CropMind**](https://cropmind.ca/?ref=upnext.world) — Damilare Odumosu Computer vision software that analyzes drone and camera footage to automate fruit counting, harvest prediction, and field mapping. Turns visual data into operational decisions without requiring growers to interpret raw imagery. Deployed across 5 farms. Previously Techstars 2025\. \[AgriTech AI\] [**EyeCareX**](https://www.eyecarex.com/?ref=upnext.world) — Justin Asgarpour Automates eye exam diagnostic workflows, allowing clinics to handle patient throughput without a clinician present for the routine exam itself. Directly addresses staffing shortages across vision care. \[Healthcare AI\] [**Innovate-Ops**](https://innovate-ops.com/?ref=upnext.world) — Dennis Kuzmenko Industrial IoT and AI platform that monitors equipment health, tracks energy usage, and optimizes performance in real time for manufacturers — without requiring infrastructure overhauls. Raised $2M seed. \[Manufacturing AI\] [**LandLogic**](https://www.landlogic.ai/?ref=upnext.world) — Arash Shahi Standardizes zoning, planning, and property data across municipalities into a parcel-level intelligence platform. Makes regulatory information queryable and machine-readable. Integrated with Teranet's GeoWarehouse and One Ontario. \[Real Estate AI\] [**MyHealthspan**](https://www.myhealthspan.com/?ref=upnext.world) — Rex Farrand Combines at-home blood testing with AI-powered health risk scoring and one-on-one coaching. Pairs clinical diagnostics with human guidance — addressing both the interpretation problem and the adherence gap in preventive health. Established employer partnerships. \[Longevity / Preventive Health\] [**Opener**](https://getopener.ai/?ref=upnext.world) — Gilad Rom Automates wholesale prospecting for CPG brands — identifying best-fit retail stores, validating buyer contacts, and executing personalized outreach. Replaces expensive broker models with automated top-of-funnel sales. Serving 250+ brands. \[CPG Sales AI\] [**Optionality**](https://www.optionality.ai/?ref=upnext.world) — Simon Leroux & Aymeric Freymond Combines data from 150,000+ private transactions with AI and chartered business valuators to deliver professional-grade business valuations and exit planning. Reduces valuation time by 10x. 1,500+ businesses valued, 500+ entrepreneurs supported. \[SME Finance AI\] [**PlaySpace**](https://www.playspace.health/?ref=upnext.world) — Matt Cohen Provides mental health clinicians with customizable virtual playrooms and 3D games for interactive therapy with children and teens. Shifts therapy from passive conversation to active play — directly addressing dropout rates in pediatric mental health. \[Mental Health AI\] [**Waive Medical**](https://waivemedical.com/?ref=upnext.world) — Shreyansh Anand Automates routine clinic administrative tasks — patient reminders, document triaging, task management — integrating with existing EMR systems rather than replacing them. Serving 250+ clinics across Canada. \[Healthcare Admin AI\] ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-7.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-12.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-13.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-24.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/05/GFSA_Canada_2026-27.jpg) Photo credit: Archipelago Productions --- ### The Signal This cohort marks a threshold. Canadian AI startups are no longer competing on research lineage. They are being measured on their ability to deploy into enterprise environments under real constraints — supply chain limitations, regulatory frameworks, existing legacy infrastructure. The $580M raised by program alumni and 1,400+ jobs created since 2020 confirm that Google's technical validation translates to commercial momentum. The focus on Cloud optimization and responsible AI implementation shows that founders understand deployment is not a post-product concern. It is the product. The question now is whether these 14 companies can convert technical readiness into repeatable revenue with enterprise buyers who have long sales cycles and strict procurement standards. The answer starts now. > *Google for Startups Accelerator Canada 2026\. A key stop on the UpNext World Tour.* [*startup.google.com/programs/accelerator/canada*](https://startup.google.com/programs/accelerator/canada/?ref=upnext.world) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Building the Hormone-Free Contraceptive Her Patients Couldn’t Find URL: https://upnext.world/hormone-free-contraceptive-ring-nova-scotia-elle-md/ Last updated: 2026-05-21T20:29:22.000Z Is there any hormone-free contraceptive that actually works? Nova Scotia-based physician Jennifer Johnston spent years at a university clinic watching patients leave without a workable answer to that question. After her MS diagnosis prompted her to look more closely at the contraceptive options available to women, she stopped waiting for someone else to build a better one. Elle MD’s copper vaginal ring is a once-monthly, hormone-free contraceptive that women can use themselves, without a procedure or a prescription routine. ### **A soccer game she will never forget** Jennifer Johnston was getting ready for a soccer game a number of years ago, pulling on her jersey, when she realized she couldn’t feel it on her skin. She couldn’t feel the entire left side of her body. Four days later, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disorder with no cure. In the months that followed, Johnston started looking into what might have contributed. As a family physician, she knew how to read the research, and what she found made her look at the contraceptive options available to her patients differently. There is evolving evidence linking long-term hormonal contraceptive use to increased risk of certain autoimmune diseases, she notes, though the research is ongoing and the picture is not yet complete. Johnston calls her diagnosis a blessing in disguise. It made her healthier, pushed her to exercise daily, and sent her down a path she would not trade. ### **Her patients wanted something that didn’t exist** Johnston works at a university clinic, where the demand for non-hormonal contraception is constant. Young women come in having already tried hormonal options and experienced mood changes, reduced libido, or more serious health concerns. Others have simply decided hormones are not for them. She had very little to offer any of them. Condoms have a typical-use efficacy rate of 86% and put the decision in a partner’s hands. The copper IUD works well but requires a clinical procedure, followed by the possibility of heavy, painful periods for months or years. Diaphragms are 80-90% effective, which is not good enough. Surgery is not a conversation anyone wants to have at 22\. Studies suggest women are six times more satisfied with non-hormonal options than hormonal ones, and yet contraceptive research and development has spent decades iterating on hormones, because hormones already work and the investment case is established. Elle MD’s copper vaginal ring is Johnston’s answer to that gap. The ring uses the proven spermicidal effect of copper without the invasive procedure required to deliver a copper IUD. It is designed for once-monthly use, self-inserted and removed by the user, and because it sits in the vaginal environment rather than the uterus, it is designed to avoid the heavy bleeding associated with the IUD. The team has completed proof-of-concept studies in sheep demonstrating 100% contraceptive efficacy at the highest dose tested, which was also found to be safe in the animal model. Elle MD has received $2.1 million in combined dilutive and non-dilutive funding and built collaborations with Dalhousie University, Oregon Health and Science University, and the NIH. A first-in-human safety study is the next milestone. ### **Building for her patients, her daughters, and herself** Johnston has four children, three of them daughters aged five, nine, and eleven. Her goal, stated plainly, is to have the ring available before her eldest needs it. She thinks about the 250 million women around the world who want access to contraception and do not yet have it, and about what it would mean to offer something low-cost, self-administered, and designed around the person using it. “I want more people to protect themselves and live life without compromise,” she says. She is a physician, a patient, and a mother, and she draws on all three equally. That accumulation of perspectives is what Elle MD is built from, and it is what makes her impatient with the pace of progress in women’s health research. She is not waiting for the field to catch up. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-05-21/ Last updated: 2026-05-21T12:12:02.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*. This week: Web Summit Vancouver, what the PITCH results signal, and why Toronto Tech Week might be the biggest moment Canadian tech has seen in years. Plus a Final Thought on what happens when you stop pausing after the miss. Let's get into it. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) --- ## *UpNext World Tour* ### Web Summit Vancouver 2026 Vancouver's second year confirmed what the first only hinted at: the Pacific Northwest corridor is surfacing founders building for real constraints, not venture narratives. The signal wasn't any single category — it was a posture. Enterprise AI founders were defending stalled pilots to buyers done funding experiments. Clean tech founders stopped leading with ESG and started competing on cost and deployment timelines. The pitch competition winner said it clearly: CURA Climate won not because of its climate impact story, but because it retrofits into existing cement plants without disrupting supply chains. Drop-in. No greenfield required. That framing ran across the cohort. Founders who understood that the new product requirement isn't technical novelty — it's deployment without handholding. With 20,000+ attendees and 1,500+ exhibiting startups, Vancouver is building its own thesis: commercialization isn't what happens after product-market fit. It is the product. Read the full recap → [Web Summit Vancouver 2026: Enterprise AI Deployment RecapEnterprise AI projects stalled as buyers demanded working systems. Clean tech competed on economics, not ESG. Vancouver surfaced constraint-driven founders.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-37dd299bf6ddf161c4cb6c432ef414b2fce6ad78db58a32a24466995895895e0.png)UpNext.WorldEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Web_Summit_vancouver_cura_climate-1-98010ad407cb8d5d4c3cdf11e4a46c800647130a204c29c59355b8a56783f065.jpg)](https://upnext.world/web-summit-vancouver-2026-enterprise-ai-hits-the-deployment-wall/) --- ## *UpNext Ecosystem* ### Toronto Tech Week Next week, the global tech community comes to my hometown. Toronto Tech Week runs May 25–29 — and this year it lands differently. World Cup prep is already visible across the city. The TORONTO sign at City Hall is lit. And for one week, the conversations happening in Lisbon, Dubai, Helsinki, and Doha are happening right here on King Street. I'll be on the ground all week — from the Reverse Pitch on European Markets Monday morning, to Google for Startups Canada Demo Day Tuesday, to the OneEleven Pitch Showcase Wednesday evening. If you're a founder, investor, or operator in town, let's link up. Toronto isn't just having a moment. Toronto is the moment. *See where I'll be all week →* [#torontotechweek #ttw2026 #upnextglobal #fifaworldcup2026 #startups #canadiantech #founders #innovation #toronto | Edwin J. Frondozo | 18 commentsToronto Tech Week is BACK. May 25–29\. 🇨🇦🔥 Took this selfie at City Hall yesterday and you can already feel it — this city is buzzing. The TORONTO sign is lit up, World Cup prep is everywhere, and in one week the global tech community descends on my hometown. I was born and raised here. City of Toronto shaped everything about who I am. And now, as I take UpNext Global to startup stages around the world — Lisbon, Dubai, Helsinki, Doha — I get to bring that story with me everywhere I go. This is the city that made me. And right now? Tech Week flowing straight into the FIFA World Cup — Toronto is about to have the biggest summer in its history. This isn’t just Canada’s tech moment. This is a global one. And it’s happening right here at home. This year I’m going ALL IN on TTW. Here’s where you’ll find me: 📅 Monday, May 25 The Reverse Pitch: European Markets 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM 🔗 https://luma.com/5do9yulw 📅 Tuesday, May 26 Google for Startups Accelerator: Canada Demo Day 1:30 PM – 5:00 PM 🔗 https://luma.com/3w5dlz1p Who Gets to Live Longer? How AI Is Making Longevity Accessible 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM 🔗 https://luma.com/mb314003 📅 Wednesday, May 27 Toronto Tech Week 2026: Homecoming 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eXPeiDKj OneEleven Pitch Showcase: TTW Edition 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM 🔗 https://luma.com/dq2h68am 📅 Also check out: Commerce & Croissants: A Breakfast Event 🔗 https://luma.com/2qgc6w5p Enabled Canada Tour: National AccessAbility Week 🔗 https://luma.com/bzdedkdf If you’re a founder, investor, operator, or just someone who believes in what’s being built here — come through. Tag me below if you’re heading to any of these. DM me if you want to link up during the week. Toronto is not just having a moment. Toronto IS the moment. 🏙️⚽🚀 Let’s go. #TorontoTechWeek #TTW2026 #UpNextGlobal #FIFAWorldCup2026 #Startups #CanadianTech #Founders #Innovation #Toronto Shoutout to the organizers making it all happen 🔥 Toronto Tech Week Toronto Business Development Centre Google for Startups miRoncol Health OneEleven Enabled Talent Elevate People I’m looking forward to seeing 👇 Dr. Paul Newton Victoria Xu Amandipp S. Iran Karimian Mandhir (Manny) Kalia Paris S. Kate Tomen, PMP, MMIE Simon Langlois Angelo Casanas Theresa Evanoff Drew Lindsay Brad McIntosh Nehha Bahal Winnicent Z. Edgar Azcorra, B. Eng Stephen Lau Katie Yigitoz Lisa Zarzeczny Miryam Lazarte Dione R Almeida, MBA-MDM Tehmina A Chaudhry Stephen Lund ICD.D Kosta Mavroulakis, FRSA Fahad Ali Christiane Boeck Prince Khan, MEDI, CITP®-FIBP® Eric Rafat Charmaine Ramirez Sarah Somer and more. | 18 comments on LinkedIn![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/al2o9zrvru7aqj8e1x2rzsrca-19b079c09197fba68d021fa3ba394ec91703909ffd237efa3eb9a2bca13148ec)LinkedInEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/1779130197984-760b23b49713bed447a432e68c4b3010d0225691a7f2ce612baea84354f7646c)](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7462475915562897408/?ref=upnext.world) ### *Running a tech week*, demo day, pitch night, or cohort showcase? This is what ecosystem coverage looks like inside What's UpNext. We're actively looking for the next ecosystem partner to feature. If you're managing an accelerator, innovation hub, or startup program — let's put your founders in front of the UpNext network. Reply to this issue or reach us at [upnext.world](https://upnext.world/). --- ## *UpNext Spotlights* ### Founder POV Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. [Why Retail Media Keeps Failing Smaller Retailers and How Cruxo Is Built to Fix ItBrands and retailers across Central and Eastern Europe have been handed retail media solutions that start three stages ahead of where they actually are. Jakub Spryngl and his co-founders left Procter & Gamble to build Cruxo, the platform that meets them where they are.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/2369-1-1-dd90edc85c9f5382870a99cc06a0b4777d27e8434610e126b1cd6bd9ba8d90ef.jpg)](https://upnext.world/retail-media-smaller-retailers-cruxo-europe/) [A Wearable That Finally Tracks Female Hormones in Real TimeEstonian founder Kerli Luks spent years as a doctor watching women navigate hormonal health on incomplete data. Her company Muun Health is building the first continuous hormone monitoring device.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-50.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Kerli.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/female-hormone-wearable-biosensor-fertility-estonia/) [The Software Developer Who Coded a Solution to Fashion’s $200 Billion Data ProblemWhen Edgar Azcorra’s activewear customers kept coming back, he knew it was because he had asked them what they wanted first. Xactsize is the fit-intelligence platform he built after realizing that the rest of the apparel industry had never asked the same question.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-52.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/1772825072283-1-2.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/apparel-returns-fit-intelligence-xactsize/) --- ## *Final Thou*ght** You already know how to shoot. The pitch, the intro request, the follow-up you've been sitting on — that's not the problem. The problem is the pause after the miss. Long enough to let it mean something it shouldn't. Long enough to break the rhythm. The best players are already moving toward the rebound before the ball hits the rim. This week, Vancouver showed us founders who didn't pause. Toronto Tech Week is about to show us more. The shot already happened. The question is how fast you're back at the line. *Read the full piece →* [You Already Know How to Shoot](https://edwin100x.substack.com/p/you-already-know-how-to-shoot) Gratefully, Edwin ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Web Summit Vancouver 2026: Enterprise AI Deployment Recap URL: https://upnext.world/web-summit-vancouver-2026-enterprise-ai-hits-the-deployment-wall/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T19:58:12.000Z Web Summit Vancouver returned for its second year as a test of whether the Pacific Northwest corridor could surface founders building for real deployment, not just venture narratives. With 20,000+ attendees and 1,500+ exhibiting startups, the event landed at a moment when tariffs were reshaping supply chains, AI adoption was stalling inside enterprises, and clean tech was being forced to compete on economics alone. Vancouver's position as a gateway to Asian markets and home to a $5 billion gaming industry made it a natural venue to assess which technologies were moving from prototype to production. The 2026 edition revealed a sharp turn toward constraint-driven product development. Generative AI, once the dominant narrative, faced skepticism from enterprise buyers who had watched early projects fail to scale. Clean tech founders abandoned ESG positioning in favor of cost and speed arguments. The pitch competition winner, CURA Climate, signaled the shift: climate solutions now compete on commercial viability, not impact storytelling. The thesis is clear—buyers are done funding experiments. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) --- ### What Stood Out The founder and investor mix reflected a market demanding proof of deployment, not just technical capability. - **Enterprise AI founders were defending stalled pilots, not celebrating launches.** Buyers wanted systems that worked without constant tuning, and most early AI projects had failed to move beyond proof-of-concept. - **Clean tech startups positioned on cost and speed, not sustainability.** With anti-ESG sentiment rising and fuel prices surging, founders competed on economics—renewable energy and battery storage now outperform fossil fuels on deployment timelines. - **Cross-border fintech and SaaS founders treated tariffs as a product constraint, not a policy problem.** Supply chain disruption forced startups to build for fragmented markets and sovereign deployment from day one. - **Gaming and film tech startups merged real-time AI with production workflows.** Studios were testing AI actors and adaptive storyworlds, but the focus was on cost reduction and speed, not creative experimentation. - **CURA Climate's pitch win validated commercialization over impact narratives.** The climate tech winner succeeded by proving market fit, not by leading with environmental outcomes. --- ## PITCH Competition Web Summit Vancouver's pitch competition cut across climate, AI infrastructure, health, and construction. The winner signaled where the market is heading. ### **Winner:** [CURA Climate](https://www.curaclimate.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Sabrina Scott](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-s-scott?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** CURA Climate uses electrochemical technology to split limestone into lime and pure CO₂ with electricity instead of heat, enabling cement manufacturers to produce Ordinary Portland Cement while reducing emissions by up to 85%. **Problem:** Cement production generates 8% of global CO₂ emissions, primarily from the chemical reaction that creates clinker, and decarbonizing typically requires new infrastructure or feedstocks that disrupt supply chains. **What stood out:** The system retrofits into existing plants as a drop-in replacement for the precalciner, eliminating the need for costly new supply chains or greenfield builds while using 45% less energy than plants with carbon capture. **Traction:** Secured $2.1M in pre-seed funding and $900K in non-dilutive grants, signed MOUs with TITAN Group and multiple construction firms, and received letters of support from Heidelberg Materials and Amrize. **Why it matters:** By retrofitting into existing facilities and preserving current feedstocks, CURA removes the capital barrier that has prevented cement producers from decarbonizing at scale. --- ## Standout PITCH Startups Below is a closer look at the startups that stood out across the broader cohort. ### [Astron Health](https://www.astron.health/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Ben Whately](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ben-whately-13761524?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Astron Health integrates genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data to identify which cancer pathways are actively driving each patient's tumor, then ranks existing drugs most likely to work against those targets. **Problem:** Seventy percent of precision cancer therapies fail because treatment matching relies on DNA mutations alone, ignoring whether those mutations are actually expressed and active in the patient's tumor. **What stood out:** The platform identifies mutations flagged by genomic tests that aren't expressed at the RNA level—meaning the drug has no target to bind—and catches active pathways that single-gene tests miss entirely. **Traction:** The company has delivered over 170 reports and generated £600k in revenue across 500+ patients through 19 clinical partners in the UK and US. **Why it matters:** By filtering out non-responders before treatment starts, Astron turns precision oncology from a 30% success rate into a system that avoids wasted spend and months of ineffective, toxic therapy. --- ### [Bizby](https://bizby.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Marty Cerisano](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/martycerisano?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Bizby is a Canadian-hosted freeform whiteboard platform built for enterprise collaboration, offering real-time co-editing and AI-assisted facilitation. **Problem:** Canadian public sector and regulated organizations face procurement restrictions that block US-headquartered collaboration tools, leaving no enterprise-scale alternative for infinite-canvas whiteboarding. **What stood out:** Bizby is the only freeform whiteboard platform built end-to-end in Canada at enterprise scale, positioning it as a direct replacement rather than a workaround in a market where procurement policy now determines vendor eligibility. **Traction:** Nine paying teams are in production across federal, provincial, and healthcare sectors, including Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada and Transport Canada. **Why it matters:** As Canadian procurement rules tighten around vendor nationality, Bizby offers regulated organizations a compliant path to maintain collaborative workflows without reverting to static tools or unsanctioned software. --- ### [Butterfly Legal](https://butterflylegal.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Matt Canzer](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/matt-canzer?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Butterfly Legal uses an AI assistant called Bella to guide self-represented litigants through BC Small Claims Court—organizing their case, drafting documents, and managing deadlines—then connects them with licensed lawyers inside the platform for targeted advice. **Problem:** Most people facing routine legal disputes can't afford a lawyer but lack the guidance to navigate court processes properly on their own. **What stood out:** The platform separates legal information (provided by AI) from legal advice (provided by lawyers), allowing users to complete most of the work themselves while ensuring compliance with unauthorized practice of law regulations. **Traction:** The founder has personally helped 80+ self-represented litigants through small claims disputes, and the company jointly won a $10K pitch competition at Web Summit Vancouver. **Why it matters:** By making legal guidance affordable and accessible at scale, Butterfly Legal addresses a market where three in four North Americans with a legal problem never get professional help. --- ### [Chamber](https://www.usechamber.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Charles Ding](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dingcharles?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Chamber provides an autonomous AIOps agent that manages and optimizes GPU infrastructure across multi-cloud and on-prem environments, automating workload orchestration, performance debugging, and resource balancing for machine learning teams. **Problem:** Machine learning teams spend excessive time manually debugging workload failures and managing fragmented GPU clusters, leading to idle GPUs in one environment while jobs queue in another. **What stood out:** The platform uses autonomous agents that self-learn to maximize workload efficiency, shifting infrastructure management from manual intervention to automated optimization that adapts in real time. **Traction:** The company has 7 paid pilots totaling $40k and $250k ARR on conversion, including one Global Fortune 1000 customer. **Why it matters:** As GPU utilization rates fall below 50% across the industry, automating infrastructure orchestration directly addresses the bottleneck between acquiring compute and efficiently using it at scale. --- ### [ConnectLoop](https://connectloop.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Atif Muhammad](https://www.linkedin.com/in/atif-m-702b23121?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ConnectLoop deploys AI agents on business websites to engage visitors, qualify leads, book meetings, and push structured data into CRMs—operating 24/7 across chat, email, and SMS. **Problem:** Most website traffic never converts into pipeline because visitors leave without engaging, response delays kill intent, and follow-up is inconsistent. **What stood out:** ConnectLoop connects the full workflow from conversation to CRM sync—capturing intent, scoring leads, routing by availability, and triggering follow-ups—rather than stopping at chat or form collection. **Traction:** The company has 100+ customers and is growing quickly. **Why it matters:** By turning static websites into active sales infrastructure, ConnectLoop addresses the gap between traffic acquisition and pipeline conversion—especially outside business hours. --- ### [DRIVE Hockey Analytics](https://drivehockey.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Mike Dahlstedt](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mikedahlstedt?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** DRIVE Hockey Analytics installs sensor-based tracking systems in amateur hockey arenas to measure fitness, performance, and tactical game data, generating AI-powered performance reports benchmarked against peers. **Problem:** Amateur players lack objective guidance on how to improve, relying on inconsistent coaching advice or paying thousands for elite development programs. **What stood out:** The company built a patented sensor infrastructure that captures tactical and biomechanical data video systems miss, creating a dataset of over 800 million rows that powers increasingly accurate player development insights. **Traction:** The company has run 20 paid pilots generating approximately $1M in revenue, tracked 7,500 players, and signed a deployment agreement with Canlan, which operates 47 arenas serving 50,000 members. **Why it matters:** By making professional-grade performance tracking affordable at scale, DRIVE shifts amateur hockey evaluation from subjective observation to data-driven development accessible to any player. --- ### [eSense Health](https://esensehealth.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Elayne Wandler](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/elaynewandler?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** eSense Health delivers a self-guided digital platform using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Therapy to treat women's sexual desire and arousal disorders. **Problem:** Over 40% of women experience sexual difficulties, but fewer than 20% seek help due to stigma, limited access to specialists, and high costs. **What stood out:** eSense is the first digital therapeutic in this category backed by a randomized controlled trial showing outcomes comparable to in-person therapy—87% of users reported higher sexual desire and 77% reported less sex-related distress. **Traction:** The company has initiated a commercial pilot with approximately 300 paid users, a waitlist of over 1,100 individuals, and interest from more than 300 referral clinics. **Why it matters:** By digitizing gold-standard therapy for a condition that affects millions but remains largely untreated, eSense creates a scalable pathway to care in a market historically defined by inaccessibility and clinical dismissal. --- ### [InPower](https://www.weareinpower.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Razan Talebian](https://www.linkedin.com/in/razantalebian?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** InPower is a social platform where users practice healthier behavioral patterns daily through expert-led education, AI-supported reflection, moderated communities, and restorative accountability systems. **Problem:** Social media amplifies conflict and reactive behavior without providing structured support for users to develop emotional and social skills. **What stood out:** Rather than moderating harm after it occurs, InPower intervenes in real time—guiding users toward constructive responses through daily check-ins, reflection prompts, and restorative pathways that prioritize growth over punishment. **Traction:** The platform has grown to 26,000+ community members, established relationships with 22+ universities, and been selected for Web Summit Vancouver's PITCH competition. **Why it matters:** If behavioral skills can be practiced and reinforced continuously rather than taught episodically, platforms could shift from reactive moderation to proactive culture-building at scale. --- ### [LimitlessAI](https://limitlessai.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Matthew Dillon](https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-dillon-b261362bb/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** LimitlessAI is a self-improving conversation platform that handles customer interactions across channels for service businesses. The platform captures demand from unanswered calls and extracts actionable signals from conversations to drive revenue. **Problem:** Service businesses lose revenue when they miss high-intent calls or fail to act on what customers reveal during conversations. **What stood out:** The platform combines conversational data across all channels into a self-improving loop, meaning each interaction makes the system smarter at routing, responding, and identifying what closes deals. **Traction:** The company has 15 paying customers generating $4,000 in monthly recurring revenue, plus 4 channel partners. One customer attributed $400,000 in sales within 90 days with a double-digit closing rate and 15% conversion lift. **Why it matters:** As customer expectations shift toward immediate, 24/7 response, businesses that can capture and learn from every conversation gain a compounding advantage in converting demand. --- ### [MindArch Health](https://www.mindarchhealth.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Nadine Wilches](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nwilches?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** MindArch Health uses machine learning trained on longitudinal data to predict mental health risk trajectories at the population level and automate preventive intervention plans before symptoms emerge. **Problem:** Schools and healthcare systems spend $200 billion annually on avoidable behavioral health crises because they lack tools to identify vulnerabilities before symptoms appear. **What stood out:** The platform identifies institutional risk patterns using proprietary models that predict who is most at risk and why, shifting the intervention point years earlier than traditional reactive approaches. **Traction:** The company has converted 100% of pilots to paid customers across 7 institutions in education and healthcare, generating early revenue. **Why it matters:** Moving mental health intervention upstream from crisis response to population-level prevention reduces institutional costs while addressing chronic stress before it requires clinical treatment. --- ### [REearthable](https://reearthable.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Charlotte Wintermann](https://www.linkedin.com/in/wintermann?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** REearthable develops ecoPLAS®, a biodegradable plastic alternative made from CO₂-captured limestone that replaces polypropylene in packaging. The material runs on existing injection molding equipment without requiring manufacturers to retool their production lines. **Problem:** Small-format plastics used in beauty and cosmetics are structurally unrecyclable and contribute to the \~5 grams of microplastics people ingest weekly. **What stood out:** ecoPLAS® functions as a drop-in replacement that matches polypropylene's performance while eliminating microplastics and reducing CO₂ emissions by 38% per pound produced. **Traction:** The company has secured a utility patent, achieved compliance with 28+ global standards, proven manufacturing in injection molding, and is conducting beauty brand pilots. **Why it matters:** As $39B in consumer spending shifts toward sustainable packaging and regulations tighten, materials that integrate into existing infrastructure provide a scalable decarbonization path without forcing manufacturers to rebuild their operations. --- ### [Swell](https://swell.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** Huan Ho **Pitch:** Swell builds AI agents that automate post-sales operations for customer success teams by creating a unified customer knowledge graph from CRM data, product usage, support tickets, and communications. **Problem:** Customer success teams waste time on manual work across fragmented tools, making it difficult to maintain account context or identify churn and expansion signals. **What stood out:** Swell connects people, products, decisions, and customer history into a single graph, shifting post-sales from reactive firefighting to proactive account management. **Traction:** Early stage. No public metrics yet. **Why it matters:** With 80% of future revenue tied to existing customers and 67% of churn preventable, automating post-sales intelligence allows companies to scale retention and expansion without proportionally scaling headcount. --- ### [Synexiom Labs](https://synexiomlabs.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Meghraj Solanki](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/meghrajsolanki?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Synexiom Labs builds a patented, model-agnostic reasoning layer that sits on top of any foundation model, forcing it to reflect before responding, surface contradictions, and articulate uncertainty. **Problem:** In natural resources, energy, healthcare, and government, confident hallucination creates liability where decisions carry real consequences. **What stood out:** The company treats epistemic humility as an architectural property rather than a prompt or fine-tune—building honesty into the system instead of correcting for overconfidence after the fact. **Traction:** Cortexiom is live in market with tiered pricing, and the company is self-sustaining through commercial revenue from custom AI engagements and product subscriptions. **Why it matters:** If reasoning becomes infrastructure rather than application logic, organizations can deploy trustworthy AI without rebuilding systems every time a foundation model changes. --- ### [Teacher Time Machine](https://teachertimemachine.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Sharon Skretting](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-skretting-4659129a?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Teacher Time Machine is an instructional design platform that helps educators create curriculum-aligned learning materials customized to local context and student needs using backward design principles. **Problem:** Nearly half of teachers leave the profession within five years, driven by burnout from excessive planning workloads and generic tools that ignore teacher expertise. **What stood out:** The platform embeds a worldview lens structure that allows teachers to customize curriculum delivery while maintaining pedagogical rigor, positioning teacher judgment at the center rather than replacing it with automation. **Traction:** The company relaunched its platform in 2025, now works with eight Alberta school districts, reached $100K in revenue, has 6,800 users, and won the Alberta AsTech Award for Regional Software Innovation. **Why it matters:** Tools that preserve teacher agency while reducing administrative burden address both retention and instructional quality in a profession facing unsustainable attrition rates. --- ### [Vraust](https://vraust.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Elnathan Tiokou](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/elnathantiokou?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Vraust detects and blocks online, phone, and email scams in real time before users send money or share sensitive information. **Problem:** Consumers realize they've been scammed only after transferring funds or compromising personal data. **What stood out:** Vraust intervenes during the transaction itself, stopping the scam at the moment of risk rather than relying on post-incident reporting or user awareness. **Traction:** The company is running pilots with banks and law enforcement agencies and has over 50 active users on the platform. **Why it matters:** Real-time interception shifts fraud prevention from reactive investigation to proactive consumer protection, addressing a gap as scam sophistication outpaces user education. --- ### [Arkivist](https://arkivist.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** Robert Perry **Pitch:** Arkivist builds a chain-of-custody layer for AI decisions, logging and anchoring every output to create court-admissible audit trails for enterprise AI deployments. **Problem:** Enterprises deploying AI cannot defend how models reached specific decisions when regulators, boards, or courts demand proof of reliability. **What stood out:** The platform decomposes AI outputs into verifiable claims and anchors them to a public ledger, treating AI decisions like forensic evidence rather than black-box predictions. **Traction:** The system has anchored 1.3 million claims and achieved 99.8% accuracy in a public chess demonstration on Hedera's testnet. **Why it matters:** As AI moves into regulated industries, the ability to prove decision provenance becomes a compliance requirement, not a feature. --- ### [AssisTech SmartShower](https://smartshower.store/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Sasha Ovalle](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasha-ovalle-719721274?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** AssisTech SmartShower develops a voice-controlled, Alexa-enabled showerhead accessory that installs in under five minutes and allows users to start, adjust, and stop showers without physical touch. **Problem:** Elderly, disabled, and mobility-impaired individuals often cannot safely reach or turn standard shower controls, forcing reliance on caregivers and increasing fall risk. **What stood out:** Rather than requiring costly bathroom renovations, the device retrofits existing showers as an accessory, making voice control accessible without infrastructure changes. **Traction:** The company won the 2025 PDMA Global Student Innovation Challenge and was named a 2025 Most Disruptive Business School Startup by Poets&Quants. **Why it matters:** By adapting mainstream smart home technology to assistive health needs, AssisTech demonstrates how consumer voice AI can restore autonomy in essential daily routines for mobility-impaired users. --- ### [Atlas Primer](https://atlasprimer.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Hinrik Atlason](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hinrik?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Atlas Primer converts documents and training materials into interactive, conversational audio courses that function like an AI-powered podcast, enabling hands-free learning. **Problem:** Traditional corporate training is screen-bound and text-heavy, creating barriers for busy professionals and neurodivergent learners who need more flexible formats. **What stood out:** The platform shifts learning from passive reading to active conversation, making upskilling accessible on-the-go without requiring visual attention or dedicated screen time. **Traction:** Named Educational Startup of the Year 2026, accepted into Google for Startups Cloud Program, and selected to compete at Web Summit Vancouver 2026. **Why it matters:** Conversational audio learning removes friction from professional development, making continuous upskilling practical for distributed teams and time-constrained workers. --- ### [Blue Dot Motorworks](https://bluedotmotorworks.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Tom Gurski](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-gurski?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Blue Dot Motorworks produces universal, bolt-on retrofit kits that convert gas and diesel vehicles into plug-in hybrids, providing 35–50 miles of electric range while retaining the internal combustion engine. **Problem:** Fleet operators face pressure to reduce emissions but cannot afford $60,000+ electric vehicles or the depot charging infrastructure that can take over a year to install. **What stood out:** The vehicle-agnostic architecture enables mass production and one-day installation by third-party shops, breaking the cost and scalability constraints that have kept EV conversions a bespoke, multi-year-waitlist business. **Traction:** The company has developed functional prototypes validated in real-world use and secured letters of intent for pilot programs from fleet operators. **Why it matters:** Retrofitting existing fleets offers a faster path to cutting transportation emissions without waiting for the decades-long vehicle turnover cycle or relying on constrained battery supply chains. --- ### [ClassClown](https://heycleo.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Joshua Ekundayo](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/joshua-ekundayo-56790b21b?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ClassClown built Hey Cleo, a voice-based platform where students explain their thinking out loud while completing assignments. The system guides reasoning in real time and adjusts prompts based on understanding and emotional state. **Problem:** Students get stuck during independent work but receive little guidance when they struggle. **What stood out:** Voice interactions capture proof of understanding rather than polished answers, giving educators qualitative insight into reasoning, misconceptions, and confidence levels instead of binary correctness. **Traction:** The company reports $470K ARR, 300+ active students, and a 74% assignment completion rate. **Why it matters:** Requiring students to verbalize their process shifts assessment from answer validation to reasoning verification, making it harder to bypass understanding with generated solutions. --- ### [DealStack.ai](https://www.dealstack.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Alex Hines](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderhines?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** DealStack.ai aggregates business listings and uses AI to analyze financial documents for acquisition entrepreneurs searching for companies to buy. **Problem:** Buyers spend months manually filtering leads across fragmented platforms and reviewing dense financial documents to find viable acquisition targets. **What stood out:** The platform automates initial due diligence by extracting and standardizing data from CIMs, turning what's typically a weeks-long manual review into a structured analysis that helps buyers evaluate deals faster and present themselves more credibly to brokers. **Traction:** The platform aggregates over 100,000 active business listings and reports usage by thousands of acquisition entrepreneurs. **Why it matters:** As retiring business owners create a surge in available SMBs, independent buyers need infrastructure that lets them compete at the scale and speed previously reserved for institutional acquirers. --- ### [Eclatira](https://eclatira.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** Maryam Gilsenan **Pitch:** Eclatira builds multimodal AI agents that combine voice, real-time vision, and backend task execution to automate front-desk and customer support operations across hospitality, retail, and healthcare. **Problem:** Current AI tools can handle conversation but cannot process visual inputs like ID verification or damage assessment, forcing businesses to rely on human follow-up for tasks requiring sight. **What stood out:** The platform treats vision as a core input rather than an add-on, allowing agents to operate autonomously in workflows that require both conversation and real-time visual processing—eliminating the handoff between AI and human staff. **Traction:** The company has deployed agents for medication pickup workflows, administrative operations across 1,300+ hotels, and customer service for a Shopify store with millions in revenue. **Why it matters:** Automating tasks that require both sight and speech removes a structural bottleneck in industries where visual verification has kept human labor locked into otherwise automatable roles. --- ### [GeneGenius](https://www.genegenius.tech/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Zuhra Maksudi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/zuhra-maksudi?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** GeneGenius is an AI-powered genomic interpretation platform that processes VCF files into clinician-ready reports in under four minutes, synthesizing population data, clinical literature, and ACMG criteria to classify variants for rare disease diagnosis, oncology, and pharmacogenomics. **Problem:** Clinicians spend 6–8 hours per genome manually reviewing literature and clinical context, creating multi-week turnaround times despite fast sequencing. **What stood out:** The platform automates the entire interpretation workflow—from annotation through classification to report generation—replacing a fragmented, manual process that typically requires expert review at every stage. **Traction:** The company has 200+ daily researchers using the platform with 8.4 analyses per user and two signed letters of intent from academic institutions. **Why it matters:** By compressing interpretation from weeks to minutes, the approach enables labs to scale genomic diagnostics without proportionally expanding scarce geneticist headcount. --- ### [goNEON](https://goneon.city/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Raphael Eder](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eder-raphael?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** goNEON builds agentic AI software that generates regulation-compliant infrastructure and mobility plans in minutes, automating design and simulation for road, utility, and transit projects. **Problem:** Urban planning and infrastructure design typically take months or years to navigate local regulations and produce viable plans. **What stood out:** The platform handles regulatory compliance as part of the design process itself, removing a major bottleneck that traditionally requires manual legal and technical review at every iteration. **Traction:** The company secured CHF 40,000 in Venture Kick Stage II funding and launched pilots with İSBAK, Okan University, and Transport for West Midlands. **Why it matters:** Automating compliance within infrastructure design allows municipalities to move from concept to execution faster, addressing delays that slow smart city development. --- ### Neon Compliant **Founder:** Sarah Hillifer **Pitch:** Neon Compliant converts customer postal codes into detailed personality and lifestyle profiles, helping marketers visualize their audience and identify look-alike customers across Canada. **Problem:** High-quality demographic and lifestyle data is typically too expensive and complex for small-to-medium enterprises and small charities to access. **What stood out:** The platform makes consumer insight tools—previously reserved for enterprises with large budgets—accessible to smaller organizations that lack dedicated data teams or analytics infrastructure. **Traction:** Selected as one of 35 startups pitching at Web Summit Vancouver 2026, accepted into the Web Summit Startup Readiness Engine, and named a Round 2 Finalist in the 2026 New Ventures BC Competition. **Why it matters:** Smaller brands and nonprofits can now execute targeted, data-driven campaigns without enterprise-level resources. --- ### [PaiBox](https://www.paibox.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Sherry Li](https://www.linkedin.com/in/xueyingli?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** PaiBox automates property maintenance and repair workflows by coordinating tenants, property managers, and service vendors through an AI-driven execution layer. **Problem:** Property managers spend most of their time manually coordinating vendors and chasing updates rather than managing properties or scaling operations. **What stood out:** PaiBox doesn't just track work orders—it actively dispatches, coordinates, and completes jobs by controlling the workflow between property management systems and vendor networks. **Traction:** The company is onboarding 5,000+ units, generating $2K/month in revenue from paid customers, and reports a 90%+ demo-to-pilot conversion rate. **Why it matters:** By automating the nonlinear workflows that consume most of property management time, PaiBox enables real estate operators to scale without proportionally increasing coordination overhead. --- ### [Panoptica Technologies](https://panoptica.tech/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Martin So](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/martin-so-a26b88140?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Panoptica Technologies builds Watchtower, an AI-powered tactical intelligence platform that automates open-source intelligence collection and analysis to identify emerging threats and predict enemy courses of action in irregular warfare environments. **Problem:** Military and intelligence analysts are overwhelmed by data volume and rapid deception tactics, forcing commanders to make critical decisions with incomplete information. **What stood out:** The platform combines operator-sourced ground truth data from ex-special forces contractors with algorithms designed to detect deception in sparse data environments, focusing specifically on irregular threats in Latin America where adversaries actively weaponize misinformation. **Traction:** Panoptica graduated from Georgia Tech's CREATE-X incubator, signed a distribution agreement with Carahsoft, filed a patent, and was accepted into the Rice Business Plan Competition. **Why it matters:** Automating tactical intelligence collection allows defense agencies to shift analyst focus from manual data processing to strategic decision-making in environments where misinformation is weaponized. --- ### [Pricing For Profit](https://katybaker.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Katy Baker](https://www.linkedin.com/in/katyobaker?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Pricing For Profit offers a self-serve app that guides business owners through calculating their unit economics—including capacity for billable work, all business costs, debt recovery, and desired profit margins—to generate profitable pricing models and operational plans. **Problem:** Many small business owners lack financial literacy and struggle to understand their true costs, resulting in chronic underpricing despite high activity. **What stood out:** The app surfaces hidden costs across 47+ categories and factors in utilization reality—the gap between theoretical capacity and actual billable hours—which competitors often miss. **Traction:** The company has served 200+ paid clients, with users reporting average price increases of 55% to 90% and income growth of 1.5x to 2x. **Why it matters:** By making unit economics accessible without hiring a CFO, the platform addresses a structural gap that causes nearly half of small businesses to fail within five years. --- ### [Reach Machine](https://reachmachine.org/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Narendran Asokan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/narendran-asokan-099ab748/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Reach Machine uses AI to predict which Instagram reels will go viral by analyzing engagement signals in a 24-48 hour window before the algorithm amplifies distribution. **Problem:** Marketers spend 12-15 hours per week manually scrolling competitor feeds with no structured way to detect breakout content before trends peak. **What stood out:** The system identifies reels showing strong engagement signals before Instagram's distribution catches up, giving creators a 24-48 hour advantage to replicate patterns while they're still emerging. **Traction:** Product 90% complete with 936 backend tests deployed on AWS. A 30-day pilot with 15-20 design partners launched in March 2026. **Why it matters:** If viral prediction becomes reliable at scale, independent creators gain enterprise-level analytical capabilities without waiting until trends have already peaked. --- ### [REPWR](https://www.repwr.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Zachary McCue](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/zachary-a-mccue-75611223?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** REPWR designs modular solar energy systems that convert intermodal freight vehicles—container ships, trains, and commercial trucks—into mobile power stations, displacing diesel fuel for onboard hotel loads and auxiliary power. **Problem:** Heavy transport operators spend billions annually on diesel fuel, maintenance, and carbon penalties to power non-propulsion systems while vessels and vehicles are in operation or at berth. **What stood out:** The system integrates without requiring recalculation of vessel stability or new inclining tests, enabling drop-in deployment across existing fleets with no structural redesign. **Traction:** REPWR is piloting modules with Lomar Shipping on a pathway to 20+ vessels in 2026, has deployed units at Los Angeles trucking depots, and projects $5 million in revenue by 2027. **Why it matters:** REPWR offers shipping and logistics operators an immediate, modular alternative to diesel that cuts fuel costs and emissions without waiting for hydrogen or methanol infrastructure to mature. --- ### [ScopeDocs.ai](https://scopedocs.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Vivian Lin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/viviannnguyen?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ScopeDocs generates automated, source-linked documentation for engineering teams by integrating with GitHub, Slack, Linear, and Supabase. **Problem:** Engineering documentation becomes outdated quickly, forcing developers to search across disconnected platforms for context. **What stood out:** The documentation stays verifiable by linking directly to source code and tools, which removes the manual maintenance burden that typically causes knowledge bases to decay. **Traction:** Won 2nd place at the Seattle Startup Summit 2026 out of 120 early-stage AI startups. **Why it matters:** Automated, source-linked documentation reduces onboarding time and context-switching as engineering toolchains fragment across more platforms. --- ### [Strathwell](https://strathwell.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** Moosa Zaidi **Pitch:** Strathwell converts event spaces into execution-ready blueprints by mapping layouts, services, budgets, timelines, and risks through an AI-powered platform. **Problem:** Event teams struggle to align logistical, financial, and spatial elements across fragmented tools, slowing approvals and execution. **What stood out:** The platform automates the blueprinting process that typically requires manual coordination across multiple stakeholders, turning spatial and operational data into a unified execution plan that reduces planning friction. **Traction:** Selected to attend Web Summit Vancouver 2026; founder Moosa Zaidi named an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2026 finalist and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. **Why it matters:** Automating event blueprinting shifts planning from reactive coordination to proactive execution, allowing venues and production teams to operate with greater precision under tighter timelines. --- ### [Workbench](https://www.tryworkbench.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Umer Kazi](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/umerkazi?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Workbench builds autonomous AI agents that automate back-office workflows for construction companies, including job costing, billing, forecasting, and compliance. The agents integrate with existing construction software and propose actions via SMS or messaging platforms for human approval. **Problem:** Mid-market construction contractors lose 5-6% of profit margins to back-office inefficiencies caused by miscoded costs, delayed reporting, and compliance gaps from disconnected data. **What stood out:** Rather than replacing existing systems, Workbench positions its agents as "crew members" that work across disconnected tools and surface decisions where contractors already communicate, reducing the friction of adoption. **Traction:** The company is working with construction firms including Duron, GIP, Lavish, One Developers, Blue Avenue Developments, and Saima Group. **Why it matters:** Construction's labor shortage makes it difficult to scale administrative teams, so automating repetitive tasks protects margins without adding headcount. --- ## Deployment as the New Filter The cohort that surfaced in Vancouver reflects a market that has stopped rewarding technical novelty and started punishing deployment failure. Enterprise AI stalled because buyers refused to fund another round of pilots that never shipped. Clean tech survived by competing on cost, not carbon credits. Founders who treated tariffs and fragmented markets as design constraints—not obstacles—built systems that could actually deploy. This is not a pivot. It is a correction. The startups that will define the next cycle are the ones building for the constraints that killed their predecessors: buyer skepticism, regulatory fragmentation, and the requirement that systems work without constant intervention. Vancouver showed which founders understood that commercialization is not what happens after product-market fit—it is the product. We will continue tracking the founders and systems shaping what is UpNext in the global economy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-05-14/ Last updated: 2026-05-14T12:30:37.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*. This issue we break down the startups we flagged on the ground at Web Summit Vancouver, what the PITCH results signal, and why Vancouver just became a conversation no serious ecosystem can ignore. We've also got the GTM identity gap most founders won't admit they have. OneEleven's ScaleUp 10 cohort. And a Final Thought on what it actually means to build a system versus riding momentum you can't explain. Lot in this one. Let's get into it. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) --- ## *UpNext World Tour* ### Web Summit Vancouver 2026 The numbers just landed. 20,235 attendees. 768 investors. 1,197 startups. Biggest North American edition Web Summit has ever run. Up nearly 30% from last year. Vancouver made its case. The capital followed. Khosla Ventures, Benchmark, Insight Partners, Fusion Fund — all on the ground. We're here. PITCH results are still coming. But these are the founders we're already watching: - **Elayne Wandler**, eSense Health — Clinically validated digital therapeutics for women's sexual health. \[Healthtech\] - **Ben Whately**, Astron Health — Multi-omics AI targeting the 70% failure rate in precision cancer treatment. \[Healthtech\] - **Nadine Wilches**, MindArch Health — Reducing preventable stress disorders at population scale. \[Healthtech\] - **Razan Talebian**, InPower — Behavioral change system built inside social media. \[Healthtech\] - **Meghraj Solanki**, Synexiom Labs — Patented reasoning layer that makes any AI catch its own contradictions. \[AI\] - **Charles Ding**, Chamber — Agents that optimize AI workloads across clouds. \[AI\] - **Sharon Skretting**, Teacher Time Machine — AI resources customized to teacher context and student needs. \[AI\] - **Atif Muhammad**, ConnectLoop — Turns static websites into AI sales agents that convert 24/7\. \[AI\] - **Charlotte Wintermann**, REearthable® — Biodegradable plastic replacement built for existing equipment. \[Climate\] - **Elnathan Tiokou**, Vraust — Real-time scam detection across online, phone, and email. \[Cybersecurity\] - **Marty Cerisano**, Bizby Canada — Canadian-hosted whiteboarding for government and regulated industries. \[Enterprise\] - **Matt Canzer**, Butterfly Legal — Making legal self-representation actually accessible. \[Legal\] - **Mike Dahlstedt**, DRIVE Hockey Analytics — Sensor-powered Smart Arenas bringing pro coaching to every rink. \[Sports Tech\] PITCH results dropping soon. Full recap in the next issue. *Web Summit Vancouver 2026\. A key stop on the UpNext World Tour.* Web Summit Vancouver - Opening Night --- ## *UpNext Ecosystem* ### ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch OneEleven dropped something worth paying attention to at DiscoveryX 2026. *ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch.* Ten Canadian companies past early-stage and operating at the edge of commercial scale. Healthcare. AI infrastructure. Clean mobility. Advanced manufacturing. Enterprise systems. The common thread wasn't category. It was stage. These are companies navigating real deployment challenges, enterprise adoption, and expansion. Not experimentation. From BAO Laboratory's AI-driven skincare manufacturing to SWTCH Energy's EV retrofit infrastructure, EECOMOBILITY's battery defect detection to Fero International's modular construction at scale — the cohort reflected where Canada's innovation economy is quietly shifting. From building to deploying. [ScaleUp 10: Ones to WatchOneEleven’s ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch spotlighted Canadian scaleups building across AI, healthcare, manufacturing, mobility, and enterprise systems at DiscoveryX 2026\. The cohort reflected where commercial traction and operational scale are emerging across Canada’s tech ecosystem.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/scaleup10-ones-to-watch-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/scaleup-10-ones-to-watch-2026/) ### *Running a demo day, pitch night, or cohort showcase?* This is what ecosystem coverage looks like inside What's UpNext. We're actively looking for the next ecosystem partner to feature. If you're managing an accelerator, innovation hub, or startup program — let's put your founders in front of the UpNext network. Reply to this issue or reach us at [upnext.world](https://upnext.world/). --- ## *UpNext Spotlights* ### Founder POV Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. [A Wearable That Finally Tracks Female Hormones in Real TimeEstonian founder Kerli Luks spent years as a doctor watching women navigate hormonal health on incomplete data. Her company Muun Health is building the first continuous hormone monitoring device.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-50.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Kerli.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/female-hormone-wearable-biosensor-fertility-estonia/) [Making Executive Healthcare AccessibleVictoria Xu, CEO of miRoncal Health, is revolutionizing early cancer detection. Her company offers a blood test for multiple cancers, a new scientific discovery that won a Nobel Prize in 2024\. This affordable solution aims to address health equity, starting with early adopters.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-53.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Victoria-Headshot-1.JPG)](https://upnext.world/victoria-xu-mironcal-health-early-cancer-detection/) [The Software Developer Who Coded a Solution to Fashion’s $200 Billion Data ProblemWhen Edgar Azcorra’s activewear customers kept coming back, he knew it was because he had asked them what they wanted first. Xactsize is the fit-intelligence platform he built after realizing that the rest of the apparel industry had never asked the same question.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-52.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/1772825072283-1-2.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/apparel-returns-fit-intelligence-xactsize/) --- ## *Final Thou*ght** A founder I know is closing deals. Customers who passed years ago are circling back. Every signal says momentum. But ask how the leads are coming in and the answer is the same every time. Relationships I've been building. The right intro at the right moment. Luck dressed up as strategy. That's Chaotic Traction. Wins are real. Nothing is stacking. Product momentum and GTM momentum are not the same thing. You can be years ahead on product and still be running on relationship luck. Sporadic wins. No repeatable engine. Deals that close but you can't fully explain why. The shift isn't doing more. It's becoming the founder who builds the machine instead of running inside it. Chasing introductions becomes narrative-led access. A wish list of logos becomes a locked ICP. One warm contact becomes a presence across the full decision-making structure of every target account. Here's the gut check. Closing deals but can't explain why they closed — Chaotic Traction. Can write out your GTM motion right now and hand it to someone else to run — you've made the shift. The proof is there. The question is whether your GTM identity has caught up to what you're actually building. *Read the full piece:* [*You're Closing Deals. You Don't Have a System.*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/p/closing-deals-no-system) Gratefully, Edwin ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-05-07/ Last updated: 2026-05-07T12:14:22.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*. This week, we are coming off DiscoveryX in Toronto and looking ahead to Web Summit Vancouver, which kicks off May 11. At DiscoveryX, we collaborated with OneEleven on the *ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch*, spotlighting Canadian scale-ups already showing traction across AI, healthcare, manufacturing, and mobility. Next week, Web Summit Vancouver shifts the lens to the global stage, with signals around AI deployment, clean technology, and what Canada is building on its own terms. Further below, we break down what to watch, highlight the OneEleven collaboration, and share a final thought on why clarity matters more than visibility in a world where everyone can publish. Sponsored · Flashpoint Global ****81.5% of founders now use AI for content.** **58.7% say it doesn't sound like them.** They surveyed 92 founders to find out why — and what the ones who've cracked it are doing differently. Free report, no gate. [Download the Free Report → ](https://flashpoint.global/founder-presence-report?utm%5Fsource=upnext&utm%5Fmedium=newsletter&utm%5Fcampaign=founder-presence) --- ## *UpNext Briefings* ### Web Summit Vancouver 2026 Web Summit Vancouver returns May 11 to 14 for its second edition, and the timing is pointed. Tariffs are reshaping supply chains, Canada is rallying middle powers, and the question across every stage is no longer whether AI works but where it is actually delivering. Expected to draw 20,000+ attendees, 700+ investors, and 1,500+ startups, the event has quietly filled the void left by Collision's departure from Toronto, shifting Canadian tech gravity westward. Three new tracks debut this year: Film Summit, Gaming Summit, and Planet Tech, reflecting Vancouver's strengths in gaming, creative tech, and cleantech. The speaker lineup sets a deployment-over-hype tone. Canada's first Minister of AI and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon brings a sovereign infrastructure lens. Joelle Pineau, now Chief AI Officer at Cohere, brings the research credibility. Max Levchin, Joe Paluska of Commonwealth Fusion, and Sam Register of Warner Bros. Animation round out a cohort where real performance is the through line. For founders pursuing North American market entry and investors looking for deal flow outside traditional Silicon Valley channels, this is the room. Vancouver's position as a Pacific Rim gateway adds a layer few comparable events can match. A key stop on the UpNext World Tour. *Full details at* [*https://vancouver.websummit.com/*](https://vancouver.websummit.com/?ref=upnext.world)*.* --- ## *UpNext Ecosystem* ### ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch At DiscoveryX 2026, OneEleven launched its *ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch* initiative, spotlighting ten Canadian companies already past early-stage and operating at the edge of commercial scale. The cohort spanned healthcare, AI infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, clean mobility, and enterprise systems, but the common thread wasn't category. It was stage. These are companies navigating real deployment challenges, enterprise adoption, and expansion, not experimentation. From BAO Laboratory's AI-driven skincare manufacturing to SWTCH Energy's EV retrofit infrastructure, and EECOMOBILITY's battery defect detection to Fero International's modular construction at scale, the cohort reflected where Canada's innovation economy is quietly shifting: from building to deploying. *Read the full ScaleUp 10 breakdown*. [ScaleUp 10: Ones to WatchOneEleven’s ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch spotlighted Canadian scaleups building across AI, healthcare, manufacturing, mobility, and enterprise systems at DiscoveryX 2026\. The cohort reflected where commercial traction and operational scale are emerging across Canada’s tech ecosystem.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/scaleup10-ones-to-watch-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/scaleup-10-ones-to-watch-2026/) --- ## *UpNext Spotlights* ### Founder POV Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. [Why Medicines Cost Thirty Times More in Some African Markets and What Kapsule Is Doing About ItPharmaceutical companies have spent decades circling African markets, unable to act without reliable data. David Chen built Kapsule to fix that, pooling health records from hospitals, pharmacies, and insurers across Africa into a single compliant platform.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/David-Chen.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/african-health-data-kapsule-pharma-access/) [Managers Can’t Lead While They’re Buried in CoordinationAfter 25 years in mobile and banking technology, Finnish founder Kristian Luoma identified the real obstacle to leadership, the coordination tax consuming 40% to 70% of every manager’s week. In Parallel is built to remove it.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Kristian-Luoma-1.webp)](https://upnext.world/managers-lead-coordination-tax-in-parallel/) [Scelta Helps Contractors Run Their Business the Way an Athlete Trains for CompetitionDavid Mill spent three years inside contractor businesses before he tried to design for them. What he found were high performers running on empty, skilled enough to build cities and too busy to build the life they were working toward. Scelta is the operating system that closes that gap.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Horizons-BOTG-SiteKick-28--1---1--1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/contractor-operating-system-scelta-windsor/) --- ## *Final Thou*ght** AI can accelerate expression. The market creates understanding. That distinction matters more now than ever. Because execution has become so fast, it creates the illusion that clarity should come fast too. Launch the site. Write the deck. Build the app. Generate the content. Move. But if the offer is unclear, AI helps make the unclear offer sound better. If you are solving the wrong problem, AI helps you scale the wrong message. > The market still has to correct you. Real conversations create the friction AI removes. Someone pushes back. Someone asks why it matters. Someone reveals the gap between what you thought you were building and what they actually need. That is where strategy comes from. The founders who break through are not always the loudest or most active. They are the most understandable. And that clarity does not come from moving faster. It comes from still doing the slower work while everyone else is just shipping. Ten years ago, the lesson was: get out of the building. The tools changed. The work did not. Read the full piece at [edwin100x.substack.com](https://edwin100x.substack.com/p/ai-built-the-site-market-built-the-strategy). Gratefully, Edwin P.S. Curious what clarity looks like when it compounds? See what we built at [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Recruiting Runs on Relationships. The Tools Don't URL: https://upnext.world/clera-passive-talent-ai-recruiting/ Last updated: 2026-05-12T19:17:40.000Z Berlin’s startup scene was producing unicorns while Alexander Farr was still in high school. Watching that from close range made the path feel less distant. He studied computer science and management at TU Munich, spent time at Berkeley, and returned convinced that the gap between himself and people doing remarkable things was smaller than it looked. Outside of his studies, he had been moving. By the time he finished university, he had visited 76 countries, every EU nation except Bulgaria. He got used to walking into places where nothing was familiar and figuring out what was actually going on. That habit would resurface in how he came to see recruiting. ## He watched a startup unicorn emerge from his high school and started asking when it would be his turn. After university, he moved into early-stage investing at Flash Ventures, part of the Rocket Internet ecosystem, and, at 23, became chief of staff at Superchat, a Berlin-based messaging Series A startup. The role put him directly alongside the CEO, covering finance, recruiting, and go-to-market with no team underneath him and no buffer between him and the hardest decisions in the business. The CEO became a model for him, someone combining serious strategic intelligence with a grounded, relationship-first way of operating, making good decisions day by day while keeping sight of the larger goal. Alexander still draws on that pattern when decisions get hard. Recruiting never left him. He hired more than 30 people during that time, tried every tool available, and kept hitting the same wall. The candidates worth finding were not on job boards. The data that would make a real match possible was not on any resume or LinkedIn profile. And the early AI tools emerging to solve the problem were pulling in the wrong direction, helping candidates blast applications to hundreds of companies at once while helping companies screen people out with tools too blunt to catch the good ones. Alexander had met his co-founders, Sebastian Scott and Daniel Wintermeyer, during university. The problem was top of mind for all of them. They started with AI-powered interviews before realizing the real problem was upstream. It didn't matter how good the interview was if the wrong people were showing up. The question was how to find the right candidates and get them to the table. So that's what they built Clera to do. ## Every new tool made the noise louder and the signal harder to find. The insight behind Clera is that the recruiting industry is operating on surface data and calling it matching. A LinkedIn profile does not tell you whether someone is actually open to moving. A job post does not tell you what the hiring manager genuinely cares about or what they deliberately left out of the description. Human recruiters solve this by building relationships over time, which is why the best ones work. Clera is built to do the same thing at scale, reaching passive candidates through WhatsApp, iMessage, and email and building a picture of what they actually want through ongoing conversation rather than a static form. Companies go through the same process on their side, sharing what great looks like for them, including the things they would never publish in a job description. That accumulated context, what Clera calls the Talent Graph, gets smarter with every interaction and allows the platform to predict for any given candidate how likely they are to get an interview with a given company. The result is a 40% conversion rate from suggestions to interviews. Candidates do not apply to hundreds of jobs. They reply yes to an introduction that fits. Clera has put more than 80,000 candidates through that experience, worked with over 150 companies, and raised a $3 million pre-seed from 1984 Ventures, the first investor in Posthog, alongside angels and scouts from Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, and LinkedIn. ## The talent agent in your corner, for every stage of your career. Alexander’s framing of what Clera is building goes further than the immediate recruiting problem. The gap between good and excellent candidates has widened as AI changes what companies can do with the right hire, and startups willing to find those people will be disproportionately rewarded. The team has felt that urgency in how they built. They spent the past year operating from shared houses across Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina while waiting on US visas, at times with 11 people living and working together under the same roof. Alexander had spent years working well in unfamiliar places. Shared houses across Latin America were no different. The longer view behind Clera is about what happens to work itself. As AI takes over more of what people do professionally, the question of how people find meaningful things to spend their time on becomes more important. Alexander sees the talent agent not as a recruiting tool with a clever distribution model, but as a career companion that stays with someone throughout their working life, present in the channels they already use, available whenever the moment is right. “Helping everyone find meaningful work,” he says, “and being the talent agent in the corner to help match with those opportunities.” The platform is scaling toward 1,000 introductions per week. The ambition behind it is considerably larger. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch URL: https://upnext.world/scaleup-10-ones-to-watch-2026/ Last updated: 2026-05-07T02:43:52.000Z At DiscoveryX 2026, [OneEleven](https://oneeleven.com/?ref=upnext.world) brought its ***ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch*** initiative to the floor, spotlighting a cohort of Canadian companies shaping the next stage of the country’s technology ecosystem. Positioned around high-growth scaleups already operating in market, the initiative focused on companies navigating expansion, infrastructure, enterprise adoption, and operational scale. Throughout the event, the ScaleUp 10 activation created space for conversations between founders, investors, operators, and ecosystem leaders around what growth looks like beyond the early-stage startup cycle. The cohort reflected a broad mix of sectors including healthcare, advanced manufacturing, AI infrastructure, clean technology, fintech, mobility, and enterprise systems. What connected the companies was less about category and more about stage. These were businesses already moving through real operational environments with customers, deployment challenges, and expansion plans underway. As part of the [UpNext World Tour](https://upnext.world/tag/world-tour), we collaborated with OneEleven during DiscoveryX to spotlight the founders and companies shaping what comes next across Canada’s innovation economy. Below are the companies selected for OneEleven’s *ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch in 2026*. --- ### [BAO Laboratory](https://www.baolaboratory.com/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [Julia Bao](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/dr-jiayin-julia-bao?ref=upnext.world), BAO Laboratory combines small molecule skincare science with AI-driven personalization and robotic manufacturing. Its GLOWBALANCE platform creates individualized skincare formulations in minutes using clinically informed inputs and on-demand production systems. The company stood out for treating personalization as a manufacturing problem rather than a marketing layer. By combining biochemical precision with scalable production infrastructure, BAO Laboratory is building toward a future where personalized skincare can operate beyond boutique service models. ### [Baselane](https://www.baselane.com/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [Thorben Scheidegger](https://www.linkedin.com/in/thorbenscheidegger?ref=upnext.world), Baselane integrates banking, bookkeeping, rent collection, and financial operations into a single platform for independent real estate investors. The platform addresses a fragmented operational challenge faced by smaller landlords managing multiple properties without institutional tooling. With more than 50,000 customers and billions in processed transaction volume, Baselane reflects the growing demand for operational infrastructure tailored to independent asset owners. ### [Cohesys](http://www.cohesys.ca/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [Michael Tessier](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/michaeljtessier?ref=upnext.world), Cohesys is developing BoneTape, a resorbable surgical adhesive designed to repair bone fractures without metal plates or screws. Its drill-free fixation approach is particularly relevant for facial reconstruction procedures where traditional hardware creates surgical complexity. The company’s growing patent portfolio and investigational testing signal how biomaterials and surgical simplification are becoming increasingly important across healthcare systems. ### [EECOMOBILITY Inc.](http://www.eecomobility.com/?ref=upnext.world) President [Amit Monga](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/amit-monga?ref=upnext.world), EECOMOBILITY develops AI systems that detect defective battery cells during manufacturing in under two seconds. The company’s approach focuses on identifying safety risks before battery integration into vehicles and energy systems. As electrification expands globally, manufacturing-level defect detection is becoming critical infrastructure for battery reliability and large-scale deployment. ### [Fero International](https://www.ferointl.com/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [Sabrina Fiorellino](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrina-fiorellino-50b37816/?ref=upnext.world), Fero International designs and manufactures volumetric modular buildings for healthcare, education, residential, and commercial infrastructure. The company controls design, fabrication, delivery, and installation through vertically integrated operations designed to reduce construction variability. With large-scale manufacturing capacity already operating in Ontario, Fero reflects how modular construction is increasingly moving from niche alternative to deployment-ready infrastructure strategy. ### [Pontosense](https://www.pontosense.com/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [Alex Qi](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alexqi?ref=upnext.world), Pontosense uses mmWave radar and AI to monitor falls, sleep patterns, and movement without cameras or wearable devices. The system removes the behavioral burden placed on seniors by traditional monitoring technologies. Instead of relying on compliance, charging, or active participation, the platform runs passively in the background while providing continuous wellness monitoring for families and care providers. ### [Speer](https://speer.io/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [Mathew Mozaffari](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathewmozaffari?ref=upnext.world), Speer helps companies design and protect intellectual property within increasingly fragmented software ecosystems. The company focuses on defensible architectures and patent strategies that preserve long-term commercial value beyond software execution speed alone. As generative AI accelerates software replication, structural IP protection is becoming a more significant competitive layer for technical companies. ### [SWTCH Energy Inc. ](https://swtchenergy.com/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [Carter Li](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-li-34355474?ref=upnext.world), SWTCH develops EV charging infrastructure and energy management software for multifamily and commercial buildings. Its platform enables older buildings to support electric vehicle charging without requiring full electrical infrastructure replacement. By focusing on retrofit viability and power distribution optimization, SWTCH is addressing one of the largest bottlenecks in large-scale EV adoption across dense urban housing. ### [VITALL Intelligence](https://www.vitall.com/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [Don Simmonds](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/donsimmonds?ref=upnext.world), VITALL Intelligence aggregates data from wearables, medical records, and smartphone scans into a unified patient-controlled health platform. The company focuses on continuity across fragmented healthcare systems, particularly for chronic disease management and remote care environments. Its approach reflects broader movement toward patient-owned health intelligence and decentralized care coordination. ### [Wuxly](https://wuxly.com/?ref=upnext.world) Founded by [James Yurichuk](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/james-yurichuk-16a92945?ref=upnext.world), Wuxly manufactures cold-weather outerwear and tactical systems in Canada using animal-free materials and advanced textile technologies. The company stood out for its positioning across both consumer and defense markets while maintaining domestic manufacturing capabilities. As supply chain resilience and sovereign manufacturing capacity become strategic priorities, Wuxly represents a growing category of Canadian industrial and materials-focused companies. --- ## **A snapshot of Canada’s scaling economy** The ScaleUp 10 initiative reflected a broader shift happening across the Canadian technology ecosystem. Increasingly, the conversation is moving away from early-stage experimentation and toward operational execution, infrastructure readiness, and commercial scale. The companies recognized through the cohort are already building inside industries where deployment, integration, and reliability matter as much as innovation itself. > Presented in collaboration with OneEleven at DiscoveryX 2026. ### Half of GI Cancer Patients Run Out of Options URL: https://upnext.world/gi-cancer-no-options-treatment-gap/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T10:45:47.000Z Mehdi Chelbi spent two decades helping other companies bring cancer drugs to patients before he found the problem worth building around himself. Half of all gastrointestinal cancer patients exhaust chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy without response and have nowhere left to turn. BiPER Therapeutics, the Paris-based biotech he co-founded, is developing a first-in-class oral drug that targets a protein overexpressed in more than half of that population, can be selected by a blood test, and is designed to push tumours to burn themselves out. The company is six months from its first clinical trial. ### **Twenty years of watching drugs move before building one of his own** Mehdi grew up near Lyon, in reach of the Alps, and, from an early age, was drawn to how things work at the cellular level. After his master’s degree in biology, he joined a medicinal chemistry startup during the first biotech boom of the early 2000s, a company of around fifty scientists building small molecules and developing its own pipeline of drug candidates. He was young, in a business development role, and learning fast. What he found he could not stop thinking about was what happened after the molecule left the lab. He wanted to see the end of the story. That question pulled him into clinical research. He joined a spin-off from GSK Biologicals in Belgium, a team of immunology and vaccine specialists who had left to build their own clinical research organization. He expanded the company as an executive, opened an office in Boston in 2014, hired people in Canada to support the North American business, and over the following years managed more than 200 clinical trials across every phase of development, working with Sanofi and the top 30 pharma companies developing vaccines. By the time he felt ready to build something of his own, he understood the full arc from discovery to patient in a way very few people in the industry do. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **When every available option runs out** When Mehdi looked at the treatment landscape for gastrointestinal cancers, he saw an arithmetic problem that nobody had named as a single failure. Around 60% of patients relapse after first-line chemotherapy. Only 15% are eligible for immunotherapy because their immune systems are too compromised to be re-educated, and GI tumours have a particular ability to evade immune detection. Most targeted therapies reach 15 to 20% of patients at best. Taken together, half of all patients exhaust every available option without response and end up on second- or third-line therapy with nothing left that works. What Mehdi saw in BiP, the protein his academic co-founders had spent a decade studying, was a structural answer to that exclusion. Cancer cells overexpress BiP to cope with the internal stress associated with uncontrolled growth. It is a survival mechanism. Block it, and the stress becomes unresolvable. The cell burns out. More than 50% of GI cancer patients overexpress the target, and that overexpression holds regardless of which prior treatments have failed. “What works is focus on patient benefits,” he said. “If there is a patient benefit, of course, you build everything to be rewarded, but all those things are a consequence, not an objective.” BPR001-615 is taken orally, which matters both for patient convenience and for reaching people who cannot easily travel to the hospital. A simple blood test confirms eligibility. Tumour regression has been demonstrated in colorectal and gastric cancer models in monotherapy and in combination with standard chemotherapy, and clinical and manufacturing plans have been agreed with the regulatory agency. ### **One life saves humanity** Mehdi played handball at a semi-professional level for 20 years and still treks for days at a time in the mountains near where he grew up. He describes both in the same terms. They teach you that effort has to be managed over a long distance, that consistency and discipline matter more than any single push. He has built BiPER to reflect that, lean and deliberately limited in fixed costs, what he calls flying light, so the company could survive two difficult years for European biotech fundraising without compromising the science. The thing that gets him up in the morning is simpler than a financial model. He draws on a line from the sacred books as his mantra: one life saves humanity. If the drug BiPER, which is being developed, reaches one patient who has run out of road, that is enough reason for everything that came before it. He does not believe in magic bullets or in selling dreams to patients. What he believes in is building the right piece of a larger arsenal, matched to the biology of the patients who need it most, and letting the science do what he says science has always done. It does not lie. BiPER is raising a Series A to finance BPR001-615 through Phase 2b efficacy data in gastric cancer. The first tranche of €10M takes the drug to Phase 1/2a. Mehdi has been preparing for this road for twenty years. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-04-30/ Last updated: 2026-04-30T19:24:15.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*. This week, we are on the ground at DiscoveryX in Toronto and looking ahead to EU-Startups Summit in Malta. At DiscoveryX, we were happy to collaborate with OneEleven on the ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch, celebrating Canadian scale-ups already showing traction. Next week, *EU-Startups Summit* shifts the lens to Europe, with signals around Infinite AI, DeepTech commercialization, and Seed to Series A founder momentum. Further below, we break down what to watch, highlight the OneEleven collaboration, and share a final thought on why founder clarity matters more than visibility alone. --- ## UpNext Briefings We track where capital, operators, and infrastructure converge. Each briefing distills the signal behind major events, focusing on what is being deployed and where momentum is moving next. --- ## EU-Startups Summit 2026 The EU-Startups Summit returns to Valletta, Malta on May 7–8, bringing together Europe’s early and growth-stage startup community for two days of founder showcases, investor conversations, and ecosystem programming. This year’s edition centers on “Infinite AI,” with additional signals around Green Transition Scaling and DeepTech commercialization. The summit will feature 80+ speakers, including unicorn founders, investors, and operators, alongside its signature pitch competition for promising seed-stage companies. Why it matters: EU-Startups Summit acts as a concentrated scout layer for European Seed and Series A talent. Smaller and more curated than the mega-conference circuit, it offers a sharper read on where serious founders are emerging across Europe, especially beyond the usual London, Paris, and Berlin lanes. For UpNext Global, this is a European Scout stop. It gives us a pulse check on continental venture sentiment, cross-border scaling challenges, and the founders building from overlooked but increasingly important European nodes. Official site: [https://www.eu-startups.com/summit/](https://www.eu-startups.com/summit/?ref=upnext.world) 0:00 /2:42 1× --- ### Community Partner ## OneEleven Sets the Room at DiscoveryX DiscoveryX is happening now in Toronto, and [OneEleven](https://oneeleven.com/?ref=upnext.world) is on site with a focused activation built around access, not scale. OneEleven, a Toronto-based scale-up hub supporting high-growth technology companies as they move from product-market fit to expansion, has created a lounge designed for small-group conversations between founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders. Their programming centers on decisions operators are actively navigating, from capital strategy to where AI is delivering measurable value. Additional workshops and activations are running throughout the event. We were happy to collaborate with OneEleven to celebrate the ***ScaleUp 10: Ones to Watch***, a curated group of Canadian companies already showing traction. These are companies in motion, positioned directly in front of partners, investors, and media throughout DiscoveryX. DiscoveryX brings the full ecosystem into one place. What matters is how you navigate it. OneEleven is structuring for signal, not noise. If you are at DiscoveryX or in Toronto this week, drop by the OneEleven lounge. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/04/scaleup-10-ones-to-watch-1.JPG) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. ### Recent Features [Scelta Helps Contractors Run Their Business the Way an Athlete Trains for CompetitionDavid Mill spent three years inside contractor businesses before he tried to design for them. What he found were high performers running on empty, skilled enough to build cities and too busy to build the life they were working toward. Scelta is the operating system that closes that gap.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Horizons-BOTG-SiteKick-28--1---1--1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/contractor-operating-system-scelta-windsor/) [Every EV in Every Driveway Is a Grid Asset. Emulate Is the Infrastructure Utilities Need.Shwan Lamei’s co-founder proved at MIT that coordinated residential devices behave like a grid-scale battery. Emulate is the production-grade platform giving utilities real control over EVs, heat pumps, and batteries already in their customers’ homes.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/shwan-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/ev-grid-asset-emulate-utility-infrastructure/) [Could a Fly Be the Solution to Overfishing?While the aquaculture and pet food industries face a growing protein supply crisis, Jarna Hyvönen built Volare around a conviction that the raw material to fix it was already sitting in food factories being discarded.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Jarna-1-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/food-waste-protein-insect-aquafeed-finland/) --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road Here’s where the tour is heading next as we continue tracking emerging signals and spotlighting founders across global ecosystems. *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ### *Final Thought* ## Visibility Is No Longer Scarce. Clarity Is. Most founders are showing up more than ever. They are posting, publishing, recording, and sharing updates. But activity is not the same as momentum. In our recent founder presence survey, 93.5% of founders said online presence is important, yet only 80.4% believe it is actually driving results. That gap is not about effort. It is about clarity. The issue is not simply that founders need to post more. It is that too much founder content resets every time. Company update. Product launch. Personal story. Funding announcement. Then back to zero. The founders who break through are not always the loudest or most active. They are the most understandable. They can explain what they are building, where the market is moving, and why it matters. That is where narrative starts to compound. In a world where everyone can publish, clarity becomes the real differentiator. Read the full piece: [https://edwin100x.substack.com/p/momentum-is-a-signal-not-a-feeling](https://edwin100x.substack.com/p/founder-clarity-gap?r=1uh53g) Gratefully, Edwin P.S. We recently completed a founder presence survey looking at how founders think about visibility, clarity, and whether their online presence is actually driving results. Reply to this email if you’d like the full research findings and I’ll send them over directly. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Aquaplaning Has Existed Since the First Car. This Turin Founder Decided to Eliminate It. URL: https://upnext.world/aquaplaning-solution-turin-founder-easyrain/ Last updated: 2026-04-24T16:48:37.000Z Aquaplaning kills people on wet roads every year. It has done so since cars first drove on them. More than 20% of all road accidents occur on low-grip surfaces, and for autonomous driving systems, the problem is even more acute. 15% of their failures occur in exactly these conditions. Giovanni Blandina, an innovator from Turin who spent his career in automotive R&D, founded EasyRain to build what the industry had deemed impossible. The first complete safety ecosystem for low-grip conditions, combining predictive software, an active hardware system, and a cloud infrastructure, is now under contract with Hyundai Motor Company and Easyrain. We are currently in discussions with NVIDIA is in discussions with NVIDIA for potential integration into their Halo Platform. ### A passion for cars **and a question he could not let go of** Giovanni grew up passionate about cars. He studied electronics and telecommunications, built his career in R&D, and moved into the automotive industry because it was where his interest had always been pulling him. The moment that changed everything came when he went into aquaplaning in his own car and found himself asking a question he could not let go of. Why had nobody solved this? The answer he kept encountering was that the industry had simply learned to live with it. Aquaplaning was a known, old problem, and the accepted response was to warn drivers to slow down. Giovanni looked at that answer and saw something the rest of the industry had stopped seeing. The problem that had been present since the first car drove on a wet road was not unsolvable. It was an unsolved one. ### Slowing down is not a solution He founded EasyRain in Turin in 2018 with no venture ecosystem behind him and no industrial partner willing to engage until he had something to show them. The first venture capital conversations produced a question he still remembers: " Why you and not Bosch?” He had no answer yet, so he went and built one. Using a prototype built on borrowed funds, he constructed the first system, weighing 400 kilograms and filling an Alfa Romeo with pumps and instruments. It worked. The car recovered grip. He had changed his presentation from a vision on a PowerPoint to a vehicle an investor could actually test, and in 2018, he raised his first five million euros. EasyRain has since built a modular safety ecosystem with three connected components. The DAI software platform uses virtual sensors to detect grip loss in real time, in under 150 milliseconds, without additional hardware, and leverages this data to enhance ADAS, autonomous driving, and vehicle control systems. The AIS goes further. It physically sprays pressurized water ahead of the front tires to displace the film that causes aquaplaning, restoring contact between the tire and the road rather than simply alerting the driver that contact has been lost. A first AIS prototype for snow and ice, tested in January, cut braking distance by thirty percent on its first run. The ERC infrastructure turns the data the system collects into operational intelligence for fleets, infrastructure managers, and autonomous vehicle operators. The autonomous driving dimension is what makes all of this urgent rather than incremental. A self-driving car that has to slow to a crawl in rain or stop working on ice is not a viable product. Giovanni saw this before most of the industry was willing to name it. In his words, "You will never buy a 100,000 euro car to drive at 20 kilometres per hour in case of rain." The DAI software is in discussions with NVIDIA for potential integration into their Halo Platform. ### Proving it is possible is the whole point EasyRain has raised 18.1 million euros across five rounds and is currently closing a Series B targeting 25.3 million euros. Two contracts with Hyundai Motor Company are in place. The team in Turin numbers 35 people. Giovanni has built all of this in a city that, by his own account, should have been the most fertile ground in the world for exactly this kind of company, and largely was not. That gap between what Turin could be and what it currently offers its automotive founders is a significant driver for him. He is not building EasyRain to become wealthy. He wants to reach production because getting there would make an argument that nobody has made successfully in the Italian automotive startup world. That it is possible. A founder who starts with a prototype built on borrowed funds and a question nobody else wanted to answer can build something that Hyundai and and leading OEMs want to be part of. "It's not a matter of money," he said. "I just want to give the message to the Italian startup in the automotive field. We can do that. It's possible." --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-signals-from-the-global-startup-circuit/ Last updated: 2026-04-23T12:11:47.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*. This week, we are looking ahead to DiscoveryX in Toronto (April 29–30) . The signal is early, technical, and structured. Government backed research, institutional capital, and corporate buyers are aligning around commercialization. This is where ventures move from lab to deployment, and where the next layer of Canada’s deep tech pipeline begins to surface. We will be on site with OneEleven, collaborating on the ScaleUp 10 and tracking the rooms where capital and operators are already in motion. Further below, we break down what to watch, highlight founders building through it, and share a final thought on momentum. --- ### Community Partner ## OneEleven Sets the Room at DiscoveryX [OneEleven](https://oneeleven.com/?ref=upnext.world), a Toronto-based scale-up hub supporting high-growth technology companies as they move from product-market fit to expansion, will be on site at DiscoveryX with a focused activation built around access, not scale. Their lounge is designed for small group conversations between founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders. The programming centers on decisions operators are actively navigating, from capital strategy to where AI is delivering measurable value. Additional workshops and activations will run throughout the event. As part of this, we are collaborating with OneEleven on the ***ScaleUp 10***, a curated group of Canadian companies already showing traction. These are companies in motion, positioned directly in front of partners, investors, and media throughout the event. DiscoveryX brings the full ecosystem into one place. What matters is how you navigate it. OneEleven is structuring for signal, not noise. If you are heading to DiscoveryX or in Toronto, be sure to drop by their lounge. --- ## UpNext Briefings We track where capital, operators, and infrastructure converge. Each briefing distills the signal behind major events, focusing on what is being deployed and where momentum is moving next. --- ## DiscoveryX: Where Ontario’s Pipeline Surfaces DiscoveryX returns to Toronto’s Enercare Centre, bringing together founders, researchers, investors, and policymakers under one roof. Hosted by the [*Ontario Centre of Innovation*](https://www.oc-innovation.ca/?ref=upnext.world), the event concentrates Ontario’s innovation pipeline into a two-day window. The structure matters. Nine sector-specific zones replace the traditional open floor, concentrating interactions by vertical. Investors run structured one-on-one meetings. Corporate buyers and government stakeholders show up with intent, not curiosity. The signal is shifting toward commercialization. AI programming anchored by Geoffrey Hinton reinforces institutional depth, while applied futures perspectives from Amy Webb frame where enterprise adoption is moving. The ventures here are not early research projects. They are moving into pilots, procurement, and early revenue. This is a coordination point between capital and deployment. Government procurement, academic IP, and private investment converge in the same room. Technical founders from Waterloo and Vector pipelines are present in volume, alongside operators building in advanced manufacturing, health, and applied AI. DiscoveryX sits upstream of Series A. Companies here are often post-grant and pre-institutional round. It acts as an early filter for Canada’s deep tech pipeline before those companies move onto global stages. For UpNext, this is a sourcing ground. It provides early access to ventures before broader market visibility, where signal forms before narrative. Official site: [https://www.discoveryxconference.ca/](https://www.discoveryxconference.ca/?ref=upnext.world) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. ### Recent Features [Could a Fly Be the Solution to Overfishing?While the aquaculture and pet food industries face a growing protein supply crisis, Jarna Hyvönen built Volare around a conviction that the raw material to fix it was already sitting in food factories being discarded.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Jarna-1-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/food-waste-protein-insect-aquafeed-finland/) [The Battery Industry Built for EVs Is Failing the Industries That Need It MostIndustrial operators running mining equipment, ferries, and logistics fleets need batteries designed for their reality, not adapted from EV technology. Anders Teigland founded TioTech in Bergen to fill that gap with TitanB, an anode material that charges in six minutes and delivers 90% uptime.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Anders-Teigland-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/industrial-battery-reliability-titanb-tiotech/) [The Icelandic Founder Who Built the B2B Website That Drives ItselfÓmar Thor Ómarsson spent years as a CMO and agency director watching great B2B companies stay invisible online. He built Optise, the world’s first self-driving B2B website platform, to fix that.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/omar-thor-omarsson2-256-1-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/optise-b2b-website-optimization-iceland/) ### --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road Here’s where the tour is heading next as we continue tracking emerging signals and spotlighting founders across global ecosystems. *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ### *Final Thought* ## Momentum Shows Up Before You Feel It Momentum is often confused with activity. More meetings. More posts. More motion. That is usually just noise. Real momentum shows up when the system starts returning signal without force. A reply you did not chase. An introduction that comes back around. A room that opens before you ask. > Over the last three months, UpNext Global grew 460%. Early, but directional. It did not come from forcing distribution. It came from consistency. Recaps. Spotlights. Conversations that compound. That is the shift. To everyone reading, contributing, replying, and showing up in the rooms with us, thank you. This only works because the signal is shared. Momentum is not something you create through effort alone. It is something you recognize, then move with. Read the full piece: https://edwin100x.substack.com/p/momentum-is-a-signal-not-a-feeling Gratefully, Edwin P.S. Running Google Ads to inbound calls? Testing a missed call recovery system tied to conversion. Looking for 3–5 pilots. > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Every Surgery Produces Enough Data to Predict Complications. Why Is Almost None of It Being Used? URL: https://upnext.world/predictive-anesthesia-ai-surgery-safety/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T14:31:40.000Z Every year, 60 million patients suffer anesthesia complications that their doctors had no way to anticipate. The operating room generates 100,000 data points per hour per patient, tracking brain activity, heart rate, oxygen levels, and respiratory function, and at the end of the procedure, 95% of that data is discarded. Eva Gubern is the CEO of Predictheon, a Spanish medical AI company building the predictive layer that the operating room has never had. ### She could not get into medical school, so she went to Rwanda instead Eva grew up in Barcelona, shaped by a grandfather who had lived through the Spanish Civil War and came out the other side believing that luck, not ability, determines where a person starts. He built a construction company from nothing and took his granddaughter to Africa at fifteen, teaching her that the only reasonable response to good fortune was to use it in the service of others. She wanted to be a doctor. The grades required for medical school in Spain are among the strictest in Europe, and only the top five percent of students get in. Eva ended up in engineering instead, which turned out to be the longer route to the same place. She went to work for GSK, convinced the CEO to fund an oncology care program in Rwanda, secured $10 million, and moved there with her husband to build it from scratch. The work put her in daily contact with doctors doing things she found extraordinary, running vaccination campaigns that reached half a million babies, making decisions that determined whether children lived or died. She came away with a precise understanding of what it costs when healthcare systems fail to use the tools available to them, and a deep respect for what clinicians do inside the constraints they are given. ### One anesthesiologist, six surgeries, and no way to see what is coming Years later, back in Spain, Eva sat down with her uncle, Pedro Gambús, and listened as he explained what he had been building for three decades. Pedro, an anesthesiologist at a Spanish public hospital who earned his PhD at Stanford, has spent his career studying how individual patients respond to anesthesia. He has more than 120 published papers and a proprietary patient database built from real surgeries that cannot be purchased or replicated anywhere. The insight behind his work is one that the entire medtech industry had left unaddressed. Anesthesiologists have no predictive tools. They respond to complications after they begin, often while overseeing several operating rooms simultaneously, moving between screens with no way to know in advance where the risk is. As Eva puts it, “You would not board a plane with a captain who doesn’t have weather predictions. Then why do we enter the operating room with doctors having no predictions?” Predictheon’s PDA device integrates all patient monitoring data into a single platform and uses AI models trained on Pedro’s database to generate real-time individualized predictions for each patient throughout the procedure. Clinical data suggests the platform reduces complications by 80% and cuts recovery time by a quarter. ### There are already half the anesthesiologists the system needs, and that gap is only growing The demographic picture gives everything the team at Predictheon is building an urgency beyond the clinical argument. There are already 50% fewer anesthesiologists than the healthcare system needs, and the shortage will deepen as populations age. Predictheon's answer is to give them the predictive infrastructure that makes every anesthesiologist more capable within the constraints the system imposes. Predictheon is targeting European commercial launch through major medtech distribution partners, with the United States to follow. Pedro’s database and three decades of modelling are the foundation. Anesthesia, as Eva says, is just the beginning. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Most Great Athletes Never Get Discovered. SEE Is Changing the Odds URL: https://upnext.world/youth-athlete-discovery-see-sports-ai/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T14:20:19.000Z Abdelrahman Ghareeb has always wanted the answer to a simple question. He played football and basketball, handball at a professional level, kitesurfed, swam, did karate, and boxed across his life, and nobody could ever tell him which one he was actually built for. Every choice was someone else’s guess. His parents put him in swimming because they wanted him to be safe near water. He drifted into football because his father loved it. He was tall, so people told him to play basketball. He was good at most things he tried and exceptional at none of them in a way that settled anything. The question stayed open. It is still the reason he gets up in the morning. ## **A knee, an anatomy textbook, and a question nobody could answer** In 2014, while playing football, Abdelrahman dislocated his left knee. The injury itself was painful enough. What came after was worse. His other knee began to deteriorate through compensation, and nobody could explain why the first injury had occurred or how to prevent the second from happening. He went to physiotherapists and got the standard answers. Prevention was possible, prediction was not. He didn’t accept that. Nine years as a technology and business consultant at Microsoft, moving between Seattle, Dubai, and Egypt, had taught him what prediction models could do. He knew movement could be tracked through a camera. So he went and read the science himself, studying anatomy and biomechanics until he understood which imbalances lead to which injuries and at what threshold. A doctor confirmed what he had suspected. If you knew a muscle was overloaded beyond a certain point, the probability of injury approached certainty. The data to flag his injury had existed before it happened. No one in sport had ever collected it for someone who wasn’t already a professional. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## **The system only finds Messi after he’s already beaten the defence** After the injury, Abdelrahman started researching how sport selection actually worked. He asked parents across multiple countries how they had chosen a sport for their child. The answers were almost identical everywhere. They went with what they knew, what they played, what was nearby, what their friends were doing. The most rigorous answer he found was a former athlete who had used a DNA test as a rough guide before making his own call. That was the best the system had to offer. The sports technology industry wasn’t filling that gap. Every company in the space was focused on professionals, and the tools built for youth development still used stopwatches and human judgment. Children were assigned a sport and assessed within it, and nobody checked whether the sport suited them before putting them in it. Abdelrahman points to Messi as the clearest example. People noticed Messi was fast because he kept beating defenders. That was the data collection method. Watch him do it enough times, and eventually someone writes it down. Even at the professional level, most teams in his region had no objective record of who their fastest player was or who generated the most power. The system was built to find the next Messi by luck, and it was leaving everyone else behind. ## **The movement record you were never given** SEE took two years to build properly. The first attempt used custom hardware, but it wasn’t scalable, and nobody would pay for the equipment. The breakthrough came when Abdelrahman’s team got accurate computer vision assessments running on any phone camera, and from there, everything opened up. The platform takes a short set of standardized movements, a ten-metre run, a vertical jump, an agility test, and turns them into objective data covering speed, power, weight distribution, joint angles, and biomechanical imbalances. For clubs and academies, it produces team scores and individual player profiles. For younger athletes, it recommends the sports their physical makeup suggests they will actually excel in, and the injury warning system catches severe imbalances early, before they become acute. The B2C version, built for individuals and families, is close to launch. The longer vision is what Abdelrahman calls a Sports ID. A complete movement record, built from childhood, carried from school to club across an entire lifetime. Every coach who works with that athlete gets the full picture from day one. Every young person gets an answer to the question the system never bothered to ask about them. Abdelrahman thinks about what sport looks like when that infrastructure is everywhere. Two athletes competing, each of them knowing exactly what their body does best, using their actual strengths rather than the ones someone else assigned them. He spent his whole sporting life without that information. SEE is the answer he is building for everyone who comes after him. --- About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### Why 85% of Mental Health Patients Don't Improve, and What Braive Is Doing About It URL: https://upnext.world/mental-health-outcomes-gap-braive-norway/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T14:16:10.000Z Only one in three people who access mental health care actually improves. Hermine Bonde Jahren noticed that statistic not as a researcher or a clinician, but as someone watching a gifted psychologist work himself to exhaustion while his waiting list kept growing. The access crisis in mental health is real, but she saw the problem behind it. A system where treatment decisions are driven by clinician preference rather than patient need, where outcomes go unmeasured, and where the psychiatric field has fallen far behind the rest of medicine in its willingness to be data-driven. Braive, the Norwegian platform she co-founded with her husband Henrik Haaland Jahren, was built to change that, and has now supported 100,000 patients across the Nordics. ### From selling Scandinavian brands across Southeast Asia to building a mental health platform Hermine left Norway at fifteen for boarding school and did not return for twenty years. She worked in Australia, then moved to Bangkok in 2009 on what she describes as a whim, setting up a distribution company that imported Scandinavian brands into Southeast Asia. She built it without external capital, grew it to 40 people with offices across Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, and turned it into a business with annual turnover exceeding $10 million. Henrik had followed her to Bangkok, where he set up a psychology clinic after completing his training in Australia. He was a skilled clinician with one clear goal. Get patients well and get them out the door as quickly as possible. ### The clinician who couldn't scale himself, no matter how hard he tried No matter how many hours Henrik put in, the waiting list kept lengthening. Hermine watched him repeat the same psychoeducational material session after session, explaining the same concepts to different patients because the system offered no other way to prepare them. She also learned that the problem ran deeper than capacity. Henrik was lecturing PhD students in psychology at the time, and what struck them both was how little those students were taught about how to actually treat. Clinicians were entering the field and using whatever methodology they preferred, with no standardized framework for matching treatment to patient need and no systematic way to measure whether it was working. Henrik travelled to the United States, Canada, and Australia, looking for a platform that solved this. He found nothing. He decided to build it himself, and she took a job to support the early work, then found herself pulled in from the sidelines. The mission was too engaging to watch from a distance. She bought out Henrik's original partner and came in as CEO. Braive structures treatment around what the patient needs rather than what the clinician prefers. The platform maps a patient's symptoms and life situation, and recommends a treatment direction. A clinician meeting the patient can start the meeting already briefed. The session becomes concentrated on the individual, on what happened that week, on the specific challenges that no algorithm can address. "We don't believe we can remove the human and still have successful therapy," Hermine says. "But there's a lot we can help and support the clinician with on the tech side." ### Clinical depth first, because there is no shortcut to credibility Braive launched with an AI-driven assessment tool and spent years in research partnerships with the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and the University of Oslo, building clinical models before large language models existed to run them on. When that technology arrived, Braive had the data, the models, and the evidence already in place. Eighty percent of patients on the platform improve. The company has nearly tripled its ARR and reached forty percent of the occupational health market across Sweden and Norway. Hermine is clear about what separates Braive from the wave of digital mental health tools that have followed. Many optimize for growth and treat clinical depth as something to layer in later. Braive went the other way. "Our credibility lies in the depth we have in research," she says. "We can't go too far towards the clinical or technical side because then we will never be a commercial product, but we started there because that is the only foundation worth building on." The next stage is to build a repeatable engine that maintains the same clinical standard in every new market. For Hermine, the urgency is straightforward. "It's just mind-blowing that we haven't come further in terms of treating with solid quality within mental health," she says. "Considering the direction the world is going in, it's really puzzling that not everyone is doing what we're doing." --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Every Consulting Project Starts From Scratch. Intriq Is Changing That. URL: https://upnext.world/every-consulting-project-starts-from-scratch-intriq-is-changing-that/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T12:53:56.000Z Jess Liew built Intriq to solve a problem she watched consume the consulting industry for over a decade. Every new engagement, whether in restructuring, M&A, or complex multi-jurisdictional work, begins the same way: someone is assigned to manually pull together all the data before the real work can even start. The AI consulting platform she founded changes that, replacing the rebuild-from-scratch cycle with a system that surfaces insights from the moment a project opens. Jess spent ten years inside consulting before she built the alternative. She knew exactly what she was fixing. She has also always been drawn to things that demand full presence. Surfing teaches you to read the water before you can ever ride it. Show jumping gives you a fraction of a second to assess a fence and commit. These are disciplines built entirely around the ability to take in information fast and act before the moment passes. It turns out that is a pretty good description of what building Intriq has required. ### She was the only woman in the room Along the way, she took on a role at a finance firm, and in 2021, found herself the first and only woman on a team of more than 100 men. She was not surprised by the imbalance. She had seen how these environments were built. What she did not expect was what came next. The treatment she experienced was unfair in ways that were hard to ignore and easy to sweep aside, which is exactly what most people around her encouraged her to do. Keep quiet. Don't make it complicated. But Jess had spent years in environments where you read the situation clearly and act with full commitment. She did that here, too. She stood her ground and did not back down when it would have been far easier to walk away. That experience clarified what she wanted to do next. Consulting was slow to change and slower still to change who got to lead inside it. During COVID, managing operations across 25 jurisdictions while rules shifted by the day, the deeper problem came into focus. Information arrived late. Decisions were made on last month's data. The gap between what was happening and what people knew was costing everyone. When ChatGPT arrived, and the wider world began to understand what AI could actually do, she had already made up her mind. ### A profession built on starting over Every consulting engagement begins from scratch. Analysts spend their time gathering and structuring data rather than thinking. The insights that should drive decisions are buried under process, and by the time they surface, the window has often already closed. "If you peel back the onion," she says, "it is painfully manual when it comes to data, and there is so much repeatability in the work done on every single project." Intriq handles the analyst layer, pulling together and surfacing data so that the consultant can focus on what requires actual judgment. Clients want their advisors. What they should also want is an advisor working from live numbers rather than reacting to last month's report. ### Speed is the real competitive advantage The future Jess is working toward is a hybrid one. A consultant working alongside a system that generates live insights, so that the conversation with a client reflects what the data shows right now. In M&A, deals do not wait. In restructuring, conditions shift by the day. Every delay has a price, and the advisor who can act on current information holds a fundamentally different position than one who cannot. During a pitching tour that took her through Qatar, the UAE, and across Europe, that message sharpened considerably. The interest from firms was real, and so was the recognition that the consulting world still has some way to go in understanding what AI can genuinely deliver. "It's taken a while for people to come around the corner and see what this tech can really do," she says. "And that's going to continue to shift." Two years in, Intriq has been finding its footing in firms where being slow is genuinely expensive. Jess is measured about the progress. "Startups are very up and down," she says. "But we have had a pretty good run recently." She also takes a longer view on what she is building. Finance has been slow to broaden who gets to lead, and Jess has lived that reality firsthand. She is deliberate about building a balanced team, not as a gesture, but because she knows exactly what it costs when that balance is missing. And if her track record tells you anything, it is that she does not walk away from things that matter. She reads a situation, she commits, and she keeps going until she gets it right. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-04-16/ Last updated: 2026-04-16T12:12:07.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*. This week, we are sharing our recap from GITEX Africa 2026, a selection of founder spotlights, and a partner signal from SKInnovation 2026, along with a final thought on why strong conversations rarely turn into outcomes. Across all of it, the pattern holds. Momentum does not come from the moment. It comes from what happens next. --- ### UpNext Recap ## GITEX AFRICA Morocco At GITEX Africa 2026, the narrative shifted from building infrastructure to owning it. Across Marrakech, the strongest signals came from governments and operators designing systems at the national level. AI, cloud, and connectivity were positioned as strategic assets tied to sovereignty, not just tools for growth. Startups operating in this environment are not pitching speed or disruption. They are aligning with policy, regulation, and long-term deployment. The buyer is no longer just enterprise. It is institutional. The implication is clear. Distribution is increasingly shaped by access, partnerships, and compliance rather than product velocity. As part of the UpNext World Tour, we tracked how African ecosystems are positioning themselves within this shift, where infrastructure is no longer outsourced, and control becomes the advantage. Read the full recap: [GITEX Africa: Sovereign Systems Replace Infrastructure NarrativesGITEX Africa 2026 confirmed that African tech has moved past infrastructure storytelling into deployment at scale. Sovereign digital strategies and cross-border fintech are now live products, not roadmaps.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldAqeela A. Somani![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/GITEX_Africa_Supernova-2-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/gitex-africa-sovereign-systems-replace-infrastructure-narratives/) --- ### Community Partner ## SKInnovation Builds for Connection, Not Volume SKInnovation 2026 marked its 10th edition with over 1,000 participants, 150 startups, and 100 investors gathering in the Austrian Alps. The format stands out. Pitches happen in ski lifts. Networking is structured through curated matchmaking and “Snow Captains.” The environment forces proximity and filters for real conversations over surface-level exposure. REPS GmbH took the top prize, with WhiteRoot and yourbook rounding out the winners. What matters is the design. In a landscape where scale often dilutes signal, SKInnovation leans into constraint. Smaller groups. Shared experiences. Intentional interactions. It is a reminder that how people meet still shapes what gets built next. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/04/Kopie-von-Skinnovation_DAY02_LukasAnzinger-191.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/04/Kopie-von-Skinnovation_DAY02_LukasAnzinger-143.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/04/Kopie-von-Skinnovation_26_LA-47.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/04/Skinnovation_26_JanaDorer_5-1.JPG) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. ### Recent Features [The Icelandic Founder Who Built the B2B Website That Drives ItselfÓmar Thor Ómarsson spent years as a CMO and agency director watching great B2B companies stay invisible online. He built Optise, the world’s first self-driving B2B website platform, to fix that.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/omar-thor-omarsson2-256-1-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/optise-b2b-website-optimization-iceland/) [How an Ex-Google Engineer Built an AI Platform to Fix Early-Stage Startup FundingWhen Chris Coomes was handed 100 startup applications with no way to rank them, he realized the early-stage funding ecosystem had not evolved in twenty years. He built X1 Pipeline, an AI-native platform whose investability score evaluates any startup, anywhere, on the same terms.![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Chris-Coomes-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/startup-investor-platform-ai-investability-score/) ### --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road Here’s where the tour is heading next as we continue tracking emerging signals and spotlighting founders across global ecosystems. *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ### *Final Thought* ## You Keep Having Good Calls That Go Nowhere Good calls go nowhere more often than people admit. The conversation is strong. There is alignment. The energy is there. Then nothing happens. Not because the opportunity was not real. Because there was no structure to move it forward. This shows up everywhere. Founder conversations. Partnerships. Sales. Even investor meetings. Without a defined next step, momentum fades. At GITEX Africa, the contrast was clear. The strongest players are not relying on conversations. They are building systems around them. Procurement paths. Partnerships. Deployment frameworks. They do not leave outcomes to chance. The same applies at the founder level. If the call matters, it needs a container. A next step. A path forward that both sides understand. Otherwise, it becomes another good call. Gratefully, Edwin P.S. If you are at the point where conversations should be turning into real work, I’m happy to map out a simple growth strategy with you. > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Why Retail Media Keeps Failing Smaller Retailers and How Cruxo Is Built to Fix It URL: https://upnext.world/retail-media-smaller-retailers-cruxo-europe/ Last updated: 2026-04-15T11:47:59.000Z Retail media has a sequencing problem, and it is costing smaller retailers across Central and Eastern Europe the opportunity entirely. The platforms built by global players arrive loaded with complexity, first-party data strategies, programmatic inventory, and media agency budgets, starting the conversation at a stage most operators aren't ready for. Jakub Spryngl spent years on the brand side at Procter & Gamble, where he saw firsthand what brands actually need from retail media, what they are willing to invest in, and which tools are truly relevant in day-to-day practice.He and his four co-founders built Cruxo, an AI-powered omnichannel retail media platform, around a different premise: meet retailers where they are, simplify what they already do manually, and build the foundation before anything else. ### He switched from law to sales and never looked back Jakub grew up in the Czech Republic and began studying law before deciding the profession wasn't for him. He switched to business and quickly found his footing. His strongest professional trait, by his own description, is what the StrengthsFinder framework calls "woo" — the ability to walk into a room, build a relationship, and make something happen. Combined with the persistence and discipline he developed through years of competitive sport, it made him well-suited to the world he was about to enter. Procter & Gamble assigned him to three locations and gave him oversight spanning the Central European markets. (including Baltics, but no Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East - these are my focus markets now). The international fluency he built there became one of the things Cruxo would eventually run on. Working inside a global brand also gave him a practical view of how retail media is experienced from the advertiser side: not as a theory, but as a daily operational reality shaped by budgets, planning cycles, commercial priorities, and execution pressure. The international fluency he built there became one of the things Cruxo would eventually run on. ### The Baltics scorecard became a company The moment the company actually begins is unglamorous. Jakub (sounds better) was managing the Baltics markets at P&G when he asked his sales team to execute an online commercial strategy. They came back with nothing. The tools didn't exist in a form they could use, and nobody had shown them how to bridge the gap between the plan and the ground. He built them a scorecard himself. It was manual and imperfect, and it revealed something he couldn't unsee. The market was being did not have any handed solutions on hand designed for organizations three stages ahead of where they actually were. His co-founders were encountering the same problem from different angles. Between them, they carried over 50 years of P&G experience, along with a media agency exit to Dentsu and deep expertise in ad-serving technology, the underlying infrastructure retail media runs on. Together, they built Cruxo as a SaaS platform that guides retailers on a journey that starts with simplification. That journey was shaped by direct experience on the brand side: knowing which capabilities brands genuinely need in order to activate retail media, and which features matter most in daily operations. That is why Cruxo focuses on practical modules such as budget management and booking calendar, tools that help retailers and vendors manage real commercial workflows before layering on more advanced monetization. It automates manual processes, adds tracking and reporting, scales inventory, and advances to monetization stages that everyone else leads with. The boutique model means the technology arrives with hands-on guidance at every step. "Technology as such doesn't do anything without proper usage," Spryngl says. That conviction is the architecture of the business. ### Eleven markets in, and the foundation is just getting started Cruxo now operates across 11 European markets, with Central and Eastern Europe as its core territory. The fragmentation that kept global players from focusing there became the opening. The company more than doubled revenue last year and is projecting the same again within the next six to twelve months. The retail media concept is also expanding beyond traditional retail. Cruxo is now working with banks and financial institutions, and Jakub sees the same logic applying wherever companies manage complex commercial relationships manually. A big part of that relevance comes from flexibility: Cruxo is designed to adapt to the needs of each retailer, whether that means combining different pricing models, working with different retail media tools, or creating a channel mix that reflects local commercial realities rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all model. The next stage is scaling the platform's unique functionality and expanding beyond Europe. He joined his co-founders because of the people, long before the potential was obvious. The way the team operates without needing values posted on the walls was what he wanted to be part of. The scale came later. "The playfield is given in a corporation," he says. "Here I define the playfield." For someone who left law because it was boring and spent fifteen years learning how markets work from the inside, that freedom is the point. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### GITEX Africa: Sovereign Systems Replace Infrastructure Narratives URL: https://upnext.world/gitex-africa-sovereign-systems-replace-infrastructure-narratives/ Last updated: 2026-04-10T00:56:02.000Z GITEX Africa has long served as the testing ground for whether African tech can move beyond infrastructure promises into operational scale. The 2026 edition in Marrakech functioned as a referendum on that transition, with 55,000+ attendees and 1,500+ exhibitors converging around a single question: are sovereign digital strategies and cross-border solutions now deployed products or still aspirational frameworks? The answer is clear. This year marked a shift from cloud and connectivity pitches to live government-backed systems and fintech rails moving real transactions across borders. AI applications are no longer research projects but tools built around local constraints—intermittent connectivity, fragmented regulatory environments, and cash-dominant economies. The thesis: African tech is now defined by what works in production, not what could work with more capital. --- ### What Stood Out The startups and solutions on display reflected a maturing ecosystem focused on execution under constraint. - **Sovereign digital infrastructure is operational**: Governments are deploying national cloud platforms and digital identity systems as live products, not pilot programs, with startups building on top of these rails rather than around them. - **Cross-border fintech has moved to Series A traction**: Payment and remittance platforms are processing volume across multiple African markets, solving for fragmented currencies and compliance without waiting for regulatory harmonization. - **AI applications are constraint-native**: Startups are shipping models optimized for low-bandwidth environments and offline-first use cases, treating connectivity gaps as design parameters rather than blockers. - **Healthcare and logistics startups are post-MVP**: Companies in these verticals are showing repeatable unit economics and multi-market deployment, with buyers that include both private enterprises and government health systems. - **Francophone ecosystems are closing the gap**: Startups from Morocco, Senegal, and Côte d'Ivoire are reaching comparable scale and sophistication to Anglophone counterparts, backed by regional policy alignment and capital inflows. --- ## Supernova Pitch Competition Gitex Africa Morocco featured a startup competition showcasing emerging companies from across the region. The competition provided a platform for early-stage ventures to present their solutions and gain visibility within the broader tech ecosystem. **Winners:** ModigenceVision, Koloso, LOOKA Research, VelyVelo, and WOLIZ. Below is a closer look at selected startups from the competition. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/04/MODIGENCEVISION-GITEX-AFRICA-1.jpeg) ## The GITEX Africa Startups ### [**ModigenceVision**](https://modigencevision.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Daehee Kim**](https://kr.linkedin.com/in/daehee-kim-597183199?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ModigenceVision builds a 3D camera platform with edge AI that gives robots real-time spatial awareness and object recognition in unstructured environments. **Problem:** Robots operating in dynamic settings lack the precise depth perception needed to navigate and make autonomous decisions reliably. **What stood out:** The platform processes 3D vision data at the edge rather than relying on cloud inference, reducing latency for time-sensitive robotic decisions in manufacturing and logistics workflows. **Traction:** The company joined the KDB NextONE startup program and signed an MOU with French company MOUNTAIN at CES 2026 to co-develop physical AI applications. **Why it matters:** Enabling robots to interpret complex spaces autonomously expands automation beyond fixed, repetitive tasks into adaptive operations that respond to changing conditions. ### [Koloso](https://koloso.app/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Petra Chikasa**](https://zm.linkedin.com/in/petrachikasa?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Koloso provides teachers with curriculum-aligned lesson plans, automated assessments, and performance analytics designed to function in low-bandwidth environments. **Problem:** Teachers spend excessive time on manual lesson planning, grading, and compliance reporting instead of focusing on instruction. **What stood out:** The platform is built to operate reliably in low-connectivity settings, addressing a constraint that renders many edtech tools unusable in African schools. **Traction:** Deployed in over 320 schools across Zambia, with 750+ teachers and 6,500+ learners actively using the platform. **Why it matters:** By automating administrative work in environments where connectivity is inconsistent, Koloso makes data-driven instruction accessible in contexts typically underserved by edtech infrastructure. ### [**VelyVelo**](https://velyvelo.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Asmaa Alaoui**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/asmaa-chakir-alaoui-10347944/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** VelyVelo leases electric bikes to delivery professionals and logistics operators, bundling the vehicles with maintenance and fleet management software to run last-mile operations. **Problem:** Urban delivery companies face high vehicle costs, maintenance overhead, and tightening emission regulations that restrict traditional fleets. **What stood out:** VelyVelo removes the capital burden by turning e-bike infrastructure into an operational expense, letting logistics companies shift to compliant fleets without upfront investment or in-house maintenance capacity. **Traction:** The company raised €4M led by Via ID and operates across Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Marseille, with expansion into Morocco through a partnership with Marjane City. **Why it matters:** As cities enforce stricter vehicle restrictions, electrified delivery transitions from a sustainability choice to a regulatory requirement, making turnkey fleet solutions operationally critical. ### [LOOKA Research](https://getlooka.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Serigne Fall**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/serigne-fall?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** LOOKA Research operates a pan-African market research platform that combines online surveys, AI-moderated conversational research, and a network of 500+ field surveyors to collect consumer insights across fragmented markets.**Problem:** Companies expanding into Africa lack access to reliable, on-the-ground consumer data, particularly from offline populations that traditional digital tools cannot reach. **What stood out:** LOOKA bridges the gap between expensive traditional research firms and digital-only tools by integrating technology with human infrastructure—field surveyors who can reach offline consumers in local languages where global SaaS platforms have no presence. **Traction:** The company generated $222k ARR in 2024 with 32% average annual growth and has been profitable since 2024. **Why it matters:** By making African consumer data accessible and affordable, LOOKA enables product teams and investors to build culturally relevant solutions in markets where reliable insights have historically been a bottleneck. ### [Fanaka Technologies](https://fanakatech.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Hillary Sang**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hillary-sang-39679a6a?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Fanaka operates a credit system for informal MSMEs that enforces repayment through daily micro-payments aligned to cash flow, agent incentives tied to collections, and conditional capital access. **Problem:** Informal MSMEs earn in small, daily cash flows, but loans are structured around fixed monthly repayments, creating liquidity stress and repayment rates of 65–70%. **What stood out:** Fanaka makes capital access conditional on performance—agents lose disbursement authority if collections fall below 95%, turning repayment from an assumption into an enforced outcome at the system level. **Traction:** The company has served 3,200+ MSMEs, disbursed 6,400+ loans (\~$690K deployed, $870K collected), and achieved 95%+ repayment on matured cohorts with \~75% repeat usage. **Why it matters:** By enforcing repayment discipline structurally rather than relying on borrower intent, Fanaka demonstrates that the informal MSME credit gap may be a design problem, not a risk problem. ### [XChangeBOX](https://xchangebox.ng/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Abiola Jimoh**](https://ng.linkedin.com/in/jimohabiola?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** XChangeBOX finances agricultural invoices in 3 days instead of 90 using AI-powered credit scoring, converting each transaction into trade data that builds a credit infrastructure for Africa's agricultural supply chains. **Problem:** African agri-suppliers deliver goods but wait 90 days for payment, creating cash flow bottlenecks that contribute to $106 billion in annual losses and 40% harvest waste. **What stood out:** Every financed trade generates data that feeds the platform's machine learning credit scoring engine, creating a proprietary intelligence layer that becomes more accurate with scale and cannot be easily replicated by traditional banks. **Traction:** The company has financed 5,340 trades and onboarded over 3,400 agri-traders and farmers, with $132K raised toward an $850K round and a SEC crowdfunding license application in progress. **Why it matters:** By replacing delayed payment cycles with near-instant liquidity, XChangeBOX unlocks working capital that allows suppliers to reinvest in operations and reduce post-harvest losses across African agricultural markets. ### [Sharing Worker](https://www.sharingworker.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Olivier Rospide**](https://fr.linkedin.com/in/olivier-rospide?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sharing Worker provides connected bracelets and beacons that alert both workers and machine operators to proximity risks in real time, creating shared vigilance on construction sites and industrial environments. **Problem:** Workplace accidents remain frequent in high-risk environments, but existing safety solutions are too complex or expensive to achieve widespread adoption on site. **What stood out:** The system equips workers directly—not just machinery—enabling simultaneous alerts to pedestrians and operators without requiring infrastructure, network connectivity, or vehicle modifications. **Traction:** The solution is deployed on live worksites with major construction and energy groups including Vinci, Colas, EDF, Bouygues, and internationally with Ortec and Larsen & Toubro, with several hundred users equipped. **Why it matters:** By making safety technology simple and field-ready, Sharing Worker addresses the adoption gap that has kept accident rates high despite industry investment in prevention. ### [Beekee](https://beekee.ch/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Vincent Widmer**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-widmer?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Beekee builds portable hardware devices—the Beekee Box and Beekee Hub—that create local wireless networks to deliver digital learning materials and Learning Management Systems like Moodle without requiring internet access. **Problem:** Learners and frontline workers in remote or humanitarian settings cannot access digital training due to unreliable internet and power infrastructure. **What stood out:** The hardware approach removes the dependency on connectivity entirely, making digital education deployable in crisis zones and off-grid environments where cloud-based solutions fail. **Traction:** The company has secured partnerships and pilot programs with humanitarian and educational organizations including Médecins Sans Frontières, the Red Cross, Arizona State University, GIZ, and the Mastercard Foundation. **Why it matters:** Offline-first infrastructure makes scalable training accessible in emerging markets and emergency response contexts where traditional edtech cannot operate. ### [Courtee AI](https://courtee.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Amine Bensouda**](https://fr.linkedin.com/in/amine-bens?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Courtee AI is a Moroccan fintech platform that uses an AI assistant to guide users through the credit application process and connects them directly with financial institutions for personalized loan advice. **Problem:** The loan application process is complex and opaque, limiting access to capital for individuals and small businesses in emerging markets. **What stood out:** The platform removes intermediaries by connecting borrowers directly to lenders while providing step-by-step guidance, making the process more transparent and reducing friction in markets where credit access is traditionally gatekept. **Traction:** Selected to participate in the Supernova Challenge at GITEX Africa 2026 and exhibiting in partnership with Tamwilcom. **Why it matters:** Simplifying credit access in Morocco creates a pathway for broader financial inclusion and supports local economic development in underserved markets. ### [COVA AFRICA](https://cova.africa/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Virginie Ngomi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginie-p-05b00a7?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** COVA Africa is an embedded insurtech platform that enables businesses in Francophone Africa—including fintechs, mobility apps, and e-commerce platforms—to integrate digital micro-insurance products directly into their customer journeys. **Problem:** Millions of people in Francophone Africa lack formal financial protection due to complex paperwork, high costs, and distrust in traditional insurance claims processes. **What stood out:** COVA Africa embeds insurance at the point of transaction rather than requiring separate enrollment, removing friction for users who have historically avoided formal coverage. **Traction:** The company won the CATAPULT: Inclusion Africa program in 2023 and recently launched an AI-powered remote claims payment solution for auto insurance. **Why it matters:** By making insurance invisible within everyday digital services, COVA Africa creates a path to financial protection for populations that traditional insurers have struggled to reach. ### [ENAKL](https://www.enakl.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Charles Pommarède**](https://ma.linkedin.com/in/charles-pommarede?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ENAKL operates an app-based shared minibus service for daily commuters in North Africa, offering guaranteed seats on direct routes to major workplaces. **Problem:** Urban professionals face unreliable commutes with limited options between expensive private rides and overcrowded public transport. **What stood out:** ENAKL treats commuting as a predictable, bookable service rather than a variable transit experience, creating a middle-market alternative that doesn't require cities to build new infrastructure. **Traction:** The company raised a $2.3M Seed round following a $1.4M Pre-seed and operates active routes to business hubs including Casanearshore in Morocco. **Why it matters:** Tech-enabled shared transit offers African cities a way to address congestion and mobility gaps without waiting for large-scale public infrastructure investment. ### [FitLife](https://www.fitlife.sa/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Mohammed Kaki**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedkaki?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** FitLife is a B2B health and sports tech platform that uses AI to deliver personalized nutrition and training programs for sports federations, clubs, and academies. **Problem:** Sports organizations lack scalable systems to provide athletes with data-driven, individualized guidance for performance optimization. **What stood out:** FitLife targets institutional buyers rather than individual athletes, positioning personalized programming as an operational tool for academies and federations managing multiple athletes at once. **Traction:** The company was accepted into the Sanabil 500 Global Startup Unlocked Program and has been featured at Seamless Saudi Arabia and Jeddah Fit Expo 2026. **Why it matters:** As Saudi Arabia expands its sports infrastructure, embedding performance technology at the institutional level could standardize how local organizations develop competitive athletes. ### [Lupiya](http://www.lupiya.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Evelyn Kaingu**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/evelyn-chilomo-kaingu-77178a89?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Lupiya operates an AI-powered neobank that provides online loans, payments, and investment products to individuals and small businesses in Zambia and Southern Africa. **Problem:** Traditional banks exclude many individuals and small businesses in emerging markets from credit access due to rigid requirements and slow manual approval processes. **What stood out:** Lupiya uses AI to automate credit decisioning, replacing manual underwriting with digital assessment that expands access to borrowers who lack conventional credit histories. **Traction:** The company raised an $11.25 million Series A extension led by Alitheia IDF to scale operations and expand regionally. **Why it matters:** Lupiya demonstrates that AI-backed credit models can profitably serve underbanked populations in African markets where traditional banking infrastructure remains limited. ### [**OneNine**](https://onenine.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Josh Pineda**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/hjoshpineda?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** OneNine is an AI consulting and engineering firm that builds custom software and provides strategic guidance to help businesses integrate artificial intelligence into their operations. **Problem:** Most businesses lack the technical expertise and organizational readiness to turn AI investments into measurable operational results. **What stood out:** OneNine positions itself as a bridge between off-the-shelf models and production-grade systems, focusing on organizational transformation alongside technical implementation rather than treating AI adoption as purely a software deployment problem. **Traction:** The firm has deployed solutions for clients including TravailDirect, ARTFCL, and Desmarais & Gagné Inc., and established partnerships with District3, LavalInnov, and the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal. **Why it matters:** As enterprises move from experimentation to deployment, demand is shifting toward partners who can address both the technical and operational dimensions of AI integration. ### [Riskspot](https://www.riskspot.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Joyce Chachu**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyce-chachu-2625bb76?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Riskspot is a cybersecurity SaaS platform that delivers security awareness training and phishing simulations to prepare employees for cyberattacks. **Problem:** African SMBs face rising digital threats but lack affordable, accessible tools to train their workforce, leaving employees as the weakest link in their security posture. **What stood out:** Riskspot focuses on human risk management rather than infrastructure-level defenses, addressing the reality that most breaches stem from employee behavior rather than technical vulnerabilities. **Traction:** The company launched its platform in Accra in late 2024, exhibited at the Tech in Ghana Conference, and was featured in the Gitex Africa Supernova Challenge. **Why it matters:** As African businesses digitize rapidly, accessible tools that reduce human-driven security incidents become foundational to building cyber resilience across the continent's growing SMB sector. ### [Sharing Worker](https://www.sharingworker.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Florent Bonneau**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/florent-bonneau-5a92b732?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sharing Worker equips construction workers and machine operators with wearable sensors and connected devices that alert them to proximity risks in real time, preventing collisions and falls on high-risk worksites. **Problem:** Existing safety systems are often too complex or expensive for field conditions, leading to low adoption despite persistent accident rates on construction and industrial sites. **What stood out:** The system requires no fixed infrastructure and equips workers directly rather than relying on site-wide installations, enabling rapid deployment and creating shared vigilance between pedestrians and machinery operators. **Traction:** The company is deployed across live worksites with several hundred users equipped, including multiple pilots converted to operational use in France and internationally. **Why it matters:** Direct worker equipment shifts safety from centralized monitoring to distributed awareness, making hazard prevention scalable across fragmented construction environments. ### [Skaletek Inc](https://skaletek.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder: Amine Bensouda** **Pitch:** Skaletek automates regulatory compliance workflows for financial institutions, handling KYC verification, AML screening, transaction monitoring, and fraud detection through a single platform. **Problem:** Manual compliance processes create operational bottlenecks, drive up costs, and leave businesses exposed to fraud while struggling to meet evolving regulatory requirements. **What stood out:** The platform consolidates multiple compliance functions that typically require separate systems and manual coordination, reducing the operational overhead of maintaining regulatory readiness across jurisdictions. **Traction:** No specific metrics provided. **Why it matters:** Businesses operating across borders need compliance infrastructure that scales without adding headcount, particularly as regulators increase scrutiny in emerging markets where manual processes dominate. ### [**Sohaara**](https://sohaara.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Khadija Khartit**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/khadija-khartit-5799212?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sohaara is an AI-powered work-tech platform that combines upskilling, practical business tools, and networking to connect professionals and entrepreneurs with jobs and income opportunities. **Problem:** Job seekers and entrepreneurs navigate separate platforms for learning skills, accessing business tools, and finding work, creating fragmented career development. **What stood out:** Sohaara integrates skill acquisition directly with income generation rather than treating education and employment as separate journeys, shortening the path from learning to earning. **Traction:** Selected for Morocco 300 at GITEX Africa and secured investment from BananCo and MFounders following an appearance on Shark Tank Morocco. **Why it matters:** Platforms that directly link skill-building to work opportunities accelerate economic mobility in emerging markets where traditional career pathways are less accessible. ### [Sparrow](https://www.sparrowfi.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Harrison Hochman**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrisonhochman?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sparrow is a search and comparison platform that shows borrowers personalized rates from over 17 private student lenders through a single application without affecting credit scores. **Problem:** Students shopping for loans face an opaque process with no way to compare actual rates before committing to a lender. **What stood out:** Sparrow surfaces real rates upfront rather than estimated ranges, giving borrowers clarity on their actual borrowing costs before they apply. This shifts the decision point from post-application to pre-commitment. **Traction:** The platform has facilitated over $1 billion in searched student loan volume across borrowers from more than 8,000 schools and raised $7 million in Seed funding. **Why it matters:** Transparent rate comparison before application gives borrowers leverage to negotiate and optimize debt structure at the point of decision rather than after lock-in. --- ## What This Signals This cohort reflects a fundamental shift in how African tech companies are built. The startups gaining traction are those that treat regulatory fragmentation, infrastructure gaps, and cash economies as product constraints, not market risks. They are deploying across borders with live transaction volume, not waiting for policy alignment or infrastructure upgrades. The presence of government-backed digital rails changes the build calculus. Startups are now integrating with sovereign systems rather than building around them, which compresses time to market and creates defensible distribution. The companies that understand this—and can execute in environments where connectivity, compliance, and capital are all variables—are the ones scaling. We will continue tracking the founders and systems shaping what is UpNext in the global economy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### A Wearable That Finally Tracks Female Hormones in Real Time URL: https://upnext.world/female-hormone-wearable-biosensor-fertility-estonia/ Last updated: 2026-04-09T15:26:46.000Z Women's hormonal health has one of the oldest diagnostic problems in medicine. The gold standard for measuring female hormones is a blood test, taken at a precise point in the cycle, producing a single result that tells a clinician what was happening at that moment and nothing more. Kerli Luks spent years watching that limitation play out in her patients, then spent three years building a wearable biosensor to replace it. Muun Health, her Estonian deeptech startup, is developing the first microneedle-based device for continuous, real-time female hormone monitoring. ### She thrived in the chaos of emergency medicine, then noticed something the system had stopped questioning Kerli grew up in Estonia with the kind of curiosity that filled every available hour. She was involved in everything she could find, restless in the way that tends to produce either specialists or generalists, and medicine pulled her in because it promised an answer to how the human body actually works. She was the first doctor in her family. Nobody told her what the job would really look like. She found out in Finland, where newly graduated doctors are handed full patient responsibility from day one. She thrived on that. The emergency room was fast and total, and she learned to move inside it without hesitation. But after a few years, she began to notice what emergency medicine structurally cannot do. Every shift had consequences. Someone arrived because something had already gone wrong. There was no time for anything upstream, and the system was not designed to look for it. When COVID brought her back to Estonia, she moved into private practice and the tempo changed entirely. ### Eighty percent of her patients had hormonal issues, and the best tool available was failing them At the private clinic, the pattern became hard to ignore. Around 80% of the women she saw had some form of hormonal issue. Chronic fatigue, weight gain, irritability, and difficulty getting pregnant. Many of them had been living with these symptoms for years. When Kerli reached for the diagnostic tools available, she kept arriving at the same limitation. A blood test, taken at a specific point in the cycle, gives a snapshot of a system that moves continuously. She had been using a continuous glucose monitor herself, following her own data in real time. She kept asking why nothing equivalent existed for hormones. She looked in Estonia. She looked further. At that point, nobody was building it. There were urine tests and saliva tests, but these were unreliable, inconvenient, and incapable of showing fluctuation over time. What she needed was quantitative hormonal data, not proxies or inferences, actual measurements that a clinician could act on. Three years ago, she decided to build it herself. Muun Health is developing a microneedle-based wearable patch that monitors female hormones continuously and delivers results with up to 98% accuracy directly to the user's phone. The device is painless, self-applied, and designed for both home use and clinical integration, sitting within the EU's MDR IIa medical device classification. The company reached laboratory proof of concept in 2025, closed a €546k pre-seed round, and now has an R&D team of thirteen working across academic and clinical partnerships in seven European countries. ### Prevention has always been the goal. Now she has the data to get there. What drives Kerli is not the device itself but what the device makes possible. She describes the research dimension as the part that matters most to her in the long run. Women's health has been systematically under-researched, and continuous hormonal data collected at scale would change what medicine can know about the female body. "I can't even put into words what impact this would be for women's health if we have that device and are actually able to measure hormones," she said. The immediate applications are in fertility, where Muun Health is entering the market through European IVF clinics. From there, the platform extends to PCOS management, perimenopause, contraception, and beyond. But the frame she returns to is the one the emergency room made impossible. With continuous hormonal data feeding AI models over time, the logic of women's healthcare can shift from reactive to preventive. Women get real information about their own bodies. Clinicians get the quantitative picture they have never had. The load moves from the system to the individual, and prevention becomes possible because the data finally exists to support it. Muun Health is targeting MVP in 2027. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-04-09/ Last updated: 2026-04-09T12:35:10.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*. This week, we are tracking GITEX AFRICA Morocco and GITEX AI ASIA. Across both markets, the pattern is consistent. Capital, infrastructure, and sovereign buyers are aligning around AI deployment. --- ## UpNext Briefings We track where capital, operators, and infrastructure converge. Each briefing distills the signal behind major events, focusing on what is being deployed and where momentum is moving next. --- ## GITEX AFRICA Morocco GITEX AFRICA Morocco 2026 runs April 7–9 in Marrakech, bringing together 390+ active investors managing $350B+ in AUM alongside 1,500+ exhibitors and startups across the North Star Africa and Supernova Challenge tracks. The density is the signal. This is a capital deployment floor where institutional money, founder demand, and government access compress into the same environment. The anchor thesis is African Intelligence, with AI commercialization applied to fintech, data infrastructure, and agritech. On stage, operators include Yasser Shaker, Leila Serhan, Obaid Amrane, and Caitlin Burton. These are buyers, builders, and capital allocators operating at scale. A structural constraint is shaping the market. Africa hosts under 1% of global data center capacity despite 55% enterprise cloud adoption. The gap is no longer abstract. It is becoming an infrastructure buildout story. This is a fundraising stage with regulatory access layered in. Structured investor matching and ministerial presence make GITEX Africa one of the few venues where founders can move between capital conversations, procurement pathways, and commercial pilots in the same cycle. GITEX Africa now functions as an upstream filter for companies entering broader European and Gulf growth pipelines. ### Founders We’re Watching **Fanaka Technologies** Fanaka structures credit for informal MSMEs around daily micro-payments aligned to cash flow. With 3,200+ MSMEs served and 95%+ repayment on matured cohorts, it reframes lending in informal markets as a systems design problem rather than a risk problem. **XChangeBOX** XChangeBOX finances agricultural invoices in three days instead of ninety, converting each transaction into trade data that strengthens its credit scoring engine. By pairing liquidity with data infrastructure, it addresses working capital constraints across African agricultural supply chains. **LOOKA Research** LOOKA combines AI-moderated research with a network of 500+ field surveyors to generate consumer insight across fragmented African markets. With $222K ARR and profitability, it provides access to on-the-ground data that global tools typically miss. --- ## GITEX AI ASIA GITEX AI ASIA Singapore 2026 runs April 9–10 at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, bringing together 300+ startups and 250+ institutional investors across firms including Vertex Holdings, Granite Asia, Rakuten Capital, 1982 Ventures, and Qualgro. Five co-located shows concentrate AI, cybersecurity, data infrastructure, health, and quantum into a single venue. The density is different, but the pattern holds. This is a deal flow environment where capital, enterprise buyers, and government-backed programs converge around deployment. The focus is AI infrastructure and cyber-physical systems. On stage, operators include Alvaro Garrido, Tien San Chng, Pedro Uria-Recio, and Jeyakumar Janakaraj. These are deployers operating across banking, sovereign capital, and hyperscale infrastructure. A different constraint is shaping this market. The bottleneck is not access to capital, but access to deployment environments, regulatory pathways, and enterprise integration. AI is moving from experimentation into production systems. This is a high-velocity procurement layer. Curated investor matching runs alongside closed-door access to public-sector buyers through the ASEAN CXO Club and Digital Nations Ministerial Roundtable. Founders are navigating capital, enterprise integration, and government contracts in parallel. GITEX AI Asia now functions as an entry point into Southeast Asia’s deployment layer, connecting directly into Singapore’s market entry programs and extending into Gulf capital through the broader GITEX network. ### Founders We’re Watching **3DLogistiX** 3DLogistiX turns warehouse operations into visual 3D maps accessible through smartphones, guiding workers directly to inventory locations. With early traction across Australia and Chile, it reflects how spatial intelligence is being deployed on top of existing infrastructure rather than requiring new hardware. **AidMi** AidMi integrates directly into existing EHR systems to automate clinical documentation and billing for behavioral health providers. By embedding into current workflows, it reduces administrative overhead without introducing new systems, addressing a key friction point in healthcare operations. **Beekee** Beekee delivers digital learning through portable, offline-first hardware that operates without internet access. With deployments across humanitarian and education partners, it reframes digital education as a distribution problem rather than a connectivity problem. --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. ### Recent Features [The Software Developer Who Coded a Solution to Fashion’s $200 Billion Data ProblemWhen Edgar Azcorra’s activewear customers kept coming back, he knew it was because he had asked them what they wanted first. Xactsize is the fit-intelligence platform he built after realizing that the rest of the apparel industry had never asked the same question.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-45.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/1772825072283-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/apparel-returns-fit-intelligence-xactsize/) [How One Italian Founder Is Funding Clean Water Projects Through a Browser ExtensionAndrea Demichelis grew up on the Italian Riviera dreaming of a career in finance, then discovered that donations alone cover just 4% of the cost of providing clean water access. He built Elliot for Water, a productivity dashboard that funds clean water projects in developing countries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-49.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Andrea-Demichelis-1-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/clean-water-browser-extension-elliot-for-water/) [How a Turkish-American Mom Built the Marketplace for Children’s Activities That Turkey Was MissingA Turkish-American mother of two saw the gap between New Jersey and Turkey: parents searching for children’s activities with no dedicated platform to find them. She built Bulbi, a marketplace for kids aged 0-12, and reached the Web Summit Qatar semi-finals.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-47.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Seyma-pitching-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/children-activities-marketplace-turkey-bulbi/) ### --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road Here’s where the tour is heading next as we continue tracking emerging signals and spotlighting founders across global ecosystems. *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ### *Final Thought* ## You Are Probably Moving Too Early Speed is often mistaken for progress. With AI, everything feels immediate. Outreach, follow-ups, execution. If something can be done now, it feels like it should be. But moving early is not the same as moving well. The strongest operators are not rushing each step. They are sequencing it. They know the first touch creates awareness. The next layer builds trust. The right moment creates conversion. When the system is in place, you stop forcing outcomes. You let signals compound. You return when context is stronger. You move when the timing is right. That is where leverage comes from. Across the founders we are tracking, the pattern is clear. The ones gaining traction are not doing more. They are moving with precision. The direction is simple. Do less, but at the right time. Gratefully, Edwin P.S. If you’re building and thinking about when to move versus when to wait, reply. Curious how you’re approaching it. > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Why Medicines Cost Thirty Times More in Some African Markets and What Kapsule Is Doing About It URL: https://upnext.world/african-health-data-kapsule-pharma-access/ Last updated: 2026-04-06T21:19:30.000Z Pharmaceutical companies have spent decades circling African markets, knowing the opportunity was real but unable to act on it. The data infrastructure that would let them identify patients, price products, or design clinical trials across the continent simply did not exist, and without it, a billion people remained commercially invisible to the institutions that could have served them. David Chen built Kapsule to close that gap, aggregating health data from hospitals, pharmacies, and insurers across Africa into a single, legally compliant platform that gives global institutions the visibility they have been missing. ### Growing up, he wanted to be Spider-Man, and entrepreneurship was the closest thi**ng** David Chen grew up in London, the son of a mixed Chinese and black heritage, and describes himself as one of those kids who were smart at school but never did a piece of homework. He showed up to exams, did well enough, and carried a quiet conviction that he was capable of more than anyone around him seemed to expect. The career path that would eventually match that conviction took a while to reveal itself. As a teenager, he was drawn to cartoons and comics, particularly stories in which a protagonist gathers a ragtag crew of friends and accomplishes something remarkable with them. He studied genetics at university, more out of aptitude than passion, and worked nights in a nightclub to pay his way through. One evening, a sales guy a few years older, who had dropped out of school at sixteen, spent £15,000 pounds on champagne from a single commission cheque. David was cleaning his table. He decided that night that science was not the path. He moved into pharma consulting after graduating, primarily supporting pharmaceutical clients in regulatory affairs, drug safety, and market access. It was useful training in how to think, how to form a hypothesis and test it quickly, and how to operate inside large institutions. It also put him in the room, year after year, with clients who were eyeing African markets and finding reasons to wait. ### Africa was always going to be interesting, just not yet The verdict was consistent across every engagement. Africa was eventually going to be interesting, but right now, they were flying blind. The data that would let a pharmaceutical company identify the right patient populations, understand what those patients were actually paying for care, or design a clinical trial with confidence did not exist in any centralized or accessible form. So the industry kept circling, and nothing moved. In markets like Ghana, medicines were landing at thirty times the international reference price, or not landing at all, simply because no one had demonstrated that the patients existed and had the ability to pay. David left consulting and spent time in enterprise technology at Axiom, a Silicon Valley legal tech firm, where he learned how to apply people, process, and technology at scale to large institutional clients. When he came back to the healthcare space a few years later, he found that nothing had changed. He was crazy enough, as he puts it, to decide to do something about it himself, and the ragtag crew he had always imagined began to take shape. His closest childhood friend, Hannan, whom he had known since the age of five, came first. Hannan had trained as a doctor, then a lawyer, then gone deep into software engineering and AI before it was fashionable. David promised Hannan that if he built it, he would sell it. Their CTO Femi, came later, reeled in gradually after a chance encounter at a carnival night on Old Street, turned a professional introduction into a friendship. Kapsule aggregates health data from hospitals, pharmacies, insurers, and healthtech companies across Africa using on-premise middleware that pulls data from partner systems without requiring it to leave their infrastructure. Partners share data in exchange for a cut of the revenue Kapsule generates from selling access, which solves the question of why any institution would participate. The legal and data sovereignty constraints that had kept every other entrant out were handled directly rather than avoided. Customers access the resulting dataset through the Kapsule Terminal, a SaaS platform that enables pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and consulting firms to query patient records, run analytics, and identify populations and markets they previously couldn't see. ### A continent of a billion people, made visible The motivation behind all of it runs deeper than the commercial opportunity. David's father died unexpectedly while he was at university. That gave him a framework he has carried since. Life is brief, and the only question worth answering is how you want the story to read at the end. His co-founder, Hannan, crystallized the professional version of that question early on, when both of them were working day jobs and complaining about being undervalued. Hannan put it plainly one day. Surely, if we are as smart as we think we are, we can find a way to get rich and make the world a better place at the same time. For David, that was the call to action. Either he was as smart as he thought he was, or he needed to stop talking about it. Kapsule is now operating across 14 countries, with 75 million patient records in its dataset, has been profitable since May 2024, and has received 2 acquisition offers that it has declined. The company has presented at the WHO, the United Nations General Assembly, and the African Union, and holds an endorsement from the Africa CDC. A Series A is in preparation, with new offices planned for China and active expansion requests coming in from across Asia, Latin America, and the GCC region. The commercial thesis David has spent years proving comes down to one observation. The patients are there, the purchasing power is there, and the only thing that was ever missing was someone building the infrastructure to show it. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Web Summit Rio 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/web-summit-rio-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-04-06T21:17:05.000Z ### Web Summit Rio 2026 — UpNext Global Event Briefing Event: Web Summit Rio | June 8–11, 2026 | Riocentro, Rio de Janeiro \--- ### Event Overview 30,000+ attendees, 1,500+ startups, and 600+ investors concentrated in a single venue. The density skews toward early-stage founders seeking first institutional checks, with a secondary layer of corporate development officers from partners including Goldman Sachs, Visa, and Accenture operating active deployment mandates across LatAm. --- ### Current Signal Brad Smith (Microsoft) and Alicia Tillman (SAP) anchor the enterprise AI commercialization track — both representing organizations with active LatAm procurement and partnership pipelines. IBM's Sports Tech Challenge runs as a structured startup-to-corporate deal mechanism, not a pitch competition. Revolut Brazil's presence signals live neobanking expansion activity in a market with 200M+ underbanked consumers. The thesis being commercialized: AI-native fintech and SaaS built for multi-jurisdictional LatAm compliance. --- ### Why It Matters This is a high-velocity fundraising stage, not a hiring ground. The 600 investors present include GPs with active emerging market mandates and LPs evaluating LatAm fund managers. Cross-border regulatory frameworks for multilatinas are being stress-tested in real deal rooms here. --- ### Ecosystem Context Sits upstream from Series A hubs in New York, London, and Lisbon. Founders who close pre-seed or seed commitments here typically resurface at Web Summit Lisbon or RISE Hong Kong at growth stage. It functions as the primary deal-flow origination point for the Portuguese-speaking tech corridor. --- ### The UpNext Rationale No other event on the global circuit provides direct access to 1,500 LatAm-native startups alongside corporate buyers with live deployment budgets. For any fund or operator building an emerging market thesis, missing this event means missing the earliest signal on the next generation of multilatinas before they reach valuation inflation at Series A. --- Official Site: [https://rio.websummit.com/](https://rio.websummit.com/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### The Money Was Always There. Governments Just Couldn’t See It. URL: https://upnext.world/governments-financial-visibility-digital-flows-sharp-vision/ Last updated: 2026-04-07T14:37:28.000Z Carolina Valadas didn’t encounter the problem Sharp Vision solves in a boardroom or a pitch deck. She encountered it on her phone, in West Africa, paying for groceries and electricity bills through a digital wallet tied to her phone number. As a diplomat for the EU’s External Action Service, mobile money was not just a fintech novelty—it was how daily transactions worked. What she hadn't realized then was the limited visibility governments had over most of these flows. The issue wasn't a lack of political will; it was a lack of technological oversight, which created systemic inefficiencies ### Living in the informal economy taught her what regulators couldn’t see Carolina Valadas spent years embedded in West African economies where up to 50% of payments move outside traditional banking systems, and nearly 80% of the population relies on mobile money for daily transactions. The flows are enormous, the adoption is real, and the regulatory infrastructure to match it has never existed. When she left the diplomatic service and moved back into the private sector, she joined Sharp Vision’s public affairs team after meeting the company’s director of public affairs. The fit was immediate. Sharp Vision, founded in Paris by brothers Cyril and Christophe Casanova, had started in the African gaming industry and identified the same gap she had lived inside. Governments were failing to regulate because they had no way to see what was happening, not because they lacked the will to act. ### Operators were declaring revenues blindly, and governments **had no way to check** The Casanova brothers built Sharp Vision after working with gaming operators across Africa and watching governments accept whatever revenues operators chose to declare. There was no mechanism to verify the numbers, no real-time market data, and no way to identify illegal platforms operating alongside licensed ones. As a result, governments lost tax revenue, licensed operators faced unfair competition, and players were left unprotected. Sharp Vision’s platform changes that. Operators connect to it directly, declaring revenues through a system the government controls rather than one the operator manages. The results in Sharp Vision’s early deployments were stark. Governments that had been taxing what operators reported found themselves looking at the real market for the first time, and in several early case studies, fiscal revenues increased tenfold. The platform now manages €5 billion in annual flows across six live jurisdictions, including Senegal, Benin, Guinea and Mali, has reached 70 million users, and has delivered an average 350% tax revenue increase for the governments it serves. Beyond the fiscal numbers, Valadas is direct about what else is at stake. Illegal platforms carry no player protections. Minors access them. Money laundering moves through them. The regulatory gap is a public health problem as much as a fiscal one. ### Smarter regulation means governments stop counting manually and start governing digitally Sharp Vision’s next move is into the European Union and Latin America, where Carolina Valadas says the problem looks different on the surface but runs deeper than most regulators want to admit. EU markets are more mature, the legal frameworks exist, and regulators are aware of the gaps. But the technologic systems they use to enforce them are almost entirely manual. One regulator told her recently that their operation was, in her words, very much in the stone age. Sharp Vision’s AI-powered platform automates the identification of illegal gambling sites, freeing government staff from manually scanning the web and redirecting them toward the kind of judgment-driven regulatory work that actually requires a human. The company, which was named VIXIO Compliance Innovator of the Year in 2025 and holds ISO 27001 certification, is targeting 20 or more governments and €200 million in annual recurring revenue by 2030, with expansion into the Americas and Asia alongside the EU push. For Valadas, the pitch is simple. The money was always moving. Governments just had no way to see it, and Sharp Vision is built to change that. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Managers Can’t Lead While They’re Buried in Coordination URL: https://upnext.world/managers-lead-coordination-tax-in-parallel/ Last updated: 2026-04-06T21:22:51.000Z Kristian Luoma has spent 25 years watching technology reshape the way humans work, and every time he has seen it fail, the reason was the same. New capabilities had been built without asking whether they made sense for the humans using them. The Finnish co-founder of In Parallel grew up near the Arctic Circle, started building websites at 14, and carried that instinct through Nokia, through banking innovation, and eventually into a conviction that the modern workplace has a problem nobody is talking about honestly. The coordination overhead sitting on top of every manager’s actual job has quietly become the job itself, and In Parallel is the system he built to change that. ### Technology Has to Make Sense for Humans Kristian’s tech career began early with his first job in the Santa Claus Technology Village in Rovaniemi. His early years at Nokia gave him room to explore what he calls his need for new things, filing patents and helping build mobile services at a time when nobody fully understood what mobile applications would mean for the world. One service he worked on launched with 300 million active users. Nokia also taught him that technology only creates value when it makes sense for the humans using it, and he didn’t think Nokia did that especially well compared to what was coming. That realization followed him into banking, where he led innovation and award-winning personal finance design and found himself spending more and more time with startups. He met his co-founder, Markku, in Silicon Valley while visiting with the bank’s management team, and the two became operators together at a Swiss company that grew from 40 to 1,300 people in 18 months. It was there, watching that growth compound in real time, that the problem came into focus. The bottleneck was the coordination layer sitting atop every team at every level, consuming time and attention that should have been devoted elsewhere. ### The Paper M**ap Is Still on Every Desk** Kristian uses an analogy that lands immediately for anyone who has navigated an unfamiliar city before smartphones existed. You picked up a paper map from the hotel lobby and oriented yourself from corner to corner the whole way. You held the route in your head, rechecked every turn, and stayed so focused on not getting lost that you stopped being present with what was around you. You could have walked past the Eiffel Tower and barely registered it. That cognitive overload was simply the cost everyone accepted before a better system existed. The same cost sits on every manager’s desk today. After every meeting, someone has to track the action items, communicate the decisions, update the execution plans, maintain the status reports, and remember to follow up on whether the thing actually got done. Deloitte puts the time cost at roughly 40% of a manager’s week. Kristian’s customers tell him it’s closer to 70\. “Coordination has become the work,” he says, “not the outcomes.” In Parallel attends the meetings, monitors signals from connected tools like Jira and Salesforce, detects decisions and risks, and maintains what Kristian calls a living execution plan, a single source of truth that stays current automatically, without anyone having to do it manually. The navigator that shows what’s next, always up to date, so the person in the room can focus on the conversation instead of the map. ### The Ju**dgment Era Is Closer Than You Think** The intellectual framework Kristian keeps returning to is John Boyd’s OODA loop, the observe, orient, decide, act model developed by the American fighter pilot and strategist. Boyd’s argument was that a well-run organization should be able to move through that cycle faster than its environment changes. Kristian’s version is that AI can now handle the first two stages. It can observe everything happening around a company and orient based on what it finds. What it cannot do is decide and act with the values, judgment, and accountability that leadership requires. That gap is where humans belong, and most managers are nowhere near it because they’re still stuck doing the observe and orient work manually. Stephen Wolfram has described this shift as the end of knowledge work. What comes next, he argues, is a judgment era, where humans use taste, intuition, and values to guide things rather than spending their days transforming information from one container to another. Kristian thinks that era is closer than most people realize, and that meetings will become more important as a result, not less. When the coordination layer runs itself, the people in the room can do what only humans can do. “We get to lead instead of manage,” he says. For the five enterprise teams already running on In Parallel, and the next stage of growth ahead, that is what Kristian is building toward. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Every EV in Every Driveway Is a Grid Asset. Emulate Is the Infrastructure Utilities Need. URL: https://upnext.world/ev-grid-asset-emulate-utility-infrastructure/ Last updated: 2026-04-06T21:23:52.000Z Utilities across Europe and the US are managing an electrification wave they were never built to handle. EVs, heat pumps, and home batteries are connecting to the grid faster than the software exists to coordinate them, turning what should be a flexibility resource into a source of grid stress. Shwan Lamei's company, Emulate, is the infrastructure layer that changes that. Built on virtual battery research developed at MIT, the platform gives utilities real-time control over residential devices at scale, reducing grid costs and opening access to energy markets that were previously out of reach. ### Two friends from Lund, one research paper, and a giant virtual battery Shwan grew up in Lund, a small city in southern Sweden, studied there, and spent his early career doing management consulting at an industrial conglomerate with dozens of operating companies. The work suited him. He was sent into businesses to improve margins, develop market strategies, and set up new operations, the kind of work that requires building something rather than maintaining it. Steady state never interested him. Give him a turnaround or a blank page and he comes alive. His co-founder and best friend, also from Lund, moved through academia before landing a postdoctoral position at MIT. The research asked whether flexible residential devices, coordinated correctly, could collectively behave like a single grid-scale battery. The answer was yes. When Shwan moved to the US around the same time, the two of them started turning that answer into a company. They built it on the side at first, running pilots while holding down their day jobs, and went full-time around 2022 after securing their first venture capital. ### The grid lost its one control point and gained millions For a hundred years, grid operators managed electricity with a single reliable mechanism. Demand rises, you turn up the gas plant. Demand falls, you turn it down. Renewables removed that mechanism entirely. Solar produces when the sun is out. Wind produces when the wind blows. Neither can be dispatched on demand, which means the old model of matching supply to demand in real time no longer holds. What replaced the power plant's knob was not one new control point but millions of small ones. Every EV in a residential driveway has flexibility built into it, charging windows that can shift without affecting the driver's morning routine. Every heat pump cycles within a comfort band that creates room to adjust load without anyone noticing. Every home battery stores surplus that can be timed and directed. Individually, these signals are small and scattered. Coordinated across a fleet, they behave like a dispatchable grid-scale resource. "There are millions of these little knobs in every home out in the grid," Shwan said, "and to get these things to work in a coordinated fashion that's reliable for an operator is difficult." That is exactly what Emulate solves. The platform connects utilities to their customers' devices, aggregates the flexibility across entire fleets, and makes that resource available directly to tariffs and energy markets. The grid does not need more physical batteries. It needs software that treats what is already in people's homes as the infrastructure it actually is. Emulate is the market leader in Sweden, one of the world's most advanced electricity markets, with active customers now expanding across Europe and the US. ### A hundred years of stagnation behind us and twenty years of disruption ahead Shwan is direct about what drives him. It is not the environmental mission, though he operates in one of the most consequential sectors for the energy transition. It is building things. Shaping the world around him. The satisfaction of taking something that does not work and making it work. The energy sector caught his attention because it is one of the largest industries on earth, has barely changed in a century, and is now being upended entirely as production shifts from centralized to decentralized over the next two decades. The problems are real, the stakes are significant, and there is enough left to solve that he intends to stay in the space for the rest of his career. Right now his focus is singular: getting utilities to adopt what Emulate has built, because he is convinced it is what they need. The scaling from Sweden is already underway. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-04-02/ Last updated: 2026-04-02T12:29:34.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*. This week, we tracked *CIX Summit* and *Synapse Life Science Competition*, and are spotlighting three founders building for real-world deployment. Read more below. --- ### *Event Recap* ## CIX Summit At the CIX Summit in Toronto, the signal was clear. Canadian capital is shifting toward infrastructure, backing companies built for complexity rather than speed. The CIX Awards surfaced later-stage startups operating in climate, health, and defense, where procurement cycles, regulation, and deployment shape the path to scale. These are companies already in motion, designed for institutional buyers and long-term contracts. Momentum is moving toward allocation, with capital following companies that can operate within real-world constraints. As part of the UpNext World Tour, we tracked the signals shaping Canada’s next wave of venture-backed growth. The direction is clear. Execution within complex systems is becoming the edge. Read the full recap and featured founders below. [CIX Startup Awards: Canada Bets on InfrastructureCapital in this year’s CIX cohort is shifting from SaaS to hard infrastructure. Defense tech, climate systems, and regulated health ventures now define the highest-conviction bets, pointing to longer-cycle, capital-intensive builds.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-39.png)UpNext.WorldAqeela A. Somani![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/CIX-Summit-2026-Elevate-Mar25-Photography-5436-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/cix-startup-awards-canada-bets-on-infrastructure/) --- ## Synapse Life Science Competition At the Synapse Life Science Competition in Hamilton, the signal was clear. Medical device founders are building for buyers, not labs. The competition brought together early-stage life science teams focused on commercialization from day one. Founders are aligning technical innovation with procurement pathways, regulatory timelines, and clinical adoption. The shift is toward execution that holds up in real healthcare systems. As part of the UpNext World Tour, we tracked the signals emerging from Canada’s health innovation ecosystem. The direction is clear. Commercial readiness is becoming the differentiator. Read the full recap and featured founders below. [Synapse Competition: Medical Device Founders Build for Buyers, Not LabsMedical device hardware is moving from research validation to commercialization readiness. Ontario’s life science pipeline now produces founders who can articulate regulatory pathways and buyer economics before raising capital.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-40.png)UpNext.WorldAqeela A. Somani![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Synapse-Competition-2026-1.JPG)](https://upnext.world/synapse-competition-medical-device-founders-build-for-buyers-not-labs/) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. ### Recent Features [Growing food in the desert is possible with one founder’s NASA-inspired photonics technologyA Spanish founder who grew up hungry and moved across three continents found a NASA irrigation technology during COVID lockdowns, built a patented indoor garden sold at Costco, and is now growing food in a Saudi government greenhouse for a nation that imports 90% of its food.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-44.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/roberto.jpg)](https://upnext.world/growing-food-in-the-desert-is-possible-with-one-founders-nasa-inspired-photonics-technology/) [The Platform Giving Amateur Athletes a Permanent Digital IdentityAmateur sports organizations still run on disconnected apps, paper brackets, and no persistent athlete records. Andrii Luzin and Katerina Ianovskaia built Fitofan, a single platform now managing competitions, federations, and athlete profiles across 62 sports in 160 countries.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-41.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/fitofan-image1-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/the-platform-giving-amateur-athletes-a-permanent-digital-identity/) [The Founder Who Used Technology to Put the Human Back in Human ResourcesJordan Goure spent two decades hiring across restaurants, real estate, and hospitality before realizing the resume itself was the problem. He built Picsume to replace it, and it now powers Canada’s largest hospitality network.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-42.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Jordan-Goure-1-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/human-resources-hiring-technology-picsume/) --- ## Event Highlight ### GITEX Africa Morocco - Marrakech | April 7 - 9 Gitex Africa has become the continent’s most concentrated signal for venture and infrastructure-led growth. As the regional counterpart to GITEX Global, it brings African startups, global capital, and policymakers into one high-density platform. This year centers on AI, cloud, and connected systems as foundational layers. Fintech, logistics, and health lead, with companies building into real constraints across fragmented and regulated markets. The shift is toward deployment. Solutions are being shaped for governments, enterprises, and cross-border systems from the outset. As part of the UpNext World Tour, we are tracking the signals remotely, capturing founder narratives and the startups pitching across the program. Full recap coming. Learn more → [https://gitexafrica.com/](https://gitexafrica.com/?ref=upnext.world) --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road Here’s where the tour is heading next as we continue tracking emerging signals and spotlighting founders across global ecosystems. *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ## UpNext Global Partners As the UpNext World Tour expands, we are opening a limited number of partner conversations. We spotlight founders across global ecosystems, providing visibility, context, and narrative as they scale. We work across three tracks: **Ecosystem Partners** — Elevate your accelerator, EDO, or innovation program **Capital Partners** — Early visibility into emerging startups across markets **Growth Partners** — Bring expertise to founders actively scaling Interested in partnering? Let’s start a conversation. --- ### *Final Thought* ## Winning the Pitch Isn’t the Hard Part A winning pitch does not mean a company is ready to scale. Across recent competitions, the gap is becoming more visible. Founders can articulate the vision, tell a compelling story, and win on stage. But scaling depends on something else entirely. Procurement cycles, regulatory pathways, and distribution.The unglamorous systems that determine whether a company actually gets adopted. The strongest founders are building with those constraints in mind from day one. They are not optimizing for judges or demo days. They are designing for buyers. That shift is showing up everywhere. From medical devices at the Synapse Life Science Competition to infrastructure-led startups at the CIX Summit. The direction is clear. Winning attention is one milestone. Earning adoption is the real work. Gratefully, Edwin P.S. We are tracking founders moving from pitch to procurement. If that is you, worth connecting. > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### EU-Startups Summit 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/eu-startups-summit-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-04-01T18:36:01.000Z ## Event Overview A curated concentration of 1,128 founders and 282 investors operating within a 2,375-attendee cap. The ratio is deliberately founder-heavy, with 75 exhibiting companies and 1,200 total represented organizations competing for face time with a constrained investor pool. The density is functional, not decorative — 8,075 pre-scheduled meetings were logged at the prior edition, indicating structured deal-flow activity rather than passive floor traffic. ## Current Signal The 2026 program anchors on AI commercialization under the "Infinite AI" theme, with DeepTech and Green Transition scaling as the two operational tracks. Alpha speakers include Dimitris Vassos (Omilia, enterprise conversational AI), Kaspar Korjus (Pactum AI, autonomous negotiation at scale), Hadi Moussa (Oyster, HR tech unicorn), and Joaquin Cuenca (Freepik, AI-native creative infrastructure). The Pitch Competition draws from 1,600+ applicants, filters to 15 finalists, and delivers a €1M prize package — making it the continent's highest-stakes seed-stage public evaluation format. ## Why It Matters This is a high-velocity fundraising stage. The "Investors on Stage" format — 15 VCs presenting fund mandates per day — compresses LP-to-founder signaling into structured, time-bound sessions. Redstone, Kompas VC, True, and SeedBlink are confirmed capital-side participants with active deployment mandates. ## Ecosystem Context The summit sits upstream from Series A hubs. It functions as a pre-Series A filter for Mediterranean and CEE founders who lack access to London or Berlin-centric capital networks. Deals sourced here typically surface 6–18 months before they appear on Tier-1 radar. ## The UpNext Rationale This stop delivers direct access to the seed-stage deal flow that major European funds track but rarely originate. The curated format, combined with Malta Enterprise's institutional backing and a confirmed government presence (Prime Minister Robert Abela, Minister Silvio Schembri), signals regulatory proximity that few founder-facing events can match. For UpNext, this is the primary European node for identifying pre-Series B operators before valuation compression sets in. Official Site: [https://www.eu-startups.com/summit/](https://www.eu-startups.com/summit/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### Synapse Competition 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/synapse-competition-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T18:28:29.000Z ### Event Overview 13th annual showcase (March 25, 2026) run by Innovation Factory, drawing 200+ attendees from the Hamilton-Halton life science corridor. The density profile is weighted toward early-stage technical founders — pre-seed, pre-revenue — interfacing with a small but targeted set of institutional validators from venture, genomics, and professional services. Capital concentration is limited; talent concentration is high. This is a sourcing event, not a closing event. --- ### Current Signal Three judges carry actionable weight. Dr. Elizabeth Gray (Ontario Genomics) controls a direct funding mandate for SMEs commercializing genomics and engineering biology — she is a capital allocator, not an advisor. Isabelle Harris (Lumira Ventures) conducts active due diligence on medical devices and therapeutics, making her a live deal-flow funnel into one of Canada's most active health-tech funds. Mark McQueen (Deloitte) provides SR&ED and grant access, which is operationally critical for hardware-heavy founders managing burn pre-revenue. The 2026 finalist cohort signals a hardware-forward year, with applied robotics (Sielo Robotics, Better Bionics) and diagnostics (DigiBiomics, Sensible Vascular) leading the commercialization thesis. --- ### Why It Matters This is a pre-fundraising stress-test stage. Every presenting company has already completed a structured business-model validation exercise with student co-developers before pitching. That process filters out founders who cannot articulate a go-to-market path, reducing the due diligence burden for attending investors. The prize pool delivers non-dilutive capital — directly relevant for founders who need runway to complete regulatory filings or IP protection before raising equity. --- ### Ecosystem Context Synapse sits upstream from national accelerators and seed-stage health funds. It functions as a first-filter for McMaster and Hamilton Health Sciences research output, converting academic IP into investor-ready assets before those assets reach CDL, MaRS, or specialized health-tech funds. Founders who place here frequently appear in seed rounds 12–18 months later. Attending at this stage means first access, before valuations reflect institutional interest. --- ### The UpNext Rationale Synapse is the earliest structured access point for Canadian medical hardware and biotech founders in the Hamilton-Halton corridor — a region producing consistent deal flow that remains undercovered by Toronto-centric investor networks. The mandatory stop argument is simple: the companies presenting here are 12–24 months away from being competitive at the national level. Attending now means relationship capital before the market prices in the opportunity. --- Official Site: [https://synapselifescience.com/showcase/](https://synapselifescience.com/showcase/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### Skinnovation 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/skinnovation-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T18:27:30.000Z ### Event Overview Skinnovation 2026 runs March 25–27 in Innsbruck and Axamer Lizum, Austria. The event draws 1,000+ participants across founders, investors, and corporate operators from the DACH region and broader Europe. The density skews toward early-stage founders and ecosystem players rather than institutional capital — investor attendance is curated but not dominant. Corporate partners including Amazon, Accenture, and Raiffeisen are present as sponsors and deal-seekers, not passive observers. The format compresses 2.5 days of structured access into a physically constrained environment, which raises per-interaction quality. ### Current Signal The capital-side anchor is Marie-Hélène Ametsreiter, General Partner at Speedinvest, who leads the firm's climate tech and industrial tech portfolio and runs its Corporate Program — meaning she is actively brokering revenue and market access for portfolio companies, not just scouting. On the operator side, Sophia Rödiger (CMO, 1KOMMA5°) represents a unicorn-stage clean energy platform that is actively scaling distributed energy infrastructure across Europe. The dominant commercialization thesis is sustainable consumer goods and clean energy — founders from RECUP (20,000+ catering partners), nucao, and einhorn are presenting proven revenue models, not prototypes. ### Why It Matters Skinnovation functions primarily as a fundraising-access stage for pre-seed and seed founders in the DACH market. The Ski Lift Pitch format creates forced one-on-one time with investors in a setting that eliminates distraction and competing conversations. The 1-on-1 Matchmaking and Hosted Lunch Tables add structured deal-flow touchpoints. This is not a hiring ground for engineers — it is a high-velocity first-meeting environment for founders seeking warm introductions to European early-stage capital. ### Ecosystem Context Skinnovation sits upstream from Series A hubs. It surfaces university spin-offs and sub-€2M raise companies from Austria, Bavaria, and Switzerland before they reach Berlin or London deal rooms. Organized by the University of Innsbruck, it functions as a pre-seed filter for the Alpine corridor — a geography underrepresented in mainstream European VC deal flow. Downstream, founders who close warm relationships here typically resurface at Bits & Pretzels or NOAH for growth-stage follow-on. ### The UpNext Rationale Skinnovation delivers one specific access mode unavailable at standard conferences: captive investor attention. A gondola pitch eliminates the exit option. For founders in the sustainable consumer, clean energy, and circular economy verticals, this event concentrates the right buyers — Speedinvest, Redstone VC, and corporate innovation arms — in a low-distraction environment. It is the only event on the European circuit where physical format directly enforces deal-making focus. For the UpNext World Tour, it fills the DACH early-stage slot with a format no urban conference replicates. Official Site: [https://skinnovation.at/](https://skinnovation.at/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### CIX Startup Awards 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/cix-startup-awards-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T18:26:37.000Z ### Event Overview A single-day deal-flow event held March 25 in Toronto, concentrating 14 pre-vetted award-winning founders across three revenue tiers — Emerging (under $2M), Early ($2M–$10M), and Growth (over $10M) — against a selection committee of 100+ active North American investors, 22% of whom are U.S.-based. Capital density is the operative variable here, not attendance volume. ### Current Signal Mike Katchen (Wealthsimple), James Walker (Draper Associates), and Max Miller (CPP Investments) anchor the speaker slate, representing consumer fintech at scale, cross-border venture deployment, and institutional LP capital respectively. The 2026 cohort is commercializing in climate tech (Eavor Technologies, WeavAir), defense tech (Xubin Aerospace), medtech (Qidni Labs), and fintech (Hiive) — sectors with long procurement cycles now showing revenue-stage traction. ### Why It Matters This is a high-velocity fundraising stage. The structured Meeting Exchanges give award recipients direct 1:1 access to active check-writers. The 78% funding rate within six months of recognition is the operative metric — this is a liquidity mechanism, not a visibility exercise. ### Ecosystem Context CIX sits upstream from Series A and B closes. It functions as a final peer-diligence filter before Canadian companies enter U.S. institutional deal flow. Winners enter the pipeline already carrying investor validation, which compresses due diligence timelines for downstream funds. ### The UpNext Rationale CIX delivers the highest signal-to-noise ratio for Canadian deal flow in a single day. The award cohort represents companies that have cleared 100+ investor scrutiny before the event begins, giving UpNext members direct access to pre-qualified assets before they reach mainstream distribution channels. Official Site: [https://cixsummit.com/startup-awards/](https://cixsummit.com/startup-awards/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### START Summit 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/start-summit-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T18:25:46.000Z ### Event Overview START Summit 2026 ran March 19–20 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The event concentrated 1,350 startups—predominantly pre-seed and seed stage—against 1,000 investors, generating 12,000+ scheduled meetings across two days. That ratio (roughly 1.35 founders per investor) makes it one of the highest-density early-stage deal-flow environments in Europe. The student-run structure keeps overhead low and access unusually open compared to invite-only institutional forums. ### Current Signal The 2026 anchor was Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures), whose presence pulled Silicon Valley capital attention to a university-stage event. Gabriel Vasquez (a16z) and Dr. Robert Fink (Helsing) anchored the deep tech and defense-AI thesis. The program moved past general AI discourse: dedicated tracks on AI Monetisation (with Stripe) and Building & Backing AI (with Balderton Capital) addressed revenue architecture and deployment economics directly. Milda Mitkutė (Vinted) provided a live case study in scaling a marketplace to unicorn status from a non-obvious geography. ### Why It Matters START Summit functions as a talent and fundraising ground simultaneously. Investors from Sequoia, Index Ventures, Northzone, and Founderful attend specifically to source pre-seed deals before founders reach mainstream accelerators. The Investor Day Zero and Founder Day Zero pre-conference formats compress relationship-building into structured, high-volume sessions. For technical founders, this is one of the few venues where Tier-1 fund partners engage at the idea and university spin-off stage. ### Ecosystem Context START Summit sits upstream from every major European Series A hub. Founders identified here typically surface at Slush, Web Summit, or in Sequoia Arc cohorts 12–24 months later. It feeds the DACH deep tech pipeline—ETH Zurich and HSG spin-offs appeared directly in the 2026 pitch roster—before those teams have external validation or traction metrics. Scouts who deploy attention here operate with a 12-month lead on the broader market. ### The UpNext Rationale START Summit is a mandatory stop because it is the only European event where Tier-1 global capital and pre-revenue technical founders occupy the same two-day window at scale. The 2026 edition confirmed the event's shift toward commercialization-focused programming, reducing the signal-to-noise gap that plagued earlier editions. For UpNext, it unlocks direct access to the DACH founding class before valuations are set and before competing scouts arrive. Official Site: [https://www.startglobal.org/start-summit](https://www.startglobal.org/start-summit?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### DiscoveryX 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/discoveryx-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T18:24:51.000Z ### Event Overview 3,000+ attendees across two days at Toronto's Enercare Centre (April 29–30), organized by the Ontario Centre of Innovation. The density skews toward technical founders and government-backed researchers, with institutional investors and corporate buyers present for structured one-on-one meeting tracks. Nine sector-specific innovation zones replace the open-floor format, concentrating deal-relevant interactions by vertical rather than diluting them across a general floor. ### Current Signal Geoffrey Hinton anchors the AI programming — his presence signals institutional credibility, not consumer hype. The commercialization thesis centers on Ontario's AI and advanced manufacturing output, with a dedicated advanced manufacturing zone showcasing production-ready ventures. Amy Webb adds applied futures framing relevant to enterprise buyers. The programming targets ventures that have cleared the research stage and are entering revenue or pilot deployment. ### Why It Matters This is a fundraising and partnership activation ground. Investors run structured one-on-one meeting tracks with founders. Government procurement officers and corporate R&D leads attend as active buyers, making this a regulatory and capital access point simultaneously. Engineers and technical co-founders sourced from Waterloo and Vector Institute pipelines are present in volume. ### Ecosystem Context DiscoveryX sits upstream from Series A activity. Ventures here are typically post-grant, pre-institutional-round. It functions as a pre-seed and seed-stage filter for the Canadian deep tech pipeline before those companies reach global circuits like Web Summit or Slush. ### The UpNext Rationale This event provides direct access to government-backed ventures before they receive private market attention. No other Canadian event consolidates provincial policy, academic IP, and private capital in a single two-day window. For scouts operating the global circuit, it is the earliest viable entry point into Ontario's hard tech cohort. Official Site: [https://www.discoveryxconference.ca/](https://www.discoveryxconference.ca/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### Tech.eu Summit London 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/tech-eu-summit-london-2026-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T18:04:52.000Z ### Event Overview 2,000+ delegates convene at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre on April 21–22, with a deliberate concentration of Series B+ founders, active European VCs (Notion Capital, Elaia, 2150, NATO Innovation Fund), and operators from scaled fintech and deep tech companies. The density skews toward capital deployers and revenue-stage builders, not pre-seed talent. This is not a volume play — it is a curated deal-making environment where the ratio of investors to founders is high enough to generate substantive follow-on conversations. ### Current Signal Confirmed alpha-tier participants include representatives from OpenAI, Wise, NATO Innovation Fund, PolyAI, Oxa, Upvest, and 2150\. The commercialization thesis centers on three areas: enterprise AI deployment (agents, ROI measurement, compliance under the EU AI Act), fintech resilience post-M&A consolidation, and deep tech capital intensity — specifically robotics, autonomy, and industrial AI moving from prototype to contracted revenue. The EIC Scaling Club's presence as a community partner signals active engagement from EU-backed companies pursuing international expansion mandates. ### Why It Matters This is a fundraising-stage environment. Series B+ companies use this summit to run structured investor meetings, not passive networking. The Tech.eu Events App enables pre-scheduled 1:1s before arrival, compressing deal timelines. The regulatory track — covering AI Act implementation and technology sovereignty — draws policy-adjacent capital, including defense-linked funds like NATO Innovation Fund, which are actively deploying into dual-use deep tech. ### Ecosystem Context Tech.eu Summit sits downstream from Slush (where pre-seed and Seed deals originate) and upstream from later-stage transatlantic forums. It functions as a Series A-to-B validation checkpoint, where European companies test international expansion narratives before approaching US or Gulf-based growth funds. ### The UpNext Rationale This summit provides direct access to the European Soonicorn pipeline — companies between €20M–€100M ARR that are structuring their next raise or preparing for cross-border expansion. No other event in the April calendar concentrates this specific cohort alongside the institutional investors and policy actors who control their next capital event. Official Site: [https://tech.eu/event/2026/summit-london/](https://tech.eu/event/2026/summit-london/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### Startup Grind Global Conference 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/startup-grind-global-conference-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T16:50:45.000Z ### Event Overview 5,000 attendees across two days, with 150 curated exhibiting startups interfacing directly with 1,000+ investors representing 400+ funds. The Startup Expo is sold out. Past exhibitors have collectively raised over $1.5B since 2020, and the 2025 edition generated 400+ scheduled investment meetings on-site. Capital density is real and documented, not projected. \--- ### Current Signal The 2026 program runs a full-stack AI economy thesis. Alpha speakers include Gabe Pereyra (Harvey AI), Lin Qiao (Fireworks AI), Amjad Masad (Replit), and Harrison Chase (LangChain) — all operators commercializing AI infrastructure and developer tooling at scale. On the capital side: Mamoon Hamid (Kleiner Perkins), Stephanie Zhan (Sequoia), Chetan Puttagunta (Benchmark), Anish Acharya (a16z), and Navin Chaddha (Mayfield Fund) are confirmed. The thesis being deployed here is AI-native software at the seed-to-Series A inflection point. \--- ### Why It Matters This is a high-velocity fundraising stage. The format — VC AMAs, structured 1:1 investor meetings, and live pitch sessions — is built for check-writing, not networking theater. 12,000+ minutes of scheduled 1:1 investor time are allocated across the two days. Pre-seed and seed founders gain direct access to partners from Sequoia, Benchmark, Kleiner Perkins, and a16z without intermediary warm introductions. \--- ### Ecosystem Context Startup Grind Global sits upstream from Series A hubs. It functions as a pre-seed and seed filter for international founders entering the U.S. market, drawing talent from 125+ countries before those companies appear on Crunchbase radars. Downstream, its top exhibitors have gone on to raise institutional rounds from the same funds present on-site. It operates as a first-touch conversion point in the U.S. deal-flow pipeline. \--- ### The UpNext Rationale This event delivers the Silicon Valley signal that no regional demo day or accelerator batch replicates at this density. The combination of 400+ institutional fund representatives, a sold-out expo floor, and confirmed partners from the top five global VC firms in a single two-day window makes it a mandatory stop for any scout tracking pre-Series A deal flow. Missing it means missing the earliest legible signal on the next cohort of AI-native companies before valuations reprice. \--- Official Site: [https://www.startupgrind.tech/](https://www.startupgrind.tech/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### Web Summit Vancouver 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/web-summit-vancouver-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T15:41:08.000Z ### Event Overview 20,000+ attendees, 700+ institutional investors, and 1,500+ startups concentrated at the Vancouver Convention Centre, May 11–14, 2026\. The density ratio — roughly one investor per 28 founders — positions this as a high-contact fundraising environment, not a passive conference. Corporate partners include Microsoft, JPMorgan, Amazon, and IBM, signaling active procurement budgets alongside venture capital. ### Current Signal Max Levchin (Affirm) anchors the fintech commercialization thesis, with direct relevance to cross-border payments and buy-now-pay-later infrastructure scaling in North America. Jesse Zhang (Decagon AI) represents the agentic AI deployment track — customer service automation moving from pilot to revenue. Andrew McKechnie (OpenAI) signals enterprise go-to-market, not research. The programming weight sits on enterprise SaaS, AI deployment, and climate tech with revenue traction, not pre-product concepts. ### Why It Matters This is a high-velocity fundraising stage for Seed to Series B founders targeting North American market entry. The 700+ investor cohort includes LPs actively diversifying deal flow outside Silicon Valley. Secondary draw: enterprise procurement from named corporate partners creates direct buyer access for B2B startups on the floor. ### Ecosystem Context Sits upstream from Series A closings as a deal-sourcing filter for Cascadia-corridor and Asia-Pacific-facing companies. Vancouver's position as a Pacific Rim gateway makes it a first-look venue for founders entering North American markets from Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea. ### The UpNext Rationale Web Summit Vancouver is the only North American event that combines Lisbon-scale networking density with direct Pacific Rim trade access. For scouts, it surfaces pre-Series A operators in climate tech, fintech, and AI deployment before they reach Sand Hill Road pricing. Official Site: [https://vancouver.websummit.com/](https://vancouver.websummit.com/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### Gitex AI Asia Singapore 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/gitex-ai-asia-singapore-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T15:24:13.000Z ### Event Overview Gitex AI Asia 2026 runs April 9–10 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. The confirmed density: 300+ global startups interfacing with 250+ institutional investors, VCs, CVCs, and angels representing multi-billion-dollar AUM across firms including Vertex Holdings, Granite Asia (USD $10B+ AUM, 126 unicorns), Rakuten Capital, 1982 Ventures, and Qualgro. Five co-located shows run simultaneously — AI Everything Singapore, GISEC Asia, Global Data Centres Asia, GITEX Digi Health, and GITEX Quantum Asia — concentrating deal-flow across verticals in a single venue. ### Current Signal The 2026 edition commercializes AI infrastructure deployment and OT/cyber-physical security. Alpha entities on the program include Standard Chartered's COO/CIO Alvaro Garrido (deploying SC GPT across banking operations), Temasek's Cybersecurity Director Tien San Chng (governing a USD $300B+ portfolio), CIMB's Chief Data & AI Officer Pedro Uria-Recio (scaling AI across Southeast Asia's fifth-largest bank), and AdaniConneX CEO Jeyakumar Janakaraj (building hyperscale data center infrastructure across Asia). The Supernova pitch competition carries a SGD 60,000 prize pool. The Singapore EDB anchors the Connexions Lounge, signaling direct government-backed market entry support. ### Why It Matters This is a high-velocity fundraising and procurement stage. The Investor Lounge runs curated 1-on-1 matchmaking between vetted startups and capital allocators. The ASEAN CXO Club and Digital Nations Ministerial Roundtable give founders direct access to public-sector procurement decision-makers — the actual buyers for AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and smart city contracts across ASEAN governments. ### Ecosystem Context Gitex AI Asia sits upstream from Series B deployment in Southeast Asia. Founders use it to generate qualified investor introductions and government procurement leads before committing to regional office expansion. It feeds deal flow into Singapore's EDB-backed market entry programs and connects directly into the Dubai GITEX Global pipeline, giving portfolio companies a documented path from ASEAN proof-of-concept to Gulf sovereign fund engagement. ### The UpNext Rationale This event unlocks two assets unavailable at most regional shows: direct access to sovereign-linked capital (Temasek, Vertex Holdings, Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority) and closed-door ministerial engagement through the Digital Nations Roundtable. For founders targeting ASEAN public sector contracts or cross-border expansion into the Gulf, no other April event in Asia concentrates this combination of regulatory gatekeepers and institutional capital in one venue. Official Site: [https://gitexasia.com](https://gitexasia.com/?ref=upnext.world) Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### Gitex Africa Morocco 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/gitex-africa-morocco-2026-upnext-briefing/ Last updated: 2026-03-29T04:35:18.000Z ### Event Overview Gitex Africa Morocco 2026 runs April 7–9 in Marrakech. The density is specific: 390+ active investors managing $350B+ in AUM operating alongside 1,500+ exhibitors and a startup cohort competing through the North Star Africa and Supernova Challenge tracks. This is a capital-deployment floor, not a networking mixer. The ratio of institutional money to early-stage companies makes it one of the highest-density deal environments on the continent. ### Current Signal The 2026 anchor thesis is "African Intelligence" — AI commercialization applied to fintech, data infrastructure, and agritech. Key operators on stage include Yasser Shaker (CEO, Orange Middle East and Africa), Leila Serhan (SVP & GM North Africa, Visa), Obaid Amrane (CEO, Ithmar Capital), and Caitlin Burton (CEO, Zipline Africa). These are buyers and deployers, not researchers. The Data Centres Africa track addresses a structural gap: Africa hosts under 1% of global data center capacity against 55% enterprise cloud adoption — a $28B infrastructure deficit by 2030 that hyperscalers are actively moving to close. ### Why It Matters This is a fundraising stage with regulatory access layered in. The Founders & Venture Summit runs structured 1:1 investor matching. Government ministers from 145 countries attend, making it one of the few venues where a Series A founder can close a commercial pilot with a sovereign buyer and a VC term sheet in the same week. ### Ecosystem Context Gitex Africa sits upstream from Series B closes in London, Paris, and Dubai. Founders who surface here with traction get routed into the broader GITEX Global network. It functions as the primary pre-qualification filter for pan-African deals before they reach European and Gulf-based growth funds. ### The UpNext Rationale This event unlocks direct access to the Francophone and Anglophone African operator class simultaneously — a combination no other single event delivers at this scale. For the UpNext network, it surfaces infrastructure and fintech plays at the exact moment sovereign digital budgets are being allocated under Morocco's Digital 2030 mandate and similar national programs across the Big Four markets. Official Site: https://gitexafrica.com/ Are you pitching or attending? Join the UpNext Directory to signal your intent. ### CIX Startup Awards: Canada Bets on Infrastructure URL: https://upnext.world/cix-startup-awards-canada-bets-on-infrastructure/ Last updated: 2026-03-27T11:47:32.000Z The [CIX Summit](http://cixsummit.com/?ref=upnext.world) powered by [Elevate](http://www.elevate.ca/?ref=upnext.world) lives up to its tagline,*“Where deals get done.”* The 2026 cohort tests whether Canadian institutional capital will back ventures with 7–10 year timelines, regulatory moats, and physical deployment constraints. This marks a shift from the SaaS-heavy cohorts of prior years. The change reflects a maturing ecosystem: Canadian LPs and strategics are backing hardware, regulated health, and climate infrastructure with longer timelines and higher capital intensity. Canada’s advantage is showing up in sectors that demand technical depth, regulatory navigation, and defensible IP. The UpNext team was on-site, with our founder moderating a session on municipal partnerships. [Scooty](https://www.ridescooty.com/?ref=upnext.world) outlined how they navigate procurement cycles and use pilots to enter city contracts. Startups in these markets are optimizing for trust, compliance, and repeatability across jurisdictions. --- ### What Stood Out The 2026 winners show where Canadian capital is placing its highest-conviction bets. - **Defense and dual-use tech are now fundable categories.** Xubin Aerospace’s presence in the Emerging tier signals that Canadian investors are backing ventures selling into defense procurement, a category long dominated by U.S. primes. - **Climate ventures are moving from pilots to revenue.** Eavor Technologies in the Growth tier and WeavAir in Early demonstrate that geothermal and carbon capture companies can scale past $10M in revenue despite long sales cycles and infrastructure buyers. - **Regulated health tech is attracting institutional capital.** Qidni Labs and Sonaro show that diagnostic and clinical-grade ventures can secure early traction despite FDA and Health Canada timelines, marking a shift away from consumer health apps. - **Female leadership is concentrated in hard tech, not consumer.** Hiiive’s Growth-stage win reflects a shift from neobanks to B2B financial infrastructure serving underbanked segments, aligning with how institutional buyers deploy capital. - **Fintech is maturing into embedded infrastructure.** Hiive's Growth-stage win reflects a pivot from neobanks to B2B financial infrastructure serving underbanked segments, aligning with where institutional buyers deploy capital. --- ## The CIX Startup Awards The CIX Startup Awards spotlight emerging companies across Canada’s innovation ecosystem, spanning stages and sectors. While no winners or finalists were disclosed for this edition, the cohort reflects the range of ventures gaining traction. Below is a closer look at selected startups. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/03/CIX-Summit-2026-Elevate-Mar25-4644--1--1-1.jpg) ## 2026 Emerging Category Recipients ### [Cashew](https://www.cashewresearch.com/?ref=upnext.world) Founder: [Addy Graves](https://www.linkedin.com/in/addy-graves-56547030?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Cashew is an AI-powered market research platform that automates research workflows while connecting companies with verified human respondents to deliver insights in days instead of weeks. **Problem:** Traditional market research is slow, expensive, and service-heavy, making it difficult for companies to gather external consumer feedback at the speed business decisions require. **What stood out:** While competitors turn to synthetic or recycled data, Cashew gathers fresh human insight for every study—a deliberate choice that preserves the reliability of consumer feedback even as automation handles the operational work. **Traction:** The company is approaching $1 million in revenue with over 30 subscription customers and has grown three times year-over-year. Cashew won the Enterprise Stage pitch competition at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.. **Why it matters:** Companies can now run more studies without sacrificing data quality, which means product and marketing decisions get tested against real consumer preferences before significant capital is deployed. ### [Elle, MD](https://ellemd.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Jennifer Johnston**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-johnston-md-703a78239?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Elle, MD is developing a once-monthly, non-hormonal copper vaginal ring designed for user-controlled contraception. **Problem:** About half of women discontinue hormonal birth control within the first year due to side effects, while non-hormonal options remain limited and often invasive. **What stood out:** The ring delivers copper vaginally rather than in the uterus, which is designed to avoid the heavy bleeding and cramping associated with copper IUDs while maintaining contraceptive effectiveness without requiring a clinical procedure. **Traction:** The company has raised $1.2 million in combined dilutive and non-dilutive funding and completed proof-of-concept sheep studies showing 100% contraceptive efficacy at the highest dose tested. **Why it matters:** A self-inserted, non-hormonal contraceptive that avoids both systemic side effects and invasive procedures could address a significant gap for the millions of women seeking effective alternatives to hormonal birth control. ### [PRE](https://askpre.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Parham Aarabi**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/parhamaarabi?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** PRE converts LLM outputs into probabilistic confidence levels, enabling multi-step reasoning chains that reduce hallucinations in complex decision-making tasks like marketing optimization and predictive modeling. **Problem:** LLMs return answers with implied certainty even when accuracy is low, making them unreliable for decisions requiring nuanced judgment. **What stood out:** PRE uses Monte Carlo simulation to assign probabilities to LLM responses at each reasoning step, allowing downstream decisions to account for uncertainty without significant token overhead. **Traction:** The company has 5 large enterprise customers and 6 patents pending. **Why it matters:** By making LLM reasoning probabilistic, PRE enables enterprises to deploy AI in high-stakes workflows where overconfidence has historically limited adoption. ### [Sonaro](https://sonaro-ai.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Karina Gasbarrino**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/karina-gasbarrino/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sonaro's Vaso3D software converts standard 2D ultrasound scans into 3D models of carotid arteries to assess stroke risk and detect high-risk plaques in under 10 minutes. **Problem:** Traditional 2D ultrasound exams for stroke risk are operator-dependent, take 30 minutes to an hour, and result in misclassification rates around 30%. **What stood out:** The software works with existing ultrasound machines and guides clinicians through the scan in real time, removing the need for specialized vascular expertise while automating the analysis. **Traction:** The company has completed early clinical validation with Johns Hopkins and other U.S. sites, secured over $700,000 in non-dilutive funding, and is closing an $800,000 CAD pre-seed round with approximately 60% committed. **Why it matters:** By making 3D vascular diagnostics hardware-agnostic and significantly faster, Sonaro enables stroke risk screening in primary care and community settings where specialized sonographers are unavailable. ### [Xubin Aerospace](https://xubinaerospace.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Mostafa Najafiyazdi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mnajafiyazdi?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Xubin Aerospace's Eagle Vision detects and classifies drones from electro-optical and infrared video by extracting their aerodynamic signatures—the air disturbance patterns created by rotors and airframes. **Problem:** Traditional counter-drone sensors struggle in urban environments and RF-contested conditions, where drones can operate silently or jamming disrupts detection. **What stood out:** The system uses physics-based detection that remains functional even when drones emit no radio signal, addressing a gap that radar and RF sensors cannot close in cluttered or electromagnetically contested settings. **Traction:** Eagle Vision completed a five-day field trial with Canada's Department of National Defence through the IDEaS CUAS Sandbox program and won a NATO innovation hackathon focused on counter-UAS. **Why it matters:** As drones increasingly operate autonomously without RF emissions, passive aerodynamic detection provides a sovereign sensing capability for securing critical infrastructure and military operations in conditions where conventional sensors fail. --- ## 2026 Early Category Recipients ### [Qidni Labs](https://qidni.life/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Morteza Ahmadi**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mortezaahmadi?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Qidni Labs builds a portable, battery-powered hemodialysis device that runs on standard saline solution without requiring tap water, water purification systems, or continuous electricity. **Problem:** Traditional dialysis machines need massive water purification infrastructure and up to 120 liters of ultrapure water per session, making treatment impossible in rural, remote, or disaster settings. **What stood out:** By eliminating the water infrastructure entirely, the device makes dialysis viable in field hospitals, earthquake zones, and off-grid locations where blood purification was previously unavailable. **Traction:** The company has built three device generations and completed clinical testing on 15 patients in Canada. **Why it matters:** Removing infrastructure dependencies opens dialysis access in emergency response scenarios and underserved geographies where 10 million kidney failure patients currently have no treatment options. ### [WeavAir](http://weavair.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Natalia Mykhaylova**](https://sg.linkedin.com/in/natalia-mykhaylova?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** WeavAir fuses IoT sensor networks with satellite data to create high-resolution Digital Twins of infrastructure, delivering real-time, verifiable sustainability data for financial institutions and enterprises. **Problem:** ESG and carbon reporting relies on self-reported estimates and infrequent audits, preventing capital from flowing efficiently into decarbonization because insurers and lenders cannot accurately price climate risk or verify impact. **What stood out:** WeavAir anchors localized ground sensor data—capturing emissions and structural health—to satellite intelligence, creating audit-ready verification that makes sustainability performance bankable for insurance and green lending. **Traction:** The company has deployed infrastructure pilots globally, integrated with financial institutions for ESG risk assessment, and expanded across 6 countries in under 4 years. **Why it matters:** By providing the precision needed to turn environmental performance into a financial asset, WeavAir addresses the $1 trillion trust gap blocking capital deployment in climate infrastructure. ### [LiORA](https://joinliora.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Steve Siciliano**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-siciliano-87b63a42?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** LiORA deploys AI-powered sensor hardware that continuously monitors contaminated soil and groundwater at industrial sites, turning subsurface data into predictive insights that forecast contamination movement. **Problem:** Operators rely on infrequent manual sampling, leaving them blind to how contamination moves underground between quarterly tests. **What stood out:** LiORA combines proprietary sensors with predictive software in a single platform, generating continuous subsurface data that trains models to forecast where contamination spreads next. Every deployment feeds a proprietary dataset of over 400 million environmental records, creating a data moat that strengthens prediction accuracy over time. **Traction:** The company operates 420 sensors across 57 North American sites and reports clients are reducing remediation costs by 30%. **Why it matters:** Continuous monitoring shifts environmental remediation from reactive cleanup to predictive intervention, compressing timelines and lowering asset retirement obligations for industrial operators. ### [MedMe Health](https://www.medmehealth.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Purya Sarmadi**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/purya?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** MedMe Health provides an operating system for pharmacies to schedule, document, and deliver clinical services like vaccinations, prescribing, and chronic disease management. The platform integrates with existing pharmacy software and includes AI agents to expand service capacity without additional staff. **Problem:** Pharmacy software was built for dispensing drugs, not managing patient care, leaving pharmacists unable to scale clinical services despite expanded scope of practice. **What stood out:** The platform functions as infrastructure that connects pharmacies to adjacent healthcare markets—medical devices, digital therapeutics, peptides—positioning them as a consumer entry point for emerging care models rather than just a dispensary. **Traction:** Used by over 4,500 pharmacies in North America, with $7M ARR in Canada and $300K ARR across 150 U.S. pharmacies in 20 states within months of launch. **Why it matters:** As primary care access shrinks, pharmacies are absorbing frontline clinical work, and MedMe provides the infrastructure to make that transition operationally viable at scale. ### [Pontosense](https://www.pontosense.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Alex Qi**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alexqi?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Pontosense builds a contactless wireless sensor that uses mmWave radar and AI to monitor falls, inactivity, sleep, and mobility changes in the home without cameras, microphones, or wearables. **Problem:** Families and care teams struggle to monitor older adults aging at home because cameras invade privacy and wearables are frequently forgotten or refused. **What stood out:** The radar-based approach removes the compliance burden entirely—monitoring happens passively in the background, which means continuous data collection without requiring behavior change from users who may resist traditional devices. **Traction:** The company raised $4.36M in Series A and is running active pilots and rollouts in the UK. **Why it matters:** Eliminating the need for user participation makes continuous home monitoring viable for populations that have historically rejected assistive technology, expanding who can safely age in place. --- ## 2026 Growth Category Recipients ### [Hiive](https://www.hiive.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Sim Desai**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sim-desai-a357aa11?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Hiive operates a centralized marketplace for buying and selling shares in private, venture-backed companies. The platform provides real-time pricing data and automates secondary transactions for shareholders, investors, and issuers. **Problem:** Private company shareholders lack standardized infrastructure to access liquidity before an exit event.**What stood out:** Hiive built a coherent product roadmap that integrates pricing, execution, and compliance into a single workflow, rather than offering fragmented point solutions. This approach reduces friction across the entire transaction lifecycle.**Traction:** The company reached a $100 million revenue run rate as of February 2026.**Why it matters:** Standardizing secondary transactions creates a more efficient private capital market as companies delay public listings and employees hold equity longer. ### [Venn](https://www.venn.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Saud Aziz**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/azizsaud?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Venn provides Canadian businesses with a unified platform to manage banking, issue corporate cards, make global payments, and automate financial workflows. **Problem:** Canadian companies rely on outdated banking infrastructure built for large corporations, forcing them to juggle multiple banks, payment tools, and FX providers while facing high fees and manual reconciliation work. **What stood out:** Venn built its financial rails from the ground up rather than layering new interfaces over legacy systems, allowing the company to ship product improvements faster and create a genuinely integrated platform instead of stitching together third-party services. **Traction:** The platform serves over 5,000 businesses, generates more than $10M in annual recurring revenue, and has raised $26.5M in funding through Series A+. **Why it matters:** By replacing fragmented financial tooling with purpose-built infrastructure, Venn gives growing Canadian companies access to the modern banking capabilities that have been standard in other markets for years. ### [Eavor Technologies](https://eavor.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Mark Fitzgerald**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/mark-fitzgerald-61004497?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Eavor Technologies operates a closed-loop geothermal system that circulates fluid through underground wellbores to extract heat via conduction, generating baseload electricity without requiring naturally occurring water reservoirs or permeable rock formations. **Problem:** Traditional geothermal energy is limited to specific geological zones with underground water and high permeability, restricting its deployment as a scalable fossil fuel alternative. **What stood out:** The closed-loop design decouples geothermal generation from geographic constraints, making the technology deployable wherever drilling can reach sufficient depth and heat—effectively expanding the addressable market beyond volcanic regions. **Traction:** The company achieved first electricity production and grid connection at its commercial-scale facility in Geretsried, Germany in late 2024, and recently closed a $65 million funding round. **Why it matters:** Closed-loop geothermal offers 24/7 baseload power without emissions or fuel dependency, addressing grid reliability needs as electrification and data center demand accelerate globally. ### [Loopio](http://www.loopio.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Zak Hemraj**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/zakhemraj/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Loopio provides an AI-powered response management platform that automates answers to RFPs, DDQs, and security questionnaires by centralizing company knowledge and streamlining collaboration across teams. **Problem:** Responding to complex business questionnaires requires manually tracking down scattered information from multiple subject matter experts, slowing sales cycles and draining internal resources. **What stood out:** Loopio treats institutional knowledge as a structured, reusable asset rather than requiring teams to rebuild answers from scratch for each request, which directly reduces the time revenue teams spend on non-selling activities. **Traction:** The company has raised over $200M in growth equity funding and operates as a category leader serving a large enterprise customer base. **Why it matters:** As procurement processes become more security-focused and rigorous, automating response workflows allows companies to accelerate deal cycles without overburdening internal experts. --- ## What Gets Built Next This cohort signals that Canadian capital is underwriting complexity. Defense aerospace, geothermal systems, and clinical diagnostics require multi-year sales cycles, regulatory clearance, and physical deployment—constraints that filter for execution over narrative. The winners are building for procurement committees and infrastructure buyers, not product-led growth funnels. The shift from SaaS to hard tech reflects where institutional LPs see durable moats: technical depth, regulatory approval, and government contracts. These businesses are not built for rapid iteration. They demand patient capital, domain expertise, and the ability to navigate compliance as a core competency. The 2026 cohort points to an ecosystem moving beyond growth-at-all-costs and into sectors where time to revenue is measured in years. We will continue tracking the founders and systems shaping what is UpNext in the global economy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Synapse Competition: Medical Device Founders Build for Buyers, Not Labs URL: https://upnext.world/synapse-competition-medical-device-founders-build-for-buyers-not-labs/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T18:13:05.000Z The 2026 [Innovation Factory’s Synapse Life Science Competition](http://synapselifescience.com/?ref=upnext.world) tested whether Ontario's academic health-tech pipeline could produce commercially viable medical device companies. Thirteen startups entered the three-month program pairing technical founders with business students to stress-test commercialization plans. Five finalists pitched live, and the cohort composition revealed a clear pattern: hardware-enabled diagnostics and therapeutics designed for deployment, not just clinical validation. This year's finalists demonstrated fluency in regulatory strategy, manufacturing economics, and buyer workflows. NovaSonix Healthcare won with ultrasound technology for musculoskeletal disease monitoring. Epiloid Biotechnology placed second with brain organoid drug screening platforms. Better Bionics took third with AI-generated prosthetics. The shift is clear—life science founders now articulate paths to revenue before seeking venture capital. --- ### What Stood Out The finalist cohort reflected a maturation in how early-stage medical device companies approach commercialization. - Founders presented regulatory pathways and manufacturing timelines as core product features, not post-funding concerns - Hardware solutions targeted specific clinical workflows with defined buyer economics, moving beyond research validation - Diagnostic and therapeutic technologies emphasized non-invasive deployment and integration into existing care infrastructure - Companies demonstrated traction through partnerships with clinical institutions and quality management systems already in development - The winning pitch centered on market access strategy and reimbursement logic, not just technical differentiation --- ## The Competition The Synapse Competition is a startup pitch event that brings together early-stage companies working in healthcare and medical technology. It provides a platform for founders to present their innovations to investors, industry experts, and potential partners. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/03/Randa-Mudathir-NovaSonix-1.JPG) ## The Winner ### [NovaSonix Healthcare Inc.](https://novasonixhealthcare.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Randa Mudathir**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/randa-mudathir?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** NovaSonix develops MSKNovaVue™, a hardware attachment and AI-powered software suite that converts standard 2D ultrasound machines into real-time 3D scanners for musculoskeletal imaging. **Problem:** Diagnosing joint and tissue conditions typically requires expensive MRIs with long wait times, while conventional ultrasound lacks the volumetric depth to accurately quantify inflammation or damage. **What stood out:** The approach upgrades existing ultrasound infrastructure rather than replacing it, delivering MRI-like 3D insights without requiring new capital equipment or specialized facilities. **Traction:** NovaSonix was selected as a finalist for the 2026 Synapse Life Science Competition and has completed clinical validation studies at Robarts Research Institute. **Why they won:** By making volumetric musculoskeletal imaging accessible through standard ultrasound, NovaSonix could significantly reduce diagnostic costs and wait times for patients with chronic joint conditions. --- ## The Finalists ### [Better Bionics](https://betterbionics.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Ahmed Ibrahim**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/ahmed-ibrahim-68a549176?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Better Bionics develops the Dreamweaver Hand, a bionic prosthetic with 17 degrees of freedom, interchangeable fingers, and an ultra-lightweight skeleton designed for high-dexterity natural motion. **Problem:** Traditional prosthetic hands lack fine motor control, are heavy to wear, and difficult to repair, limiting long-term usability for amputees. **What stood out:** The modular, repairable design addresses both performance and longevity—users can replace individual components rather than discarding the entire device when parts wear out or break. **Traction:** The company was a finalist in the 2026 Synapse Life Science Pitch Competition and the 2026 Build a Biotech Competition, and reports over 16 design and utility awards. **Why it matters:** By making advanced prosthetics serviceable over time, Better Bionics is tackling the cost and waste barriers that have kept high-performance devices out of reach for many amputees. --- ### [Digits Health](https://digitshealth.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Caitlin Symonette**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/caitlin-symonette-955abb17?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Digits Health uses computer vision software to measure hand and wrist function—including range of motion, dexterity, and swelling—through any smartphone or camera. **Problem:** Hand and wrist conditions require repeated functional assessment, but current measurements rely on manual tools and in-person visits that are time-consuming and inconsistent. **What stood out:** The platform is hardware-agnostic and does not require specialized equipment, making objective hand function measurement accessible through standard devices already in clinical and home settings. **Traction:** The company has a patent pending, an MVP undergoing usability testing, and is in discussions with US partners to launch a market validation pilot in 2026. **Why it matters:** By turning any smartphone into a clinical monitoring tool, Digits Health enables scalable remote assessment for conditions that previously required in-clinic visits and specialized equipment. --- ### [Epiloid](https://epiloid.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Mark Aquilino**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/markaquilino?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Epiloid runs neuropharmaceutical assessments using human brain organoids to predict drug efficacy and toxicity before clinical trials. The platform screens candidates in 3D human tissue models rather than animal models. **Problem:** Less than 6% of neurology drugs reach market because traditional preclinical models fail to replicate human brain biology. **What stood out:** The company uses human brain organoids as the testing substrate, which more closely mirrors actual human response than animal models. This shifts the failure point earlier in development, when it's cheaper to abandon or refine candidates. **Traction:** Epiloid has raised Seed funding and secured grants from CABHI and the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. **Why it matters:** Earlier detection of drug failures could reduce the billions lost annually on neurological candidates that fail in late-stage trials. --- ### [Neuro-Mod](http://www.arst.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Stevie Foglia**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/stevie-foglia-phd-881802236?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Neuro-Mod develops ARISE, an augmented reality system that gamifies neck pain rehabilitation through interactive sensorimotor training. The platform uses AR glasses to guide patients through personalized exercises while tracking range of motion and progress. **Problem:** Physical therapy for chronic neck pain suffers from poor adherence—up to 70% of patients drop out due to travel burden and low engagement with traditional at-home exercises. **What stood out:** ARISE overlays virtual objects into the patient's real environment rather than fully immersing them in VR, avoiding nausea and vertigo while maintaining engagement. The system's AI adjusts daily training based on pain levels and performance, enabling clinicians to monitor remotely and reduce in-clinic supervision time. **Traction:** The platform is deployed across 10 clinical sites in the Hamilton area, with a non-exclusive distribution agreement through Magstim covering 3,000 clinics across Canada and the US. **Why it matters:** By making rehabilitation viable at home without side effects, Neuro-Mod addresses the adherence gap that limits outcomes in chronic pain management while enabling clinics to scale patient throughput. --- ## Standout Startups ### [Synod Intellicare](https://www.synodintellicare.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Constantine Rhaich'al**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/constantinerhaichal?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Synod develops software that detects and mitigates bias in healthcare algorithms in real time, integrating silently into existing clinical workflows via standard EHR APIs. **Problem:** Healthcare providers deploying clinical AI tools face unexplained disparities in patient outcomes and rising preventable readmission penalties tied to algorithmic bias. **What stood out:** The platform monitors fairness continuously without adding logins, alerts, or clicks for clinicians—routing bias metrics only to leadership dashboards when thresholds are exceeded. **Traction:** Completed MVP build of the flagship DDFA module, formed academic partnerships with one college and two universities, and is recruiting 10–12 pilot customers for 2026 deployment. **Why it matters:** As regulators classify healthcare AI as high-risk and tie reimbursement to equity outcomes, hospitals need defensible evidence that their algorithms are fair—or face financial and legal exposure. --- ### [DigiBiomics](http://www.digibiomics.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder: Meraj Khan** **Pitch:** DigiBiomics builds AI-driven diagnostic and treatment planning tools for healthcare providers, analyzing medical data to support clinical decision-making. The platform also offers Data as a Service to streamline workflows. **Problem:** Clinical research findings move slowly into practice, leaving providers without precise diagnostics or personalized treatment options. **What stood out:** DigiBiomics applies machine learning directly to clinical data to close the research-to-practice gap, positioning its tools as a bridge between evidence generation and bedside application. **Traction:** The company was selected as a finalist for the 2026 Synapse Life Science Pitch Competition and reports partnerships with academic and healthcare institutions. **Why it matters:** By embedding AI into clinical workflows, DigiBiomics accelerates the shift toward precision medicine where treatment decisions are data-informed rather than protocol-driven. --- ### [miRoncol](https://mironcol.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Victoria Xu**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/victoriawxu?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** miRoncol is developing a blood-based test that uses AI to detect microRNA signatures associated with over a dozen types of early-stage solid tumors. **Problem:** Most cancers are detected too late for effective treatment, and current screening programs only cover a few specific types. **What stood out:** The test is designed as a non-invasive pre-screen covering cancers that represent roughly 80% of incidence in men and 40% in women, shifting the model from reactive diagnosis to proactive, physician-guided early detection. **Traction:** The company was a finalist in the 2026 Synapse Life Science Pitch Competition, and the technology is built on peer-reviewed research and large-scale studies. **Why it matters:** Broad-spectrum early detection could enable intervention before tumors progress, fundamentally changing oncology care from late-stage treatment to early-stage management. --- ### [Sensible Vascular](http://www.sensiblevascular.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Kevin Macwan**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/kevinmacwan?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sensible Vascular is developing a fully integrated thrombectomy system to remove blood clots in stroke patients during mechanical interventions. **Problem:** Current clot-removal devices frequently fail to capture the entire clot on the first attempt, extending procedure times and increasing the risk of further brain damage. **What stood out:** The system is designed to improve first-pass success rates by integrating components that work together to capture clots more reliably, addressing a critical gap in neurovascular procedures where incomplete retrieval is common. **Traction:** The company was a finalist in the 2026 Synapse Life Science Pitch Competition and is a client of The Forge, McMaster University's incubator. **Why it matters:** Higher first-pass success in stroke interventions directly reduces mortality and improves long-term patient outcomes by minimizing the time brain tissue is deprived of blood flow. --- ### [Sielo Robotics](http://www.sielorobotics.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Evan Zeglinski-Spinney**](https://ca.linkedin.com/in/evanzs?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sielo Robotics builds an AI-assisted robotic arm that mounts to power wheelchairs, allowing users to perform daily tasks like eating, opening doors, and retrieving objects through voice control and semi-autonomous sequences. **Problem:** Individuals with limited upper-body mobility depend on caregivers for basic actions, reducing independence and increasing care costs. **What stood out:** The system uses semi-autonomous sequences to simplify complex movements, reducing the cognitive load of controlling a robotic arm and making assistive robotics more practical for everyday use. **Traction:** The company was selected as a finalist for the 2026 Synapse Life Science Competition and announced a distribution partnership with Houle Healthcare. **Why it matters:** By making assistive robotics easier to control, Sielo could reduce caregiver dependency and lower long-term healthcare costs for wheelchair users. ### Vrit Founder: Sushant Singh **Pitch:** Vrit is developing INSITE, a handheld bioprinting device that allows surgeons to print personalized bioinks and therapeutics directly onto wounds during procedures. **Problem:** Severe skin wounds typically require autografts, which involve harvesting skin from another part of the patient's body, creating secondary injuries and extending recovery time. **What stood out:** Vrit is moving bioprinting from lab-based systems to a portable device that works at the point of care, allowing surgeons to treat wounds without invasive grafting procedures. **Traction:** The company was a finalist in the 2026 Synapse Life Science Competition and is backed by University of Toronto Entrepreneurship, Creative Destruction Lab, and UTEST. **Why it matters:** By making advanced tissue regeneration accessible in operating rooms, Vrit could eliminate the need for painful secondary surgeries in wound treatment. --- ## Deployment Infrastructure Medical device startups now build for buyers before they build for investors. This cohort demonstrated fluency in regulatory timelines, manufacturing constraints, and reimbursement mechanics as foundational product decisions. The shift from lab validation to commercial readiness reflects founders who understand that clinical efficacy is necessary but insufficient—market access determines deployment. Ontario's life science pipeline is producing operators who treat FDA pathways and hospital procurement cycles as design constraints, not downstream problems. The companies that advance will be those that solve for adoption friction while maintaining technical performance. We will continue tracking the founders and systems shaping what is UpNext in the global economy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Scelta Helps Contractors Run Their Business the Way an Athlete Trains for Competition URL: https://upnext.world/contractor-operating-system-scelta-windsor/ Last updated: 2026-03-26T09:32:28.000Z Windsor-based Scelta was built from the inside out, one contractor problem at a time. The platform was designed by David Mill, a former competitive squash player who spent three years working inside contractor businesses before he ever tried to sell to them. What he found there became the foundation of an operating system that now supports over $800 million in development value and more than 1,000 tradespeople across Ontario. ### **The Kid Who Cleaned Windows to Fund a Dream He Hadn’t Named Yet** David Mill grew up between two worlds. His mother was a French teacher, his father a lawyer who believed his son should be more than one thing, and his nonna lived down the street where David learned Italian, ate well, and helped harvest the garden every season. Squash started at four years old when his father cut a racket in half and pointed him at the wall. It became his sport and his passport, taking him to Australia, New Zealand, Barcelona, and Fiji before most of his peers had left Ontario. In grade eight, he started a window cleaning business, hired his friends, loaded into his dad’s Volvo on weekends, knocked on doors until he had 350 client homes, and saved the money carefully. He knew he was going to need it for something. After a year at the National Squash Academy in Toronto training with the national team, he went to Western University to study Italian language and culture, captained the varsity squash team, and won four national titles in a row. Every summer, he came home, ran the window cleaning business, and took construction courses on the side. Real estate development fascinated him. The customer experience of a hotel, the way a space could make someone feel at home before they’d unpack a bag. He spent one summer in New Jersey working every post at a resort just to understand how it all fit together. ### **A Porsche Configurator and a Two-Bed Two-Bath Condo Changed Everything** After university, David wanted to go straight into real estate development. He had no capital, but he had a client list. One of the developers whose windows he had been cleaning for years eventually said yes to an internship, on the condition that David study construction project management at night. He did. He spent three years as a project coordinator managing four condos, meeting with hundreds of buyers in showrooms, writing their finish selections into spreadsheets, and carrying those spreadsheets to the site. He did this for three or four hundred people at a time. It was taking over everything. One night, he was playing around on a Porsche car configurator, and a thought landed. If he could design a car this way, there was no reason he couldn’t design a two-bed two-bath condo the same way. He called three software engineer friends, gave them $10,000 each from his window cleaning savings, and told them they had three months to build a prototype. His boss let him try it with 150 buyers. 110 of them configured their entire condos online without ever meeting David in person. Upgrade spending went up nearly 400 percent. He showed the prototype to his nonna, who was moving into her forever home. He had been taking her to showrooms for weeks, handing her swatches and paint strips that meant nothing to her. He put the configurator on her TV instead. She walked through every room, clicked through cabinets and handles and wall colours, and when she finally looked up, she said he had given her “potere di scelta.” The power of choice. That became the name. David incorporated Scelta and pursued it part-time. When he left his coordinator role to pursue Scelta full-time, the subcontractors he had worked with asked him to build software for their trades. He built field management tools, a client portal, and a real estate development map that eventually got him in front of city councils and mayors. Seven platforms in three years, each one following a friction he had watched from the inside, until what he had built was no longer a collection of tools but an operating system for the entire contractor business. ### **A Better Business and a Better Life Are the Same Project** David grew up training with high performers, and he knows what happens when the system around a performer fails to match the effort going in. That is what he kept seeing in the contractors he worked with. Skilled, driven, successful by most measures, and running themselves into the ground because nobody had ever handed them a framework for the business side of the life they were trying to build. Scelta now operates two offerings. Naldo handles real estate development visualization and marketing, and COS, the Contractor Operating System, installs habits, operations, sales, and marketing together for contractors. He buys his contractor clients Whoop trackers and talks about sleep and family time in the same conversation as revenue and systems. The moment that keeps him going is when a contractor tells him that because of the work they have done together, he can finally put his kids to bed at night. Scelta is bootstrapped and has been since the beginning. The company is now expanding into Michigan and London, Ontario, proving that what David built in Windsor can travel. The brand, the systems, and the service model are being tested in new markets, and the early results look great. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Could a Fly Be the Solution to Overfishing? URL: https://upnext.world/food-waste-protein-insect-aquafeed-finland/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T12:44:37.000Z While the aquaculture and pet food industries face a growing protein supply crisis, Jarna Hyvönen built Volare around a conviction that the raw material to fix it was already sitting in food factories being discarded. Her answer is the black soldier fly, a bioconversion process that turns the lowest-value food industry waste into high-quality protein meal, oil, and fertilizer, with a first industrial-scale factory now under construction in Pori, Finland. ## **She went to art school, studied economics, and ended up building a factory full of flies.** Jarna Hyvönen grew up in Espoo, just outside Helsinki, and took a path that didn’t follow a straight line. She attended a visual arts high school, then found herself drawn to economics, game theory, and the mechanics of how systems work. Social sciences became her degree, and management consulting became her business school. She spent years working with companies on strategy and operating models before joining Finland’s largest waste management company, where she held P&L responsibility for growth businesses in the circular economy. One of those businesses was a food waste reduction service that was eventually exited. By the time she heard about a small research team at VTT, Finland’s national research centre, she had spent nearly a decade watching the food system accumulate problems it wasn’t solving. Her co-founders, Matti and Tuure, had been at VTT since 2018, an engineer and an agronomist who came together to research the black soldier fly and how to turn food industry sidestreams into something the food chain actually needed. A former consulting colleague who had become a partner at Volare’s first investor connected her with the team before the company even had a name. She joined immediately, before the company had been spun out of VTT. Volare was founded in 2021. ## **The oceans are running out of fish, and the food industry is throwing away the solution.** 93% of global fish stocks are already maximally or overfished. Aquaculture has grown to fill the gap, with farmed salmon and other species increasingly feeding a world that wants more protein, particularly across Asia as wealth rises. But aquaculture itself depends on fish meal, protein made from wild-caught fish dried and processed into feed. The industry is scaling fast toward a supply wall it can already see. Jarna’s read on this was not that the world needed a new source of protein. It was that the source was already there, leaving food factories every day as waste. In Europe alone, 20% of food waste comes from processing and manufacturing, 17 million tons annually. Oat, wheat, corn, and other vegetable-based by-products are leaving factories as costs rather than as resources. Volare takes that material, feeds it to black soldier fly larvae, and lets biology do the work. The larvae process the biomass during their growth stage, living close together in boxes, much the same way they do in nature, converting what nobody wanted into something the feed industry needs badly. The outputs are protein meal for aquafeed and pet food, oil high in lauric acid for the chemical industry and animal gut health, and organic fertilizer for regenerative agriculture. Nothing else comes out. Not even wastewater. The technology Volare built around this process uses dry electric processing, which cuts energy use by 30% compared to conventional methods and eliminates fossil fuels from production entirely. Pet food products powered by Volare ingredients have been on shelves since 2022, and binding offtake agreements are in place with Skretting, a Nutreco company and one of the world’s leading aquafeed producers, as well as a major global chemical company. ## **Building for the market that exists today, and the gap that is coming regardless.** What drives Jarna is not difficult to locate in conversation. She talks about building something meaningful, about caring deeply about the purpose behind the company, about seeing the long-term trends in the food system clearly enough to know that acting now matters. But she is precise about something most founders in this space are not. Seeing where things are heading and building a business that works right now are two different problems, and she holds both at once. Traditional protein sources are still cheap relative to what they will cost when supply constraints bite harder. Long-term commitments in the food chain are still rare. The urgency the data points to is not yet fully reflected in market behaviour. So Volare builds on the terms the market offers today. The first industrial-scale factory, Volare-01, is a repurposed 10,000-square-metre printing house in Pori, Finland, with a production capacity of 5,000 tons of dry protein meal per year. It is halfway through construction and on track to begin serving customers in 2026\. After that, the plan is to multiply the turn-key factory model with agri-food partners globally who want to valorize their own sidestreams. Jarna describes herself as impatient, as someone who likes getting things done. She also joined the company before it had been spun out of VTT because she believed in what it was building. Both things are true, and together they explain how a factory full of flies ends up being the most considered answer to one of the food system’s most urgent problems. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-03-25/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T12:00:37.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*, your weekly briefing on the founders, stories, and signals shaping what’s coming next in global tech. This week, we are tracking momentum from *START Summit in St. Gallen*, alongside *CIX Summit in Toronto,* *Skinnovation in Austria*, and *Synapse in Hamilton*, where founders are building for real world deployment from day one. Beyond the pitches, we spotlight founder perspectives on leadership, strategy, and the signals emerging across Europe and North America. Across regions and sectors, one pattern continues to surface. Clarity wins. --- ### *Event Recap* ## START Summit At START Summit 2026 in St. Gallen, the shift was clear. Founders are moving beyond AI narratives and into execution, building companies designed for real world deployment from day one. The startup competition brought together early stage teams from across Europe, with a strong focus on commercialization, partnerships, and navigating regulated environments. ESTER Biotech GmbH took the top prize, highlighting continued momentum in research driven biotech. As part of the UpNext World Tour, we tracked the signals emerging from the Alpine innovation corridor. The direction is clear. Execution is now the differentiator. Read the full recap and featured founders below. [START Summit 2026: Europe Moves From AI Hype to Deep Tech ExecutionEurope’s student-run startup conference shifted from AI hype to deep tech commercialization. The Alpine region positioned itself as a structural advantage for industrial innovation, with founders moving from research prototypes to scalable companies.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-33.png)UpNext.WorldAqeela A. Somani![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/START-Summit-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/start-summit-2026-europe-moves-from-ai-hype-to-deep-tech-execution/) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. ### Recent Features [How a Turkish-American Mom Built the Marketplace for Children’s Activities That Turkey Was MissingA Turkish-American mother of two saw the gap between New Jersey and Turkey: parents searching for children’s activities with no dedicated platform to find them. She built Bulbi, a marketplace for kids aged 0-12, and reached the Web Summit Qatar semi-finals.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-38.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Seyma-pitching-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/children-activities-marketplace-turkey-bulbi/) [The South African Engineer Who Saw Half His Workforce Sitting Idle Built a Global Platform to Fix ItKirshen Naidoo spent 17 years watching engineering firms waste a third of their labor budget on idle engineers, then built Gig Engineer, a South Africa and Qatar-based platform that connects companies with on-demand engineering talent globally.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-37.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Kirshen-Naidoo-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/on-demand-engineering-platform-south-africa/) [Why 90% of Drug Candidates Fail and How AI Is Fixing the Broken FunnelBy screening millions of compounds computationally before lab work begins, Rayca Precision is shortening the path from molecular design to oncology treatments.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-36.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/unnamed--2--1-2.jpg)](https://upnext.world/ai-drug-discovery-computation-rayca-precision-behrouzi/) --- ## Ecosystem Partner Highlight ### CIX Summit — Toronto | Happening Today (Mar 25) CIX Summit returns to Toronto today as Canada’s most concentrated signal for venture-backed companies. The CIX Awards function as a curated deal flow engine, connecting top startups with North American capital through a selective, investor-led process. This year points to a shift toward deep tech and impact. Climate, health, and defense lead, with companies that are already vetted and in motion. The room reflects it. Conversations are closer to allocation than discovery. As part of the UpNext World Tour, we are on site capturing founder stories, investor sentiment, and early signals shaping Canadian innovation. If you are at CIX today, look out for our team. We are running pop up interviews and hosting a fireside. Come say hi. Learn more → [https://cixsummit.com/](https://cixsummit.com/?ref=upnext.world) ### Skinnovation — Austria | This Week (Mar 25–27) Skinnovation kicks off this week in Innsbruck, bringing together 1,000+ founders, investors, and operators for one of Europe’s more unconventional startup gatherings. From ski lift pitches to curated networking, the event blends strong deal flow with real community energy. As part of the UpNext World Tour, we are tracking signals emerging from the DACH region and connecting with founders building across Europe’s deep tech corridor. Learn more → [https://skinnovation.at/](https://skinnovation.at/?ref=upnext.world) ### Synapse — Hamilton | Happening Today (Mar 25) Synapse returns this week as Ontario’s premier life science pitch showcase, focused on moving medical innovation from lab to market. Organized by Innovation Factory, the program pairs technical founders with business talent to pressure test commercialization before they ever step on stage. This year’s finalists signal a shift toward applied robotics and digital health, with companies like Better Bionics, Sielo Robotics, DigiBiomics, and Sensible Vascular leading the cohort. The focus is clear. IP heavy, hardware enabled solutions built for real world deployment. More than a pitch event, Synapse is a commercialization engine. It surfaces research driven founders early, reducing execution risk and creating a pipeline of investable health tech companies across the Hamilton life science corridor. Learn more → [https://synapselifescience.com/](https://synapselifescience.com/?ref=upnext.world) --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road Here’s where the tour is heading next as we continue tracking emerging signals and spotlighting founders across global ecosystems. *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ## UpNext Global Partners As the UpNext World Tour expands, we are opening a limited number of partner conversations. We spotlight founders across global ecosystems, providing visibility, context, and narrative as they scale. We work across three tracks: **Ecosystem Partners** — Elevate your accelerator, EDO, or innovation program **Capital Partners** — Early visibility into emerging startups across markets **Growth Partners** — Bring expertise to founders actively scaling Interested in partnering? Let’s start a conversation. --- ### *Final Thought* ## Friction Is the Point I fixed my rear window this weekend. On a 25 year old BMW. And somewhere between ordering the part and installing it, I caught myself asking… Why am I still keeping this car? I could upgrade. Something newer. Predictable. But driving after, I realized I wasn’t solving a car problem. I was trying to remove friction. This car forces me to deal with things. Something breaks. I fix it. The loop closes. Everywhere else, life is getting smoother. AI, automation, on demand everything. No friction. But when everything is smooth, pressure doesn’t disappear. It just becomes harder to locate. The car gives me something real. A problem shows up. I deal with it. It’s done. Same in entrepreneurship. You take your shot. You miss. You go again. Most people don’t want to do that more than a few times. But if you’ve been doing it long enough, you know. You don’t remove friction. You decide where it lives. Gratefully, Edwin P.S. What are you still maintaining that others think you should have upgraded? > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### The Battery Industry Built for EVs Is Failing the Industries That Need It Most URL: https://upnext.world/industrial-battery-reliability-titanb-tiotech/ Last updated: 2026-03-25T11:51:12.000Z Anders Teigland grew up in Hardanger, a fruit-farming district on the west coast of Norway, in a village of about 100 people. He studied nanotechnology at Bergen, then went to Cambridge, joined a small Norwegian nanomaterials startup as a scientist, and eventually became its CEO. That startup is TioTech, and its product, TitanB, is an anode material for lithium-ion batteries designed specifically for the industries that run equipment all day, every day, in conditions that consumer battery technology was never built to handle. Mining operators, maritime fleets, logistics warehouses, and rolling stock operators need batteries that charge in minutes, last for decades, and work as reliably in the Arctic as they do in the desert. TitanB is built to do all of that. ## **From studying ant hills to moving dangerous goods through supply chains** As a child, Anders would spend hours watching ant hills, dropping a blueberry in to observe how the colony responded. He built small dams in rivers to see how water moved. He pulled things apart constantly, less interested in putting them back together than in understanding how they worked. He captained sports teams, ran local organizations, and, at one point, baked goods in his mother’s kitchen and sold them to neighbours as part of a youth program. The science and the leadership were always running in parallel. Nanotechnology drew him in because it felt like the frontier. At Bergen, and later at Cambridge, he found an environment that expanded what he thought was possible. He started a PhD in energy materials, focusing on gas storage, CO2 capture, hydrogen, and new battery materials. When TioTech’s founders invited him to join as a scientist, he already knew, from an exam question three years earlier, that titania was theoretically viable as a battery anode material. He left the PhD to join the startup because it was more interesting. When the founding CEO decided he could raise capital more effectively as chairman, the board asked Anders to take over, and he has been building the company in that role ever since. ## **An 80% solution that works every time is worth more than a perfect one that doesn’t** The battery industry has spent years optimizing for energy density, and Anders thinks that is the wrong metric for most of the applications that matter. “An 80% solution that works 100% of the time is a lot better than a 100% solution that only works 80% of the time.” In mining, maritime, and heavy logistics, a battery that degrades quickly, charges slowly, or fails in cold weather is not a minor inconvenience. It stops equipment running and pushes operators back toward diesel. TitanB replaces the graphite anode in a lithium-ion battery with a titanium dioxide nanomaterial, produced through a chemical bottom-up process using widely available feedstock. It charges to capacity in six minutes, delivers 90% uptime, operates safely across extreme temperatures, and carries a cycle life long enough to avoid replacement in continuous industrial use. Its safety profile is strong enough to remove the complex control systems conventional lithium-ion batteries require. TioTech has 22 granted patents across five families, a pilot production line running at 100 tonnes per year in Bergen, a battery cell development agreement with GUS Tech in Taiwan, and a technical sales agreement for battery systems with Admiral Energy in the UAE. ## **It’s time to stop pulling energy from the ground** “I hate inefficiencies,” Anders says, and it shows in how he thinks about the energy transition. For 150 years, humanity has extracted energy from the ground and used it. That era is ending, and replacing it requires a complete redesign of how energy is stored and moved, not just where it comes from. The industries TioTech serves are those where the redesign is most urgent and where conventional battery technology has done the least to help. The next step is scaling production from 100 tonnes per year to 2,000, supported by a EUR 10M raise currently underway, with a longer-term plan to reach 20,000 tonnes per year capacity by 2032\. The immediate work is converting existing pilots and validation studies into long-term offtake agreements, and Anders is focused on exactly that. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### START Summit 2026: Europe Moves From AI Hype to Deep Tech Execution URL: https://upnext.world/start-summit-2026-europe-moves-from-ai-hype-to-deep-tech-execution/ Last updated: 2026-03-24T09:05:34.000Z START Summit tested whether Europe's early-stage ecosystem could move beyond AI narratives and into industrial deep tech deployment. Held in St. Gallen, the conference served as a barometer for how student founders and pre-seed startups are responding to the end of easy capital and the demand for real technical moats. The Alpine region which spans from Geneva to Munich, was positioned as a structural advantage, not just a geographic descriptor. This year marked a deliberate pivot. The focus shifted to robotics, precision manufacturing, and applied research commercialization. The thesis: Europe's strength lies in translating scientific excellence into companies that build physical products with long development cycles and defensible IP. ## What Stood Out The 2026 edition revealed where Europe's earliest-stage founders are placing their bets. - **Deep tech founders outnumbered pure software plays**: Robotics, biotech, and industrial AI startups dominated booth applications and pitching competitions, signaling a shift from SaaS to hardware-intensive models - **Pre-seed founders arrived with technical co-founders, not pitch decks**: University spin-offs and research lab to commercialization, made up a larger share of attendees, reflecting longer timelines and capital intensity - **The Alpine axis was framed as a competitive advantage**: Dense networks of applied research institutions, precision manufacturing infrastructure, and engineering talent were positioned as Europe's answer to Silicon Valley's software dominance - **Revenue and deployment replaced growth metrics**: Conversations centered on customer pilots, manufacturing partnerships, and regulatory pathways rather than user acquisition or virality - **Capital followed constraint**: Investors prioritized startups solving problems in energy, defense, and industrial automation—sectors where technical barriers create natural moats --- ## The Competition START Summit featured a startup competition that brought together early-stage companies from across Europe. The competition provided a platform for founders to present their ventures to investors, industry leaders, and potential partners. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/03/ESTHER-START-WINNER-1-1.jpeg) ## Competition Winner ### [ESTER Biotech GmbH](http://www.esterbiotech.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Christian Sonnendecker**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-sonnendecker-2b1b6b1a2/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ESTER Biotech uses enzymes to break down PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) and multilayer plastics into molecular building blocks that can be reassembled into virgin-quality material. **Problem:** Mechanical recycling degrades plastic quality with each cycle and cannot process complex waste streams, leaving 90% of plastic unrecycled. **What stood out:** The enzymatic process works on materials that mechanical systems reject entirely such as multilayer packaging and contaminated streams. The process is without quality loss. Making previously unrecyclable waste into viable feedstock. **Traction:** ESTER Biotech won first place at the START Summit Pitching Competition and secured an EXIST Business Start-up Grant from the German federal government. **Why they won:** If enzymatic recycling scales, it could turn industrial plastic waste into a circular input for food-safe packaging without relying on virgin fossil resources. --- ## Startup Standouts ### ### [DeepPsy](https://deeppsy.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Mateo de Bardeci**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mateo-de-bardeci?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** DeepPsy analyzes EEG and ECG brain data to help psychiatrists select the most effective treatment for patients with depression, including medications like SSRIs and SNRIs, as well as interventions like rTMS, ketamine, and ECT. **Problem:** More than 8% of the Western population takes antidepressants. Treatment effectiveness remains below 50% because clinicians rely on trial and error. **Traction:** Over 1,000 pre-sales reports generated, reimbursement secured in Switzerland, and regulatory approvals live in Switzerland, the UK, and the UAE. DeepPsy is on it's way to getting EU Class IIa approval. **What stood out:** DeepPsy translates replicated EEG and ECG biomarkers from published clinical trials into actionable reports that guide treatment selection. This brings brain data into routine clinical workflows where it has historically been absent. **Why it matters:** If brain-based treatment selection replaces trial and error, psychiatry could shift from guesswork to precision treatment. Overall reducing recovery time and treatment costs in a field where standard approaches fail half the time. --- ### [Hemetron](https://hemetron.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Alexander Tanno**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-tanno-968a34170?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Hemetron builds a handheld device and test kits that measure inflammation markers like C-Reactive Protein from a blood sample at home, delivering lab-quality results to a smartphone app in minutes. **Problem:** Patients with chronic conditions rely on infrequent doctor visits for blood monitoring, which delays treatment adjustments and limits visibility into disease progression. **Traction:** Hemetron has completed six years of R&D, received Venture Kick funding, was named Venture Leader Medtech, and has full patient testing planned. **What stood out:** The device performs quantitative analysis without shipping samples to a lab, turning episodic clinical snapshots into continuous data streams that physicians can use to adjust therapies in real time. **Why it matters:** High-frequency home monitoring shifts chronic disease management from reactive to proactive, allowing clinicians to optimize treatments based on trends rather than isolated measurements. --- ### [Optohive](https://optohive.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Dominik Wyser**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominik-wyser?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Optohive builds HiveOne, a wearable brain imaging system using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to monitor brain activity, paired with OptoLytics software that analyzes the data for research and clinical use. **Problem:** Traditional brain imaging tools like fMRI are expensive, immobile, and confined to lab settings, limiting their use for real-world monitoring of neurological conditions. **Traction:** Optohive is a spinoff from research at ETH Zurich and University Hospital Zurich. They were the finalist for the Swiss Technology Award 2025 and are backed by Venture Kick and Innosuisse. **What stood out:** The system makes high-precision brain imaging portable. They are shifting neuroscience from controlled lab environments to everyday clinical and rehabilitation settings where continuous monitoring can inform treatment decisions. **Why it matters:** Wearable brain imaging enables objective, continuous data collection for personalized neurological care outside hospital walls. --- ### [OrthoSens](https://orthosens.ch/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Gwenael Hannema**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gwenael-hannema?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** OrthoSens embeds battery-free sensors inside standard orthopedic implants to monitor recovery in real time, turning implants into connected devices without changing surgical workflow. **Problem:** 30 million patients leave surgery each year with no data on healing until their next appointment. **Traction:** The company went from concept to working MVP in 12 months, filed 2 patents, signed a conditional sensor sale with a French implant OEM, secured 3 additional LOIs, and raised CHF 893k in non-dilutive funding. **What stood out:** The sensor is paper-thin, passive, and powered wirelessly by an external wearable, eliminating the battery that limits miniaturization and prevents use in spine, foot, and ankle surgeries. **Why it matters:** Battery-free sensing opens implant categories where powered devices cannot fit, expanding remote monitoring beyond knees into higher-revision procedures like spine fusions. --- ### [Skaaltec](https://skaaltec.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Dane Donegan**](https://ch.linkedin.com/in/dane-donegan?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Skaaltec developed SmartVNS, a wearable neurostimulation device that synchronizes non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation for stroke patient's daily movements to accelerate motor recovery at home. **Problem:** After short clinical windows, stroke survivors lose access to intensive medical-grade rehabilitation and lack tools to continue effective therapy independently. **Traction:** Spun out of ETH Zurich's RELab with backing from Venture Kick, Innosuisse, the ETH Foundation, and the Future of Health Grant. They are currently conducting clinical studies. **What stood out:** The system automates personalized therapy by detecting movement and delivering stimulation in real time, removing the need for surgical implants or constant clinical supervision. SmartVNS makes neuro-rehabilitation passive rather than protocol-dependent. **Why it matters:** Skaaltec shifts complex neuro-rehabilitation from clinic-only settings to continuous home use, expanding access to recovery tools for stroke survivors beyond traditional care windows. --- ### [SYDRA](https://sydra.bio/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Pavlo Mozharovskyi**](https://fr.linkedin.com/in/pavlomozharovskyi?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** SYDRA uses generative AI and autonomous robotics to screen and discover small molecules which are geroprotectors that extend healthspan and lifespan. **Problem:** Standard screening methods struggle to reliably identify compounds that impact complex longevity pathways in living organisms, making aging drug discovery slow and expensive. **Traction:** The company is backed by Swiss innovation programs Venture Kick and Venture Lab. **What stood out:** SYDRA closes the loop between computational prediction and biological validation by running AI-generated hypotheses directly through robotic experiments, removing the manual handoff that typically slows discovery cycles. **Why it matters:** If SYDRA's approach scales, it could industrialize the discovery of geroprotectors and shift aging research from academic labs into systematic drug development pipelines. --- ### [Kuafu AG](https://kuafu.ch/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Federica Bellizio**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/federica-bellizio-52314021b?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Kuafu operates a grid-edge orchestration platform that connects energy management systems with grid operators to optimize thermal and electrical assets through predictive control and real-time monitoring. **Problem:** Grid operators lack visibility into local energy assets while electrification of heating and mobility strains infrastructure without mechanisms to balance supply and demand dynamically. **Traction:** Backed by Founderful Campus and ESA BIC Switzerland (Cohort #19), selected for MassChallenge Switzerland 2025, and supported by Innosuisse and the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. **What stood out:** Rather than treating distributed energy resources as passive loads, Kuafu positions them as controllable grid assets that can respond to real-time balancing needs, creating a software layer between fragmented local systems and centralized grid operations. **Why it matters:** This approach enables grid stability through software coordination instead of expensive physical infrastructure upgrades as renewable penetration increases. --- ### [Neology](http://www.neology.ch/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Aris Maroonian**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arismaroonian?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Neology builds modular ammonia cracking systems and Ammonia Power Generators that convert ammonia into hydrogen for zero-emission electricity generation, targeting off-grid and industrial applications as a diesel generator replacement. **Problem:** Diesel generators dominate off-grid power despite high emissions and noise, while batteries lack the energy density for long-duration or high-power industrial use. **Traction:** The company closed a $3.0M Seed round in 2025, demonstrated a 5kW generator for construction sites, and secured a 50kW ammonia cracker pilot. **What stood out:** Neology treats ammonia as a hydrogen carrier rather than building new hydrogen infrastructure, using existing global ammonia supply chains to deliver clean power where grid access is impractical. **Why it matters:** This approach creates a path to decarbonize construction sites and remote industrial operations without requiring new fuel distribution networks. --- ### [Planeto](https://planeto-energy.ch/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Stefano Cozza**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanocozza24?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Planeto provides software that automates the planning and design of 5th-generation district heating and cooling networks. The platform allows energy experts to analyze building stock, simulate hydraulic systems, and model financial scenarios for multi-source thermal energy projects. **Problem:** Designing district energy networks is a complex, manual process that slows down decarbonization efforts as engineers struggle to efficiently model multiple energy sources and financial viability. **Traction:** The company won CHF 150,000 from Venture Kick and has deployed its platform in projects across Switzerland, including working with utilities organizations and engineering firms. **What stood out:** Planeto digitizes a workflow that has traditionally required extensive manual engineering work, compressing the time needed to evaluate technical and financial feasibility for renewable thermal infrastructure projects. **Why it matters:** Faster design cycles for district heating networks can accelerate the deployment of renewable thermal energy infrastructure in cities where heat decarbonization remains a major bottleneck. --- ### [Winduction](https://www.winduction.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Sonam Bhuka**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonambhuka?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Winduction enables electric buses to charge wirelessly through their wheels during routine stops, eliminating cables and visible infrastructure. **Problem:** Public bus electrification forces trade-offs between battery size, infrastructure cost, grid load, and operations which leads to higher total cost and operational complexity. **Traction:** Winduction has secured four signed LOIs for pilot projects, raised an oversubscribed CHF 1.15M pre-seed round, and has two pending patent families. **What stood out:** The wheel-based architecture minimizes the air gap between transmitter and receiver, enabling higher power transfer per wheel and better efficiency than competing systems that rely on larger gaps or centralized receivers. **Why it matters:** By shifting charging from infrastructure-heavy nodes to distributed stops, Winduction reduces total cost of ownership by up to 35% while enabling 24/7 bus operations without downtime. --- ### [Riverkin](https://www.riverkin.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Jessica Droujko**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicadroujko?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Riverkin deploys ultra-low power sensor networks in freshwater ecosystems to measure water flow, temperature, and sediments in real time. The company pairs ground-level sensors with predictive software to deliver granular environmental data. **Problem:** Satellite imagery lacks the local resolution needed to detect floods, landslides, and pollution early enough for communities and industries to respond. **Traction:** The ETH Zurich spin-off raised CHF 1.7M in late 2025 and has deployed 26+ sensors with over 12 months of field runtime. **What stood out:** Riverkin provides the ground-truth layer that satellite data misses, creating a complete view of watershed conditions. This combination enables prediction at the local scale where decisions are made. **Why it matters:** High-resolution water data becomes essential infrastructure as extreme weather and scarcity intensify pressure on freshwater systems. --- ### [WasteFlow](https://wasteflow.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Théophile Agresti**](https://ch.linkedin.com/in/theophile-agresti?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** WasteFlow retrofits AI-powered sensors across recycling conveyor lines to detect hazardous materials, prevent fires, and provide real-time visibility into what flows through the facility. **Problem:** Most waste sorting facilities operate blind, with no real-time visibility into conveyor contents, leading to fires from undetected lithium batteries and significant unplanned downtime. **Traction:** The company has signed 24 sensors, generated 250k CHF in revenue, and deployed across facilities in Switzerland, France, and Spain. **What stood out:** WasteFlow deploys sensors across the entire conveyor line—not just isolated points—and automatically stops the line when dangerous objects are detected, turning monitoring into active intervention. **Why it matters:** By giving facilities end-to-end visibility and automated hazard response at a fraction of traditional costs, WasteFlow addresses a structural blind spot that has caused billions in lost value and hundreds of fires annually. --- ### [Blueprint Crusher](https://www.blueprintcrusher.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Jason Park**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-c-park?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Blueprint Crusher automates bill of quantities generation and cost estimating from construction tender documents using AI. **Problem:** Estimators spend 60–80% of their time organizing unstructured PDFs and spreadsheets instead of pricing or strategy. **Traction:** Blueprint Crusher has paying customers generating €5,000 MRR in Ireland. **What stood out:** The platform processes tender files directly without requiring integration into existing systems, removing a common barrier to adoption in construction workflows. **Why it matters:** Digitally efficient contractors achieve 10–12% margins compared to the 5–6% industry average, making bid automation a direct path to profitability. --- ### [**Downstream Intelligence**](https://downstreamintelligence.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Sandy Glickman**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanfordglickman?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Downstream Intelligence uses AI and machine learning to predict geopolitical events and simulate their knock-on effects. **Problem:** Policymakers, financial institutions, and businesses have been too slow to react to major macro shocks like COVID and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, leading to significant economic and humanitarian costs. **Traction:** The model has achieved 88% ROI over Polymarket in open testing, with beta users at large asset managers and governments, plus a 400+ person waitlist. **What stood out:** The team built a proprietary recursive knowledge graph that connects actors, events, and event types to separate signal from noise in geopolitical forecasting. Their combined expertise spans the UN, MIT mathematics, quant finance, and the IMF. **Why it matters:** If accurate geopolitical forecasting becomes accessible at scale, institutions could shift from reactive crisis management to proactive risk mitigation. --- ### [Nordfen](https://nordfen.ch/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Philip Cherupallikattu**](https://ch.linkedin.com/in/philip-cherupallikattu?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Nordfen builds physics-accurate simulation software that creates digital twin environments for training AI agents and remotely operated vehicles. **Problem:** Testing autonomous systems in the real world is expensive, risky, and constrained by logistics. **Traction:** The company is part of NVIDIA Inception Program and supported by Swiss Game Hub and ETH Student Project House, with a team of approximately eight engineers. **What stood out:** The platform generates high-fidelity virtual environments that replicate real-world physics, allowing developers to validate edge cases and performance scenarios that would be impractical to reproduce in field trials. **Why it matters:** As autonomous fleets scale, physical testing becomes a deployment bottleneck; virtual certification infrastructure removes the cost barrier to proving safety and readiness before real-world operation. --- ## Deployment as the New Benchmark This cohort signals a structural shift in how Europe's earliest-stage founders define progress. The move from AI hype to deep tech execution reflects a broader recalibration: startups are being built around manufacturing timelines, regulatory pathways, and capital-intensive R&D cycles. The Alpine region's concentration of applied research institutions and precision engineering infrastructure is being treated as a competitive advantage, not a constraint. The founders who showed up in St. Gallen arrived with technical co-founders, customer pilots, and defensible IP. They are building companies where the product is inseparable from the constraints such as long development cycles, hardware dependencies, and regulatory approval processes. This is not a retreat from ambition. It is a recognition that the next wave of European startups will be defined by their ability to commercialize research, scale manufacturing, and deploy solutions into industries where software alone cannot compete. We will continue tracking the founders and systems shaping what is UpNext in the global economy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### How an Ex-Google Engineer Built an AI Platform to Fix Early-Stage Startup Funding URL: https://upnext.world/startup-investor-platform-ai-investability-score/ Last updated: 2026-03-19T14:44:29.000Z The tools connecting early-stage startups to investors have barely changed in twenty years. Founders still fill out TypeForms with sixty fields. Investors still sort through hundreds of disconnected applications with no reliable way to rank them. The platforms built to solve this were designed for investors already inside the system, and none of them talk to each other. Chris Coomes saw all of this firsthand, first as a program manager at Google, then as an angel investor who could not remember the first startup application he reviewed by the time he reached the twentieth. He built X1 Pipeline to fix it. **The engineer who couldn’t let inefficiency win** Coomes grew up in Akron, Ohio, wanting to be president of the United States. He wanted to make real change without being corrupted by outside influence, to do the right thing regardless of who was pushing back. That ambition never quite left him. It just took a long route to find its form. He studied mechanical and industrial engineering at the University of Toledo, went into consulting for OEMs, became an engineering manager at Amazon, then spent eight years at Google building manufacturing automation and robotics across its data centres and logistics facilities, working alongside the person who would later become his co-founder at X1 Pipeline. When Google relocated the team to Seattle, Coomes and his family decided they were done. His wife is Czech, and they had come to love Europe. He quit, moved to Ljubljana, Slovenia, and became an angel investor. That is when the real problem revealed itself. ### The hundred applications he could not read Coomes was new to an angel investor group when they gave him access to their software with more than 100 startup applications and asked him to select 10 to pitch at an upcoming event. He got through twenty. By the time he reached the twentieth, he could not remember what the first company did. Every application had dozens of typed questions, documents in different formats, pages upon pages of text, none of it current, no reliable way to rank any of it. “I said, well, there’s a better way. We can fix this,” he recalls. “Startup founders should be building instead of filling out forms constantly.” As a Lean Six Sigma black belt who spent nearly a decade engineering process efficiency inside several of the world’s most complex organizations, Coomes could not accept the status quo. The tools the innovation ecosystem relied on had been built for a pre-AI world and had barely evolved in two decades. Nobody had fixed the underlying infrastructure. X1 Pipeline is built around the investability score, an AI-driven evaluation that assesses startups across nine indicators to produce a real-time measure of financial health, team strength, market traction, and more. Coomes likens it to a credit score for companies. The score holds stable unless something fundamental changes, and the report it generates tells founders exactly what an investor would flag and precisely what to fix. The AI was trained to think like an investor, and Coomes is clear that it is not a gentle one. “It tells you exactly what’s up,” he says. “Your friends and family say, oh, that’s the coolest company. Our investor says you’ll probably fail unless you fix all of this.” Founders come back repeatedly, running their score, acting on the report, tracking the improvement. Several have told Coomes the feedback matched exactly what investors said, which meant they already had the answers prepared. ### The companies that should not get shelved Coomes has known strong startups that failed because they could not get funding, not because the idea was bad, but because they lacked the network. An edtech founder who came out of education has never had a conversation with a venture capitalist and they shouldn’t have to build an investor network instead of building their company. A strong team in a region investors do not fly to only gets evaluated, if at all, by whoever happens to find their deck. The investability score evaluates every company on the same terms regardless of geography, background, or warm introductions. Every startup on X1 can be found by investors, a big change from today when investors only find startups who apply directly to them. A startup shouldn’t have to fill out thousands of investor forms to be found. “There shouldn’t be world changing things that are being shelved due to a founder not having a VC network and no way to systematically show off how amazing their company is” Coomes says. Over 10,000 startups have been evaluated on the platform through organic growth alone. He is raising a seed round to scale the user base, with an AI research assistant launching inside the platform as the next major feature. Coomes says they know they made it when the X1 profile becomes a standard field for social sharing, the wayevery application asks for your LinkedIn and Meta profiles. The kid from Akron who wanted to fix things without being corrupted by outside influence is still at it. He just found a different lever. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### The Icelandic Founder Who Built the B2B Website That Drives Itself URL: https://upnext.world/optise-b2b-website-optimization-iceland/ Last updated: 2026-03-19T14:38:01.000Z Ómar Thor Ómarsson spent years as a CMO and B2B agency director in Iceland watching startups burn through their budgets building great products that nobody could find, because their websites were invisible, unconvincing, and impossible to improve without a developer or an expensive agency. He built Optise, the world's first self-driving B2B website platform, to close that gap. The platform analyzes your site, tells you what to fix, and then fixes it automatically. **He hated banking, loved marketing, and never looked back** Ómar grew up in Reykjavik, the second youngest of four, with two older brothers who toughened him up and taught him the ropes. He played sports, loved music, and trained as a financial engineer before starting his career in banking and hating it. He escaped to Deloitte in Zurich, where every minute was accounted for, and the work ground him down. He knew he needed out. When a role opened at what would become Iceland's leading SaaS company, he snuck away on a fake sick day, flew home to interview, and got the job. That U-turn into marketing turned out to be the foundation of everything. He became CMO of a 150-person software company selling to banks across seven countries, and he quickly noticed something that would follow him for the next decade. Ninety-five percent of their leads came through the website, and nobody, not the agencies, not the tools, not the developers, could tell him how to make it perform better. He tried everything. He found nothing that felt like an answer. **The same problem, a hundred companies in a row** When Ómar left to run a B2B marketing agency in Reykjavik, he worked with over a hundred companies across Iceland and Europe. The problem was the same everywhere. Everyone knew the website was their most important revenue channel. Nobody had a system for improving it. "We don't have a clue about how to optimize it so it delivers the best results," he heard, over and over, from marketing teams that were capable, overstretched, and stuck in dev queues they couldn't control. What he saw, behind all of it, was a category built for the wrong goal. The DIY platforms like Webflow and Framer were design tools that left you stranded after launch. The legacy CMS platforms were clunky, expensive, and slow to change. Agencies handed over a finished website and walked away. Nobody was focused on continuous improvement, on the thousands of small iterations that compound over time into traffic, leads, and customers. "I look at it like a machine which has a ton of different parts," he says. The design is just lipstick on the front. Optise started as an analytics platform. Customers liked the data it produced and appreciated the recommendations. Then the feedback came back, consistent and clear. The advice was good, and they had no time to act on it. That response told Ómar where the real problem lived. The bottleneck was never knowledge but execution, so he built the second layer, a platform that doesn't just identify what to improve, it makes the improvement for you. Broken links, missing pages, weak meta tags, and content gaps are all flagged by the platform, which proposes fixes and automatically ships the changes when the owner clicks yes. **The tool he spent a decade not finding** What drives Ómar is the image he kept seeing at the agency. Brilliant startups with innovative products, invisible online, burning through runway because their website wasn't working, and they didn't know how to fix it. He wants to hand those companies back control, so that the website stops being a source of internal conflict and dependency on outside help and becomes the thing that brings in customers on its own. Backed by a $2.2 million pre-seed from Frumtak Ventures and working with twenty-four paying customers, Optise is expanding across the Nordics and into Western Europe and North America. Ómar is building toward the company that owns the category nobody else has claimed, the B2B website that drives itself. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### How One Italian Founder Is Funding Clean Water Projects Through a Browser Extension URL: https://upnext.world/clean-water-browser-extension-elliot-for-water/ Last updated: 2026-03-19T21:57:31.000Z Andrea Demichelis grew up in a fishing village on the Italian Riviera, one hour from the French border, where the Mediterranean set the rhythm of daily life. He was not thinking about water scarcity then. He was thinking about becoming a stockbroker. When he moved to Paris at 18 to study finance, he wanted to master the markets, accumulate enough by 40, and retire to a life funded by investment returns. Then a business school professor began a lecture on personality types. As he worked through one particular profile, Demichelis recognized himself in every line. The professor wrote on the board that people with this personality were best suited to entrepreneurship. That morning, Demichelis had cleared his mind and asked for a sign about which direction to take his life. He got one an hour later. ## **A Way People Could Help Without Even Noticing** His studies pulled him toward sustainable development, and somewhere in that curriculum, he encountered the economics of clean water. Two billion people without safe access. Donations cover only 4% of what it would actually cost to solve the problem at scale. Up to half of all water projects fail within five years. And then a number that reframed the whole picture: every dollar invested in clean water access returns between 4 and 12 dollars in economic benefits. "When you watch The Matrix," he says, "Morpheus says there are some rules that can be bent. This is just a question of seeing the rules and trying to bend them in your favour." He stopped pursuing a career in finance and started building something. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## **Impact Built Into the Workday** Elliot for Water is a free browser extension. Install it, and every new tab opens as a productivity dashboard: to-do lists, quick links, weather, and a focus timer. The name comes from Helios, an ancient Greek word for sun and energy. "You need both sun and water to get life," Demichelis says. 20% of the company's revenue funds verified clean-water projects, with a completed project in Guinea-Bissau already providing water to 350 people. Demichelis did not build a donation platform. He built something people use because it makes their workday better, and the impact travels with it. "I didn't want to ask for donations. I wanted to create a way that people could help without even noticing." The B2B version gives companies ESG reporting, measurable impact data, and a way to integrate social responsibility into daily operations without asking anyone to change a habit or reallocate a budget. Twenty companies have joined the pilot program since writing this article. The dashboard has to be genuinely useful on its own terms. If it does not improve how people work, the model collapses. The water funding is what makes Elliot meaningful. A productivity tool that people actually want to use is what makes it viable. ## **The Road to One Million** Demichelis wants to bring clean water to one million people. He is 350 in. He launched a podcast to document the journey from the ground up, interviewing social entrepreneurs and water-sector professionals and sharing his own progress as it happens. His reasoning is that watching someone five meters ahead of you, going through the same struggles you are going through right now, does something that watching someone already at the top cannot. It makes the path feel real rather than theoretical. The first clean water project is complete. The first paying client has arrived. A documentary in Guinea-Bissau is in the works. Demichelis is building the evidence that a company can do well and do good at the same time, one new tab at a time. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### How a Turkish-American Mom Built the Marketplace for Children's Activities That Turkey Was Missing URL: https://upnext.world/children-activities-marketplace-turkey-bulbi/ Last updated: 2026-03-19T14:27:40.000Z Şeyma Taşkın Yıldırım moved to New Jersey at eight years old, not speaking a word of English. She adapted, graduated from Rutgers with a double major in neuroscience and economics, planned to attend medical school, and worked as an EMT. Then she took a vacation to Turkey. That was fifteen years ago. She never came back. Her family still runs a Turkish bakery in New Jersey. All five of her sisters stayed in the US. Şeyma is the one who returned, settled in Mersin in the southeast of Turkey, married, had two daughters, and built a career in sales and marketing through her husband's family export business. It was a life shaped by pragmatism and adaptation, the same qualities that would eventually lead her to start Bulbi. Bulbi was not a calculated startup play. It was two mothers, exasperated, asking each other why finding a Saturday morning pottery class for a seven-year-old required an hour of scrolling through Instagram accounts, WhatsApp groups, and half-broken websites, often still not sure they had the right information. **The market existed everywhere except in one place** Şeyma's co-founder, Dolunay Ersoy, brings fifteen years of experience in finance and purchasing. Together, they spent a year in research and development before Bulbi launched. The platform connects parents and caregivers with instructors and small businesses that offer workshops, courses, and activities for children aged 0 to 12\. Bookings, payments, and discovery all happen in one place. Turkey has no dedicated marketplace for this kind of offering. Concert ticketing platforms cover theatre productions and large events, but a yoga studio running a mommy-and-me class on Thursday mornings is invisible to the parents two streets away. Bulbi makes that studio findable, bookable, and real. The insight Şeyma brings is specific. She has watched her daughter attend arts-and-craft programs at the Guggenheim and Broadway theatre camps in New Jersey, then come home to southeastern Turkey with a completely different set of options. She knows what a developed ecosystem for children's activities looks like, and she knows how hungry Turkish parents are for exactly that. **Pay it forward started with one school and sold a hundred tickets in days** Bulbi's platform includes a social layer called Pay It Forward. When a parent books an activity, they can purchase an additional ticket for a child in financial need. The first school pilot sold over a hundred tickets within days. A second school followed. Children who had never made a candle before made candles. That example is deliberate when Şeyma tells it. The experience does not have to be grand. It just has to happen. A child who tries a taekwondo class once, who never would have found it otherwise, might return every week for a decade. Bulbi is currently piloted across three Turkish cities and is eyeing the MENA region and neighbouring countries. Web Summit Qatar was a strategic step in that direction. They reached the semi-finals. **Two working mothers built the thing they could not find** Şeyma talks about time the way only a working parent does, as a finite resource with a moral weight to it. Turkish parents want the one hour they have with their child on a weekday evening to mean something. That urgency is not abstract to her. It is how she lives. Her eight-year-old has already memorized the Bulbi pitch and delivered a version of it at home while Şeyma was preparing for Qatar. She watches her mother build something from nothing and seems to take it as the obvious thing a person does. Bulbi's name comes from a Turkish children's word. Bul means find. Kids use it constantly, tugging at a sleeve: find me this, find me that. It is probably the most honest mission statement a startup has ever accidentally given itself. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### The Software Developer Who Coded a Solution to Fashion's $200 Billion Data Problem URL: https://upnext.world/apparel-returns-fit-intelligence-xactsize/ Last updated: 2026-03-19T14:48:42.000Z Online apparel returns cost retailers more than $200 billion a year in North America alone, and seventy percent of those returns trace back to one thing. The clothes did not fit. Toronto-based founder Edgar Azcorra spent twenty-five years writing software before he built an activewear brand that put him face-to-face with that problem. Then he built Xactsize, an AI-powered fit intelligence platform that gives apparel brands and manufacturers the data they have always been missing. **Selling chicken door to door in Cozumel was just the beginning** Edgar grew up in Cozumel, Mexico, and started selling at 9 years old, going door-to-door with chickens. He learned early that giving customers exactly what they wanted was what made sales climb. The instinct never left him. He studied engineering in Mexico City, where he designed an electrocardiogram that hospitals are still using today, then joined Ericsson's research centre as a software developer. The communication code he wrote there became part of the 5G architecture. He moved through several Canadian telecoms before landing in Toronto. In 2020, spotting a surge in demand for comfortable clothing during COVID, he launched an activewear brand targeting women. Rather than designing in isolation, he went to the gyms, talked to the women buying the clothes, and adjusted accordingly based on what they told him. When customers said the hip line bothered them, he changed it. The brand worked because he asked first. **Gym goers already knew what the fashion industry refused to hear** When Edgar looked beyond his own brand at the broader apparel industry, what he saw was the same problem running in reverse. Brands were designing for bodies they had never measured, producing inventory nobody had asked for, and absorbing the cost when customers returned it. Twenty-six percent of online purchases are returned. Manufacturing plants overproduce by thirty percent, and much of that excess is never sold. Some get cut up and destroyed. Some end up in a landfill. For every return, roughly 100 grams of CO2 are released into the atmosphere. *“We are not providing only a sizing tool,” Edgar says. “We are providing a data platform that understands bodies, garments, and the customer needs.”* Xactsize captures body measurements in real time through a smartphone camera, matches them against garment specifications, and returns a size recommendation without storing a photo or requiring any additional hardware. Brands get the fit data their customers were always willing to give, if anyone had thought to ask. The platform is already live with brands in Brazil, Mexico, and Canada, including an agreement with Salesforce. **When you code every line yourself, you know exactly what comes next** Edgar has been building neural networks since 2018 and still puts his hands on the code alongside a team of twelve, seven of whom are engineers. That depth of technical involvement shapes how he sees the road ahead. Xactsize is preparing to deploy conversational AI that will interact with shoppers in real time, learn preferences, remember customers across sessions, and guide them to the right garment for their body and taste. The volume of data that will be generated is significant enough that Edgar is planning to build dedicated infrastructure to hold it. He went to Mexico as part of the Canada-Mexico Trade Mission and returned with new contracts and a Mexican government investment arm interested in backing the company in Monterrey. A manufacturing pilot is planned with a facility of 800 employees. Edgar quotes Einstein when he describes how he thinks about what comes next. “Imagination is better than knowledge.” --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Growing food in the desert is possible with one founder's NASA-inspired photonics technology URL: https://upnext.world/growing-food-in-the-desert-is-possible-with-one-founders-nasa-inspired-photonics-technology/ Last updated: 2026-03-13T14:58:40.000Z Alberto Aguilar was eight years old in Jakarta when his mother would come home from work and hand him her food because there was only enough for one. He had moved from Barcelona to Indonesia after his parents separated, attending an international school on fees covered by the divorce agreement, which made him the poorest kid in a building full of children who had everything. Dinner on many nights was instant noodles, the only thing they could afford. Those years taught him something that never loosened its grip. Healthy food is not a small thing, and most of the world does not have enough of it. **From Barcelona to Jakarta to Dubai, Always Watching the Food** He carried that understanding through difficult years back in Spain, where his father lost everything in the 2008 financial crisis, and the family went from a comfortable house with a garden to eating on savings in a smaller place with no room to grow anything. When his mother, now remarried to a Canadian, offered him a way out, he took it. He moved to Dubai, finished school, and began to rebuild. Dubai had infrastructure, education, healthcare and opportunity, but the produce was wrong. Tomatoes tasted bland, berries had no sweetness, and everything arrived harvested early, packed with nitrogen, and chilled for a journey of thousands of kilometres. His mother told him to be grateful for what they had. He was grateful and also noticed something real. A city with everything except food that tasted like food, because almost none of it was grown anywhere nearby. He moved to Canada for university, started his first company in his second year, and built a second one that was gaining real traction before COVID shut the relocation market it depended on entirely. He sold his equity and found himself in an Ottawa apartment with time, clarity, and a growing sense that the food problem he had been noticing since Jakarta had not gone away. **The Pandemic, the Lettuce Limit, and a NASA Article** Watching people queue outside supermarkets for lettuce rationed at two heads per person, Alberto went down a research rabbit hole and found a series of NASA articles describing fogponics, a technology developed for growing food in space. It delivers nutrients as an ultrasonic mist directly to plant roots, producing plants 30% faster while using 50% less water than hydroponics. When he searched for companies already building with it commercially, the market was essentially empty. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. What he found instead were hobbyists on Reddit and Facebook, scattered across Vietnam, Taiwan, the Netherlands and the United States, each one having solved part of the puzzle and stalled on another. He messaged every single one of them. Nine months of cold outreach later, he had assembled their collective knowledge, turned his Ottawa apartment into a laboratory, and was growing plants in the living room, the spare bedroom, and a friend's basement. After enough iterations to know the technology was genuinely viable, he turned his attention to the object that would carry it into people's homes. The first working version was the size of a telephone booth. Alberto's team redesigned it around the egg, the strongest shape in nature, producing a consumer device that Mashable called one of the neatest smart home gadgets at CES 2025\. It won the CES Best of Innovation Award, landed on shelves at Costco, crossed $1.1 million in revenue, and kept 76% of customers on a recurring pod subscription. Behind the consumer product sat a patented fogponics system with applications that reached far beyond any kitchen counter. **The Desert, the Ministry, and a Greenhouse Given Freely** Alberto had always understood that the places where his technology would matter most were not in Ottawa. They were in Riyadh and Dubai, where deserts cover the land, 87% of the water is desalinated, and governments import the vast majority of what their populations eat. Saudi Arabia imports over 90% of its food, a dependency that every serious conversation about the country's future eventually reaches. In late 2025, Alberto moved to Riyadh with his wife and his twenty-month-old daughter to work on that problem directly. Plantaform's path into the Kingdom came through the Sunbolah program, run under the Ministry of Water, Environment, and Agriculture, which was established specifically to attract global agritech solutions aligned with Saudi Vision 2030\. The program's mandate is to remove barriers for innovators bringing proven technology to scale, and it connected Plantaform with Estidamah, the research and development institution that operates under the Ministry and provided the greenhouse facility. Where other markets layer approval processes on top of each other, Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 agenda has made speed a priority. The greenhouse was handed over fully equipped and staffed, and the ask was to move as fast as possible. The commercial model Plantaform is building in the Kingdom is a franchise system constructed around the farmer rather than the company. Plantaform installs fogponics infrastructure on a farmer's land, buys back all the produce at a guaranteed price, and supplies supermarkets with locally grown berries that remain fresh for two weeks rather than the three to five days imported fruit manages after its long, cold journey. The farmer earns a predictable income without taking on capital risk, Plantaform builds the supply network and the brand, and the supermarket receives a product that spoils far less. "I can sell 300 to 500 farms in one year," Alberto says, "because it is a sales engine. I sell to one farmer, he says yes, and I move to the next." The ambition reaches beyond Saudi Arabia into Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Rwanda, and back in Canada, Plantaform is working with the National Research Council on a greenhouse in Gatineau while exploring a deployment for the military in the Arctic. The same fogponics system is being pushed toward minus forty degrees in the north and plus fifty-five degrees in the Gulf simultaneously, which says something about how broadly Alberto thinks the problem extends. He measures the company's progress not in revenue but in the number of people eating from Plantaform farms. The GCC alone has close to 80 million people. "In a few years, if we build the biggest berry brand in the Kingdom," he says, "people will look it up and find out it was this Canadian guy who came here and built it, and that is why they are eating fresh berries in the middle of summer." He grew up watching his mother skip dinner so he could eat. That memory has not loosened its grip, and it is still pointing him forward. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### The Founder Who Used Technology to Put the Human Back in Human Resources URL: https://upnext.world/human-resources-hiring-technology-picsume/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T20:42:07.000Z Jordan Goure has hired hundreds of people. Across restaurants, a microbrewery, a winery, and real estate developments spread across Southern Ontario, he spent two decades posting jobs on Kijiji and Indeed, sifting through stacks of PDFs, and trying to find the right person buried somewhere inside them. He was never a recruiter. He was an operator who kept running into the same broken system until he decided to replace it. Picsume is a Windsor-based platform that turns static resumes into dynamic candidate profiles, giving employers clean, structured data and giving candidates a genuine shot at being seen. ## **He grew up selling things to avoid picking them** Jordan is from Blenheim, Ontario, a farm town of 4,000 people, where the career options for a teenager are fieldwork or something else entirely. After a summer of farm work, he chose door-to-door sales. By nineteen, while studying political science at the University of Windsor, he had opened his first restaurant. It did $1.2 million in sales in year one. By twenty-one, he had four locations and around two hundred staff, and a problem that still persists over a decade later. Every time he needed to fill a role, the process was the same. He posted the job, waited for the wave of applications, and spent hours trying to sort real candidates from the noise. The structure was missing, the comparison was impossible, and the signal was buried somewhere in it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## **The résumé was the problem, not the pile** Jordan incorporated the first version of the company in 2012, then shelved it. Bootstrapping a tech company while running multiple businesses at once was not going to work, and he knew he needed the right people around him first. When COVID arrived and construction projects stalled, he finally had the one thing an entrepreneur is always short of. Time. He called his longtime friend Nick Mastromattei, an enterprise software developer who had built systems for Harvard Press and Ticketmaster, and the two of them spent months doing a deep dive into every HR tool on the market. What they found confirmed what Jordan had suspected for nearly a decade. The best hiring teams in Ontario needed ten separate tools just to function effectively. Underneath all of it, they found the same flaw. The resume was a static PDF pretending to represent a dynamic person. The minute a candidate submits a resume, it is already out of date. Picsume takes a candidate’s existing resume or LinkedIn profile and builds a dynamic, structured work profile through AI-assisted onboarding. Those profiles become structured, searchable, and filterable for employers, allowing hiring teams to compare candidates based on real data instead of scanning hundreds of static PDFs. A patented matching algorithm connects candidates to roles based on skills, experience, and education, with bias-inducing factors deliberately excluded. Bots cannot get through the process, which means employers are searching real people, not generated noise. In their first year of beta testing with colleges and universities, Picsume onboarded nearly ten percent of all students in their region. ## **Entrepreneurial freedom is choosing your destiny** Jordan describes himself as a fire starter. He thinks a problem through from every angle, then follows through with the persistence it takes to build something real. He went to Harvard last year for an AI strategy course. He arrived with an outcome already in mind, while most of the room was still trying to figure out what to build. He calls it the lighthouse model, where the destination is fixed, and the work is figuring out how to reach it. What drives him is not the freedom people assume entrepreneurship brings. It is the ability to choose what he works on every day. Since having two young children, that clarity has sharpened. Any time he is away from them, it is a choice. So what he works on has to be worth it. Part of what has made that possible is his brother Joshua, who has been his business partner across every venture they have built over eighteen years. Jordan handles the data and strategy, Joshua the creative, and together they make one complete brain. Picsume now powers the largest hospitality network in Canada, hospital networks, and the largest independent RE/MAX brokerage in the country, and has entered the US market. Jordan’s goal is to put the human back in human resources. He thinks that is what hiring is missing right now. --- ## About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-03-12/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T13:11:31.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*, your weekly briefing on the founders, stories, and signals shaping what’s coming next in global tech. This week, we are tracking momentum from *4YFN in Barcelona*, where early stage founders are building companies designed for real world deployment from day one. Beyond the pitches, we spotlight founder perspectives on leadership, strategy, and the signals emerging from Europe’s deep tech corridor. Across regions and sectors, one pattern continues to surface. Clarity wins. --- ### *Event Recap* ## 4YFN 2026 at MWC Barcelona At 4YFN 2026 in Barcelona, startup ambition met market reality. The founders on stage were not presenting ideas in isolation. They were building companies designed to operate inside global supply chains, digital infrastructure, and regulated industries from day one. Across the competition, the tone was grounded in execution. Founders focused on adoption, partnerships, and real world deployment rather than speculative disruption. Many teams spoke directly about commercialization paths, regulatory environments, and the operational hurdles that come with scaling beyond early traction. The finalists reflected a wide spectrum of sectors shaping the next phase of global innovation. AI infrastructure, biotech, fintech, deep tech, and data platforms all appeared on stage. What connected the strongest teams was not just the technology itself, but a clear understanding of where their solution fits within existing systems. BioRCE ultimately took the top prize, highlighting the growing role of biotechnology startups addressing complex health challenges through advanced research and scalable platforms. Alongside the winner, several standout companies demonstrated the momentum building across the 4YFN ecosystem. We followed the competition closely, highlighted the winners and standout founders, and mapped what their progress signals for founders and investors watching the global startup landscape. Read the full recap and featured founders below. [4YFN 2026: Biorce Wins + Top 20 StandoutsA look inside the 4YFN 2026 finals—featuring the winner, the runners-up, and the standout startups moving from pilots to deployment.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-26.png)UpNext.WorldAqeela A. Somani![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/4YFN-2026-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/4yfn-2026-biorce-wins-top-20-standouts/) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters *next*. ### Latest Features [Why 200,000 Customers Chose to Send Video Messages Instead of Star RatingsStar ratings turn complex experiences into meaningless numbers. Livstick captures what customers actually feel through video and turns it into actionable insight.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-28.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Olivier-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/video-customer-feedback-livstick-olivier-adler/) [Your AI Agents Are Making Decisions You Can’t See. That’s a Problem.Organizations are deploying AI faster than they can govern it. Kammil Mahajan built Sector 8 to give leaders visibility into what their AI actually does.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-29.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Kammil-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/ai-security-visibility-control-sector-8-mahajan/) [The AI That Captures 20 Years of Factory Know-How in MinutesSeven multinational manufacturers are already using TEMS.AI to convert retiring workers’ expertise into multilingual interactive guides their teams can access instantly.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-30.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/photo_2025-12-11-14.31.00-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/ai-captures-factory-expertise-tems-manufacturing/) [Why Your Top Rep Closes Far More Than Everyone Else (And How to Fix That)When two reps excel and the rest struggle with the same pitch, it’s not a talent problem. It’s a messaging system problem. Enablism solves it with AI.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-31.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/SN25-PitchFest-Karan-1-1.png)](https://upnext.world/b2b-sales-value-communication-enablism-karan-khiani/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Ecosystem Partner Highlight ### START Summit — St. Gallen | Mar 19–21 START Summit brings together more than 7,000 founders, investors, and operators in St. Gallen for one of Europe’s leading early stage startup conferences. Organized by students at the University of St. Gallen, the summit has become a key meeting point for the continent’s next generation of builders and investors. From deep tech founders to global venture leaders, the program explores where European innovation is heading. This year’s theme focuses on looking beyond the AI hype cycle and examining how research driven startups translate breakthrough technology into scalable companies. As part of the *UpNext World Tour*, we are supporting the ecosystem and tracking signals emerging from the Alpine innovation corridor across Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. If you are attending, let’s connect. Our community receives **10% off** tickets with code UPNEXTGLOBAL\_10. Learn more → [https://www.startglobal.org/start-summit](https://www.startglobal.org/start-summit?ref=upnext.world) 0:00 /1:48 1× --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road Here’s where the tour is heading next as we continue tracking emerging signals and spotlighting founders across global ecosystems. - **START Summit** — Switzerland | Mar 19–20 - **Skinnovation** — Austria | Mar 25–27 - **Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX)** — Canada | Mar 25 - **GITEX Africa** — Morocco | April 7-8 - **GITEX AI Asia** — Singapore | April 9-10 - **DiscoveryX** — Canada | April 29-30 *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ## UpNext Global Partners As the UpNext World Tour expands, we are opening a limited number of partner conversations. We spotlight founders across global ecosystems, providing visibility, context, and narrative as they scale. We work across three tracks: **Ecosystem Partners** — Elevate your accelerator, EDO, or innovation program **Capital Partners** — Early visibility into emerging startups across markets **Growth Partners** — Bring expertise to founders actively scaling Interested in partnering? Let’s start a conversation. --- ### *Final Thought* ## Builder to Architect From our conversations with founders, a pattern keeps appearing. The early stage rewards builders. Shipping product. Closing early customers. Pushing the company forward through effort and speed. But scaling a company demands a different posture. The founder gradually shifts from builder to architect. Designing systems. Attracting people who can run them. Creating structures that keep moving even when the founder steps back. Most founders know this transition exists. Few know when to make it. And many wait too long. The work that built the company is rarely the work that scales it. The founders who break through are not simply working harder. They are redesigning how the company moves. In a world moving faster every year, architecture compounds. If you want to read the full breakdown of this shift, it is on Future POV. Gratefully, Edwin P.S. If someone came to mind while reading this, feel free to forward it to them. > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ### The Platform Giving Amateur Athletes a Permanent Digital Identity URL: https://upnext.world/the-platform-giving-amateur-athletes-a-permanent-digital-identity/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T13:00:05.000Z Katerina Ianovskaia's mother holds a Guinness World Record. She is one of the oldest Canadians to summit K2, has climbed Everest, and has more than eight 8,000-metre peaks to her name. In a few weeks, she leaves for another one. Katerina grew up watching this, first in Belarus and then in Canada after immigrating at thirteen, and she absorbed something from it that is harder to name than discipline or ambition. It is more like the refusal to accept that the mountain is too big. That refusal is what Fitofan requires. The amateur sports platform Katerina co-founded with Andrii Luzin is trying to bring every sport in the world onto a single digital infrastructure and give every athlete who has ever competed in any of them a permanent, portable identity. **The Problem Nobody Wanted to Solve** Andrii Luzin is an eight-time Ukrainian national taekwondo champion and a former national coach. He was good enough to go to the Olympics. He did not go because his family could not afford the trip. There was no system to find him, no platform to surface his results to the people who might have helped. He built Fitofan because that gap should not exist. The problem he identified is everywhere. Sports organizations run across six to ten disconnected systems. Competitions are managed on paper. Results disappear. An athlete competes for a decade and has nothing portable to show for it. "So many tools exist, and nothing is really solving any problem," Katerina says. "It's just creating problems." ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. **One Platform, Every Sport** Most people building sports software think inside a single discipline. Someone coming from swimming thinks about swimming. Katerina and Andrii think about the whole person: swimming at eight, boxing at fourteen, yoga in their thirties, and chess on weekends. One sporting life, scattered across fifteen apps with no connection between them. Fitofan handles federation management, club operations, competition running with integrated judging, athlete profiles, global rankings, and payments, across any sport in any country. When a new sport joins, people from within that community configure the specifics. The judging rules differ. The underlying architecture does not. Chess is on the platform. Kazakhstan's national sport is on the platform. "That transition, that movement of a person throughout their life from sport to sport to sport," Katerina says. "That should be connected in one space." **The Profile Is the Point** The clearest proof came from a chance encounter in Lisbon. Katerina was at a startup conference when she met a founder selling digital business cards. He told her he knew Fitofan before she mentioned sports. His clients from Ukraine, he said, had started asking for their Fitofan profile on the card alongside LinkedIn and Instagram. She scanned his demo. There it was. For athletes in Ukraine, the Fitofan profile had become a credential. Scan it, and you see the medals, the competition history, and the years of work. "They want to be recognized," Katerina says. "When they move from country to country, when they move from sport to sport, they want to be recognized that they've done this and they want to be seen." That is the original purpose surfacing. Talent should be visible. Not just for the athlete trying to fund a trip to an international competition, but for the coach whose students keep winning, the club running the same regional tournament for twenty years, the parent driving to practices across four different sports. All of it matters. None of it has ever had a home. Fitofan launched 2.5 years ago and now has 310,000 registered athletes, 860,000 active users, and operations across 62 sports in 160 countries, growing at over 330% year-on-year. It started in Ukraine, where the product ran for a full year before expanding anywhere else, and where the response confirmed the vision was real. Brazil is accelerating. Karate is taking off. When one sport joins and finds what it was looking for, the next one follows. A $2 million seed round is being raised now. Fitofan 2.0 is weeks from launch, with AI-generated club pages that build themselves from a URL. An AI judging system is in development. The goal is to be the single platform for all of amateur sport, everywhere. Her mother would understand. The mountain is still the mountain. You go anyway. --- About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### The South African Engineer Who Saw Half His Workforce Sitting Idle Built a Global Platform to Fix It URL: https://upnext.world/on-demand-engineering-platform-south-africa/ Last updated: 2026-03-12T12:52:51.000Z Kirshen Naidoo grew up in South Africa as part of the country's fourth-generation Indian community, a detail that shaped his sense of possibility early. South Africa is not the obvious launchpad for a global engineering career, but Naidoo was drawn to the field precisely because it seemed to offer a way out of the ordinary. Chemical engineering, he reasoned, could take him almost anywhere. He was not wrong about that. He was also, by his own admission, drawn to it because it looked like a way to do something meaningful without the parts of work he found deadening. The crossing of t's. The dotting of i's. The slow grind of the purely administrative. Engineering seemed innovative. It seemed like the kind of field where you would not really feel like you were working. That turned out to be optimistic. "Working in engineering it is dull and mundane and highly technical," he says. "You end up filling in data sheets for a hundred pumps and that's what you're doing for the next six months." But by the time that reality had settled in, the career had already taken hold. **The trap had a name** What followed was 17 years of moving. The UK. The Netherlands. Hong Kong. Other parts of Africa. A nuclear facility managing hazardous chemical plants. Petrochemical projects. International consulting work at a Dutch-headquartered firm with thousands of engineers on the payroll. He changed companies, changed countries, changed disciplines enough to stay interested. He worked his way into running a business unit, responsible for winning projects, staffing them, and executing them, which sounds clean until you understand the trap built into every engineering company that operates that way. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Most engineering firms ran on something called a utilization rate, a target of around 70 to 75 percent. The number sounded technical and manageable. What it actually meant was that between a quarter and a third of every engineer's year was unproductive overhead, salaries paid out while work was between cycles. At a firm of six or seven thousand engineers, that arithmetic becomes a number large enough to reshape how an entire industry thinks about hiring. Naidoo felt it from both ends simultaneously. When projects came in, the talented engineers were always already busy, so work got staffed with whoever happened to be available. When projects ended, engineers stayed on the books because finding new work took time and letting people go cost money too. He was caught in both directions at once, responsible for business development while also doing the technical work because there were never enough hands to execute, then answerable to management for not developing enough new business. "I found that this is just typical of almost every engineering company," he says. "An incredibly inefficient way of working." **Distance made the question possible** He started his MBA at the University of Cape Town during the pandemic, then continued through exchange semesters at UCLA Anderson and Bocconi in Milan. Stepping outside the industry for the first time in his career gave him room to ask something he had been too close to ask before: why had no one built the infrastructure to fix this? The existing freelance platforms were not the answer. Upwork and its equivalents were built for tech workers and graphic designers. Traditional engineering disciplines, civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, chemical, were barely represented, and the engineers who were there found themselves in a race to the bottom against the cheapest bids from anywhere in the world. The profession that had built the physical infrastructure of modern life had been left almost entirely out of the shift toward flexible, project-based work. **An engineer anywhere should be able to find work worth doing** That gap is what Gig Engineer was built to close. Naidoo launched it from South Africa, then expanded to Qatar, building a platform tailored specifically to how engineering projects actually operate, with scope management, smart contracts, global payments, and a digital workroom handling the business infrastructure that most engineers never learned and never wanted to learn. The detail that matters most to him is straightforward: an engineer anywhere in the world can now open a laptop, find a project worth working on, and get paid to do it without needing to already know how to run a business. "Every engineer has a bit of an entrepreneur in them," he says. "Most just don't know how to send an invoice." He flew from Thailand to Qatar on the same day he was due on stage at Web Summit to pitch it. He made his flight. He made the pitch. Then he went and got some sleep. --- About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### Why 90% of Drug Candidates Fail and How AI Is Fixing the Broken Funnel URL: https://upnext.world/ai-drug-discovery-computation-rayca-precision-behrouzi/ Last updated: 2026-03-05T12:23:24.000Z ### **Drug Discovery Has Been Slowed by Fragmentation Rather Than a Lack of Science** Modern drug discovery is burdened by a funnel that breaks long before a molecule reaches the clinic. Targets are chosen with incomplete biological context. Molecules are optimized through slow iteration. Experimental results often fail to feed back into design systems in a meaningful way. The result is a process that consumes time and capital while discarding valuable insight at each stage. The company, Rayca Precision, is being built around a different premise: that discovery should begin with integrated computation, not downstream correction. The company operates as a discovery-stage AI biotech focused on generating early assets that can be validated experimentally and advanced by partners. Its work centers on oncology and rare disease targets where biological complexity has historically made success difficult. “We can start with analyzing a drug target structurally and figure out what the pockets are, what the interaction interfaces are that we can actually target with a proper molecule and modality,” says founder Pouya Behrouzi. That structural starting point shapes everything that follows, from molecular generation to experimental design. Rather than positioning AI as an assistive tool layered onto conventional workflows, the company treats computation as the backbone of discovery. High-performance infrastructure, scalable simulation pipelines, and generative models are assembled to evaluate millions of compounds rapidly, narrowing the field before lab work begins. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **Computational Scale Is Changing What Is Possible at the Discovery Stage** Several shifts have converged to make this approach viable. GPU access is no longer limited to a few institutions. Biological and chemical datasets are better curated and more accessible. Generative models trained on experimentally validated data can now propose molecules with meaningful structural relevance. “It was not possible before, and now we have all these technology stacks that we can put together and make this happen,” Behrouzi explains. The company’s platform runs large-scale simulations, physics-based modelling, and inference workflows that would have been prohibitively slow or expensive even a few years ago. What differentiates execution is not access to models alone, but how quickly insights cycle back into design. Experimental readouts from partner labs are logged and reintegrated, allowing the system to learn iteratively rather than operate as a one-off generator. This creates a continuous loop between computation and biology. The output is not a finished drug, but a rigorously packaged preclinical asset. Each molecule is supported by structural rationale, computational evidence, and laboratory signals that increase confidence for downstream development. For pharmaceutical and biotech partners, this shifts early risk away from intuition and toward evidence. ### **Better Early Decisions Determine Which Therapies Ever Reach Patients** The long-term impact of this approach lies in what never advances. By increasing confidence earlier, fewer weak candidates enter costly preclinical and clinical stages. Capital can be directed toward assets with a higher probability of success, particularly in complex disease areas. “Eventually coming up with better treatments and more targeted therapeutics that can reduce side effects in oncology is the impact we care about,” Behrouzi says. While the company does not conduct clinical development itself, its goal is to accelerate the handoff to organizations that do. The founding team’s strength lies in its ability to operate through uncertainty together. Years of collaboration across technical and operational challenges have shaped a culture focused on disciplined execution rather than rapid signalling. That stability matters in a field defined by long timelines and high attrition. The company’s next phase centers on expanding its discovery pipeline and validating AI-generated molecules at a greater scale. As deal structures around AI-discovered assets mature, the team expects faster feedback between science, capital, and clinical potential. “We believe that this combination of infrastructure, models, and execution can help fix parts of the broken discovery funnel,” Behrouzi says. The bet is that rebuilding discovery from first principles will ultimately shorten the path between insight and impact. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### 4YFN 2026: Biorce Wins + Top 20 Standouts URL: https://upnext.world/4yfn-2026-biorce-wins-top-20-standouts/ Last updated: 2026-03-17T11:08:59.000Z 4YFN 2026 had a different energy this year. Sharper. More grounded. The conversations weren't about pitching the future of AI—they were about building companies that can actually scale. What stood out wasn't hype, but execution. The startups that made it to the Top 20 arrived with traction signals, defensible moats, and a realistic path to market leadership. You could feel the difference between tech ideas and tech companies—especially among the finalists, where founders defended their approaches in front of investors who have backed category leaders. That’s where 4YFN cut through. It acted as a proving ground rather than a showcase. The teams that advanced arrived with compelling answers to the hard questions about go-to-market, competitive positioning, and unit economics. Biorce’s win reflected this shift. Their AI-native platform for clinical trials does something tangible: it automates complex operations with AI agents to streamline planning and execution for research teams. This is operational reality. Below is a closer look at the winner and startups that demonstrated the kind of clarity and conviction that gets deployed, not just funded. --- ## The Competition This year’s 4YFN competition surfaced a high-conviction cohort of founders tackling foundational, infrastructure-level problems—from clinical trial automation and sign-language accessibility to soil intelligence, secure AI, and borderless connectivity. Twenty finalists reached the Top 20, representing a global mix from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America. Only five teams advanced to the Grand Finale on the Banco Sabadell Stage, with one overall winner taking home the 4YFN26 Award. What stood out was viability. The finalists demonstrated clear operational traction, regulatory awareness, and a credible path to enterprise adoption. For 4YFN, this year marked the transition from a "startup carnival" to a rigorous sorting mechanism—offering a snapshot of an ecosystem moving beyond the experiment and into actual deployment. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/03/4YFN-Winner-Biorce-1-1.jpeg) ### Startup: [Biorce](https://www.biorce.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Pedro Coelho](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmfccoelho?originalSubdomain=es&ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Biorce automates clinical trial operations with AI agents to accelerate protocol design and feasibility. The platform targets the $50B in annual waste within drug development, ensuring patients reach new treatments without the traditional delays of manual research. **What stood out:** Clinical trials are where promising treatments go to slow down. The operational drag of inefficient protocol design and manual feasibility assessments costs years and lives. Pedro Coelho arrived at this problem through life sciences consulting and the personal experience of watching a family member face a terminal illness. He understands what trial delays actually mean to the people waiting on the other side. Biorce responds to this friction with Aika, an end-to-end platform that automates the operations keeping research slow and inaccessible. The system handles protocol design, site feasibility, and patient recruitment within one integrated product built for the most regulated workflows in healthcare. It moves beyond the role of a digital assistant to function as an automated infrastructure for clinical teams. **Why they won 4YFN 2026:** Founded in Barcelona, Biorce has scaled to 80 people with offices in New York and Austin. The company raised a $52M Series A, marking the largest healthtech and AI round in Iberian history. Pedro is an Endeavor Entrepreneur leading a team that targets 200 enterprise users across Europe, North America, and Asia. --- ## Standout Startups Beyond the winner, 4YFN 2026 brought together a cohort of founders building across climate tech, fintech, and digital infrastructure. While only one took the top prize, the teams below distinguished themselves through their clarity and readiness to scale. What made them notable was not the technology itself, but their understanding of specific operational workflows and regulatory pathways. These are the companies moving beyond pilots and into deployment. ### Startup: [ConnectHear](https://www.connecthear.org/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Azima Dhanjee](https://www.linkedin.com/in/azimadhanjee/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ConnectHear builds AI-powered sign language infrastructure that enables Deaf individuals to access banking, healthcare, telecom, and government services independently. The platform adds sign language as a third communication layer alongside text and voice, integrating directly into existing service environments. **What stood out:** Azima Dhanjee’s parents were born Deaf. The founding story of ConnectHear began with the observation of their struggle to make a phone call, see a doctor, or attend a school meeting. This perspective shaped a product designed for a world where 500 million people lack basic communication access because society is built almost entirely on text and audio. ConnectHear addresses this gap through infrastructure. The company developed a massive sign language dataset, a recognition engine, and a dedicated grammar translation engine. Instead of a standalone consumer app, they built a sign-language-native AI agent and API layer that plugs into existing institutional systems. The solution is optimized for low-end devices, low bandwidth, and offline use, functioning in the world as it actually exists. **Traction:** ConnectHear has delivered over two million minutes of real-time sign language interpretation within live production environments. The company works with major institutions including Standard Chartered Bank, Unilever, and the British Council. The technology is currently being rolled out across telecom operators and banks in Pakistan, with active pilots in the GCC targeting airports and regional service providers to reach 10 million individuals. --- ### Startup: [DeepKeep](https://www.deepkeep.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Gil Harel](https://www.linkedin.com/in/harelgil/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** DeepKeep provides a platform for AI security and trustworthiness across the entire model lifecycle. The system protects enterprises from data leakage, model vulnerabilities, and regulatory risk, securing autonomous behavior from the development phase through to full deployment. **What stood out:** Enterprises are racing to deploy generative AI, but security protocols have not kept pace. Many organizations ship models without adequate controls over what those models expose or how they behave at runtime. DeepKeep addresses this entire surface area rather than focusing on a single layer of the stack. The end-to-end platform is compatible with any model, language, or cloud environment, making it a viable solution for large enterprises with complex AI infrastructures. As agentic systems gain more autonomy, the associated risk grows. DeepKeep is building the governance layer required to manage that transition safely. **Traction:** DeepKeep has signed dozens of customers and completed hundreds of proof-of-concept projects, demonstrating a repeatable sales motion within the enterprise sector. The company has earned recognition from industry analysts at Gartner, Omdia, and Markets and Markets. --- ### Startup: [DRUO](https://druo.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Alejandro Pinzon**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alpinzon?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** DRUO provides a payment method that allows businesses to accept transactions directly from any bank account for free. By rebuilding the financial stack and connecting directly with institutions, the platform offers 25x better fraud protection and removes the traditional costs associated with local and international payments. **What stood out:** For five decades, a small handful of companies have controlled nearly the entire volume of global payments. This lack of competition has created a system where every transaction carries a hidden 3–5% toll. Rather than attempting to patch existing rails, Alejandro Pinzon and his team rebuilt the stack from the ground up. They created a direct-debit network that costs merchants nothing and reaches any bank account with high-grade security. The system allows buyers to use their existing accounts without maintenance fees, backed by support that resolves issues directly. DRUO is building a parallel financial backbone designed to function where the current system extraction has become a barrier to entry. **Traction:** DRUO has acquired over 1.5 million users with zero marketing spend and doubled its growth over the past year. The company is cash-flow positive ahead of its seed round and has been accelerated by Endeavor and the Visa + Plug and Play program. The former president of Mastercard serves as the lead investor. --- ### **Startup:** [**Enhans**](https://www.enhans.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Seunghyun Lee](https://www.linkedin.com/in/seunghyunlee88/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Enhans builds the "Action Layer" for enterprise AI, deploying agents that autonomously navigate web interfaces to execute mission-critical commerce workflows. By performing tasks as a human operator would, the platform moves AI from a passive assistant into the category of digital labor. **What stood out:** Large language models can communicate, but they cannot execute. The gap between answering questions and performing tasks is where many industries remain stalled. Workflows such as dynamic pricing, global sourcing, and quality assurance are too complex for traditional automation and too action-dependent for standard models. Enhans developed an architecture that allows AI to log in, navigate, and complete tasks across web interfaces and legacy software without human intervention. To ensure the system is enterprise-grade, the company utilizes a commerce ontology that prevents the hallucinations common in typical models. This allows the AI to perform the work directly rather than merely assisting with it. **Traction:** Enhans is used by Samsung Electronics, P&G, and Philips to automate commerce operations across 90 countries. The platform processes millions of SKUs in high-stakes production environments. The company ranks second on the Global Large Action Model Leaderboard and was selected for the Palantir Startup Fellowship. --- ### **Startup**: [Sensegrass](https://sensegrass.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Lalit Gautam](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lalit-gautam-61241a23/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sensegrass builds AI-powered soil intelligence infrastructure to measure carbon, nutrients, and climate risk in real time. The platform converts underground biological activity into actionable data for farmers, agribusinesses, and carbon markets. **What stood out:** Agriculture faces a structural data problem located beneath the surface. Farmers currently make critical decisions regarding fertilizer, water, and land management without visibility into soil carbon or nutrient levels. These variables determine yield and climate impact, yet current alternatives are insufficient. Lab testing is too slow, and satellite estimates lack the ground-level precision required for high-stakes decision-making. Sensegrass addresses the problem at the source with proprietary in-field sensors. These devices measure soil carbon and nutrients in real time, feeding the data to an AI agronomist that converts raw readings into specific operational decisions. By providing actual measurement instead of modeled estimates, Sensegrass enables farmers to access climate finance and optimize input efficiency with precision. **Traction:** Sensegrass has deployed proprietary sensor prototypes and completed field pilots across various agricultural conditions. The team has established a live data collection pipeline and secured strategic partnerships with institutional stakeholders. The company has earned recognition across global AI and climate innovation platforms for its work in establishing a verifiable measurement system for soil health. --- ### **Startup**: [Skyfora](https://www.skyfora.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Fredrik Borgström](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredrikborgstrom/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Skyfora transforms existing mobile network base stations into a global weather sensor grid through a pure software solution. By delivering high-resolution atmospheric data without new hardware, the platform provides the ground-truth observations required to improve AI-driven weather forecasting. **What stood out:** Weather forecasting faces an observation problem that modeling cannot solve. Less than 0.1% of the atmosphere is measured with sensor-grade accuracy, creating a structural data gap that becomes more expensive as extreme weather events increase. Skyfora identified that the infrastructure to fix this already exists within the mobile networks blanketing the planet. Mobile base stations contain GNSS timing receivers that, with a software upgrade, function as precision atmospheric sensors. This allows for the immediate creation of a dense observation grid without new hardware or deployment cycles. The data has been scientifically validated to improve both AI-based and traditional numerical weather models, turning telecom infrastructure into a critical tool for climate resilience. **Traction:** Skyfora has deployed its solution in live public mobile networks, with operators validating the implementation in production environments. The company has over 20 commercial projects active across critical infrastructure, renewable energy, and defense—sectors where forecast accuracy determines financial and operational risk. --- ### **Startup**: [ZIM Connections](https://www.zimconnections.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Irina Gheorghiu](https://www.linkedin.com/in/irina-gheorghiu/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ZIM Connections builds the connectivity layer for global businesses, enabling borderless mobile access through software-driven eSIM infrastructure. The platform allows companies to embed, control, and scale mobile connectivity without the need for physical SIM cards. **What stood out:** Mobile connectivity remains essential, yet the underlying infrastructure is decades old. Global businesses often manage a fragmented stack of physical cards, carrier relationships, and unpredictable costs. Irina Gheorghiu and her co-founders recognized that eSIM technology allows connectivity to be rebuilt as programmable infrastructure. ZIM’s platform abstracts the entire telecom layer into a single API, orchestrating carrier profiles and networks in real time. This approach allows connectivity to function like cloud infrastructure—dynamic, scalable, and entirely managed through software. It replaces manual logistics with an automated system under the operator's direct control. **Traction:** ZIM has reached $1M ARR with a customer list that includes SBB Switzerland, Softbank, and G&D. These enterprise clients require high reliability at scale, signaling that the platform has moved beyond the early-adopter phase into a stable, production-ready solution. --- ## **Operational Readiness, Not Just Visionary Potential** 4YFN has moved beyond its origins as a showcase for prototypes to become a stress test for enterprise utility. The founders highlighted here reflect a broader shift in the ecosystem. They understand that innovation is not measured by the technical complexity of a model, but by the reliability of its deployment. Regulatory compliance, integration paths, and legacy workflows are no longer treated as secondary hurdles. They are the core of the product. ### The Filter of 4YFN While these eight companies represent the standout signals from the 2026 edition, the event moves faster than a single recap can capture. Many promising teams remain in stealth or are currently refining pilots away from the main stages. What is documented here reflects the founders who arrived with the clarity and traction required to survive professional scrutiny. We will continue tracking the teams and infrastructure layers shaping what is UpNext in the global economy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Why Your Top Rep Closes Far More Than Everyone Else (And How to Fix That) URL: https://upnext.world/b2b-sales-value-communication-enablism-karan-khiani/ Last updated: 2026-03-03T17:20:28.000Z ### A Messaging System Problem, Not a Talent Problem In a market where buyers arrive more informed than ever, many companies still fall short when asked to show clear business outcomes. Teams speak in features and vague benefits even when customers want proof of value. Karan Khiani saw this pattern early in his career and noticed it grew more painful as companies expanded. Sales teams relied on spreadsheets or instinct, and performance varied wildly. The root cause is often structural: marketing, sales, and customer success each inherit a different version of the product's value story, and no single team owns the gap. Karan’s path to this insight stretches back to his early life in Dubai, where he developed a strong interest in technology. He built websites before modern web standards and discovered he enjoyed solving real problems through software. That instinct deepened during university in Ottawa when he and a few interns built a system for the Office for Students with Disabilities. They replaced a paper-driven process with software that soon attracted attention from other institutions. It was the first time Karan saw how technology could reshape a workflow at scale. Years later, as a pre-sales engineer at Verisafe, he saw value articulation become a company-wide bottleneck. Deals slowed because sellers did not know how to speak the language of impact. Karan built an internal tool that created consistent value stories and performance across the team improved immediately. He carried that insight into every product and solution role that followed. No matter the industry, the gap remained the same. Companies could describe what they did, but could not explain why it mattered. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **Creating a Consistent and Collaborative Way to Communicate Value** That experience formed the seed of Enablism. The platform gives companies a unified way to express value from marketing through sales to customer success. Instead of asking each team member to create their own narrative, Enablism generates structured value stories and business cases that reflect what customers care about. It gives every seller the ability to communicate like the top performer. It also gives leaders a clear view of what outcomes matter at each stage of the customer journey. Karan left his full-time role to focus on Enablism after years of seeing this need across the sector. Early clients confirm the urgency of the challenge and the appetite for a modern approach. Mid-market SaaS companies in particular feel the pain of inconsistent messaging. They know the risk of relying on spreadsheets and intuition as they grow. Enablism uses AI to translate product capabilities and customer context into structured value narratives, so every rep walks into a deal with the same story your best performer would tell. ### **A World Where Outcomes Drive Every Decision** Karan believes companies are moving toward an outcome-driven mindset across all functions. Buyers want to understand what they will achieve and how quickly they will achieve it. Teams want tools that save time and reduce uncertainty. Leaders want confidence in the story their organization tells. Enablism supports this shift by making outcomes clear, consistent, and credible. His long-term vision is shaped by his own sense of gratitude and responsibility. As an immigrant student, he watched his parents work relentlessly to give him opportunities. That experience created a hunger to build something meaningful and durable. Enablism reflects that drive. It is built for a world where clarity wins, where teams move faster, and where companies compete through impact rather than noise. Karan and his early customers see the same opening. As organizations embrace outcome-driven thinking, the ones that communicate value with precision will stand out. Enablism is giving them the structure to do it with confidence. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### The AI That Captures 20 Years of Factory Know-How in Minutes URL: https://upnext.world/ai-captures-factory-expertise-tems-manufacturing/ Last updated: 2026-03-02T16:53:43.000Z ## **Factories Are Losing Their Knowledge Base** Across the global manufacturing sector, a quiet crisis is unfolding. Expertise developed over decades is disappearing as senior workers retire and turnover accelerates. New hires enter plants filled with complex machines and intricate workflows, yet cannot always find the information needed to perform with confidence. Documentation often sits buried in binders or scattered digital folders. Much of what matters lives in the heads of operators who learned through years of hands-on experience. The scale of the issue is reflected in industry research, which highlights high turnover, long search times for information, and measurable waste caused by human error. These trends affect output, consistency, and morale. They also point to a deeper truth. Modern factories still rely on knowledge transfer methods built for a different era. Alexandra Podsekina saw this throughout her twenty-year career inside large manufacturing networks. She began in linguistics and teaching, driven by an interest in how people learn and how confidence is built. When she moved into supply chain and production leadership roles, including oversight of more than two hundred factories, she noticed something that was not always visible on paper. Workers struggled quietly, especially those entering from different backgrounds and languages. Processes were documented unevenly, and guidance varied from shift to shift. She also saw how learning itself was evolving. Her daughter absorbed math concepts through video-based explanations rather than written problem-solving. It made Alexandra realize that factories were training people with tools misaligned to how the new workforce processes information. This combination of observation and experience set the foundation for TEMS.AI. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## **AI Captures Human Expertise Before It Disappears** Alexandra partnered with CTO Igor Podsekin, an AI and computer vision specialist, to build a platform that captures real industrial processes and converts them into structured multilingual workflows. The system learns from what experts do in real environments and transforms those recordings into clear step-by-step guidance. This approach matches how people acquire skills today. Video captures nuance that written instructions miss. Workflows can be standardized and translated instantly. Operators no longer need to search for scattered documents or rely on busy colleagues for missing details. Guidance appears at the moment it is required, which reduces downtime and improves consistency across teams and sites. The platform is designed to address the core bottlenecks that manufacturers face. Expertise loss as older workers retire. Inaccessible information that slows execution. Waste increases when guidance is unclear. These issues show up in operational metrics, but they originate in the same place. Knowledge is fragile when it depends on memory. TEMS.AI is gaining traction with seven paying customers in four countries. The company is only ten months old yet has already achieved ISO 27001 certification and received its first external investment. The demand reflects a shift in how industrial operations view learning and performance. ## **A New Era of Confident Workers and Smarter Manufacturing** Alexandra believes the next phase of manufacturing will be defined by how effectively companies retain and share human expertise. Automation continues to advance, yet factories still rely on people to interpret context, diagnose issues, and make real-time decisions. When workers can access proven workflows on demand, they gain clarity and confidence, and operations become more resilient. TEMS.AI is expanding through new customer relationships and technology partnerships and has opened its pre-seed round to accelerate product development. The broader goal is for every worker to perform with the confidence of the best operator. Every factory should be able to preserve what it learns, and every team should have access to guidance that reflects how people learn in the modern world. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### Your AI Agents Are Making Decisions You Can't See. That's a Problem. URL: https://upnext.world/ai-security-visibility-control-sector-8-mahajan/ Last updated: 2026-02-26T16:51:47.000Z #### **AI Adoption Is Accelerating Beyond Governance** Across industries, AI adoption is no longer experimental. Customer service agents, internal copilots, and autonomous workflows are being deployed at speed. Boards want efficiency. Teams want scale. Regulators want accountability. What sits between those forces is a growing gap in visibility. For many organizations, AI still behaves like a black box. Leaders know what goes in and what comes out, but not how decisions are made along the way. That uncertainty creates hesitation, especially in highly regulated industries such as finance and healthcare. Security teams are often the ones applying the brakes, not because they oppose AI, but because they cannot control it with existing tools. This is the gap industries such as has spent his career preparing for. After more than fifteen years in enterprise cybersecurity and operations, he has seen what happens when systems scale faster than safeguards. He has managed high-pressure environments at global technology companies and studied AI security at the academic level. He says AI introduces new threat vectors that traditional cybersecurity was never designed to handle. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. #### **Observability Changes How Companies Deploy AI** Mahajan is the founder of Sector 8, an AI security and observability platform built to give organizations visibility into what their AI systems are actually doing. Sector 8 does not replace existing security stacks. It sits on top of AI deployments as a dedicated layer that monitors behaviour, enforces guardrails, and helps teams understand risk in real time. One of the most common entry points for AI adoption is customer service. AI-powered chat agents operate around the clock and interact with the public, which opens the door to prompt injection and data leakage. Sector 8 protects these agents by monitoring inputs and outputs, flagging malicious behaviour, and ensuring sensitive data stays protected. The same applies inside the organization. Finance teams increasingly rely on AI agents for invoice processing and reconciliation. These systems move money. Without accountability, a single error can cascade quickly. Sector 8 provides traceability so teams can see what actions an agent took, when it took them, and why. That visibility creates confidence, not friction. For Mahajan, observability is not a technical luxury. It is the foundation that allows security leaders and executives to answer hard questions from boards and regulators with clarity rather than caution. #### **Control Makes the Next Wave of AI Possible** AI security incidents already carry multimillion-euro consequences before regulatory fines are even considered. With frameworks like the EU AI Act demanding visibility and accountability, the cost of operating blindly is rising fast. Sector 8 exists to make AI adoption safer, not slower. Mahajan is optimistic about what comes next. He sees a future where autonomous agents handle complex tasks across industries, from operations to healthcare. The opportunity is enormous, but only if humans retain meaningful control. His goal is to ensure there is always a clear, safe mode, a kill switch, and an audit trail when systems act on our behalf. Sector 8 emerged from stealth after strong traction at global tech events and is onboarding beta customers across Europe and the United States. The company plans to generate revenue in early 2026 while raising its first institutional round. Mahajan believes we should be able to embrace the benefits of AI with confidence. Visibility creates trust. Control enables scale. And without both, the future of AI will stall under its own risk. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### Why 200,000 Customers Chose to Send Video Messages Instead of Star Ratings URL: https://upnext.world/video-customer-feedback-livstick-olivier-adler/ Last updated: 2026-02-26T16:49:37.000Z ## **Customers Want to Be Heard, Not Scored** If you book a flight, rent a car, or stay in a hotel, you know what happens next. A survey lands in your inbox and asks you to rate the experience from one to five stars. Most people ignore it. Those who respond reduce a complex experience to a single number. For Olivier Adler, founder and president of Livstick, that feels like a missed opportunity. He has spent his career building software companies and saw firsthand how hard it is for brands to understand what customers really feel. The more businesses relied on generic surveys, the less they heard the human stories behind the data. He wanted feedback that sounded like a real conversation, not a spreadsheet. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## **Livstick Turns Spoken Emotion Into Decision-Ready Insight** Olivier also operates a gifting venture that uses QR codes to let people attach video messages to physical gifts. Through that experience, he discovered two powerful truths: people are comfortable speaking on camera when they are addressing someone they care about, and short video clips can carry extraordinary emotional weight. Livstick builds on that foundation, applying those same insights to customer experience. A brand invites a customer to scan a QR code and record a short video or audio message about their stay, purchase, or interaction with a team. Livstick captures the message, then its AI engine goes to work. It transcribes what was said, identifies topics, flags positive and negative themes, and measures sentiment and intensity. The platform generates a clear summary for each review and aggregates insights across locations, product lines, and time. Today Livstick works with more than 60 clients, has processed over 200,000 messages, and serves customers in 140 countries, including global names in retail and luxury. It gives those teams a way to listen at scale without losing the nuance that makes feedback useful. ## **A World Where Feedback Feels Human Again** Olivier feels that companies should treat feedback as a chance to build a relationship, not as a compliance step. When a guest takes time to record a message, they want to feel that someone has genuinely heard them. With Livstick, brands can pick up on strong emotions, route urgent cases to a human, and respond in a way that feels personal. At the same time, marketers and product leaders get something rare: the ability to watch real customers talk about their experience in their own words, with the platform highlighting patterns they might miss in a sea of numbers. Olivier imagines a world where speaking to a company feels as natural as sending a voice note to a friend. If that happens, feedback stops being a chore and becomes part of a more human loop between customers and the brands that serve them. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-02-19/ Last updated: 2026-02-19T13:00:15.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*, your weekly briefing on the founders, stories, and signals shaping what’s coming next in global tech. This week, we track two high-signal stages: *WHX Xcelerate* in Dubai and *Techarena* TOP46 in Stockholm, where founders are building with execution in mind. Beyond the pitch stages, we spotlight four founders tackling real-world challenges across climate, energy, biotech, and AI. Across regions and sectors, one theme keeps emerging. Clarity wins. --- ### *Event Recap* ## WHX Xcelerate (Dubai, UAE) At WHX Xcelerate 2026 in Dubai, healthcare innovation moved from ambition to application. The startups on stage were not experimenting at the edges of possibility. They were tackling systemic pressure points across diagnostics, access, hospital efficiency, and AI-enabled care. The tone throughout the competition was pragmatic. Founders spoke less about disruption and more about deployment. Regulatory awareness, clinical validation, and commercialization pathways were front and center. The signal was clear: health innovation in this region is scaling through partnerships, not hype. From early rounds to the final pitches, the strongest teams combined domain expertise with credible traction. The standout companies demonstrated how AI, data infrastructure, and patient centric design can coexist within real world healthcare systems. We followed the competition closely, highlighted the winners and standout founders, and mapped what this means for healthtech builders entering global markets. Read the full recap and featured founders below. [WHX Xcelerate 2026: Innovation Meets Clinical RealityA look inside the WHX Xcelerate 2026 finals—featuring the winner, the runners-up, and the standout startups shaping what’s UpNext in healthcare.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-22.png)UpNext.WorldAqeela A. Somani![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/WHX-Dubai-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/whx-xcelerate-2026/) ## Techarena TOP46 (Stockholm, Sweden) At TechArena 2026 in Stockholm, the TOP46 competition brought together some of the Nordics’ most promising early-stage companies. The environment felt sharp and execution-focused. Founders came prepared with clear market theses, defined customer segments, and disciplined growth strategies. The winner, Epiminds, stood out by combining deep problem insight with a structured go-to-market path. Beyond the winner, the broader TOP46 cohort reflected the strength of the Nordic ecosystem: strong technical foundations, capital efficiency, and global ambition from day one. What differentiated the strongest teams was not storytelling alone. It was clarity. Clear problem framing. Clear value proposition. Clear expansion logic beyond local markets. We tracked the competition, spotlighted Epiminds and other standouts, and surfaced the patterns shaping what is next for the Nordic startup landscape. Explore the full recap and featured founders below. [Techarena 2026: Epiminds Wins + TOP46 StandoutsTecharena 2026 recap: How Epiminds won with AI-native marketing automation, plus the TOP46 finalists defining Sweden’s next wave of tech companies.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-23.png)UpNext.WorldEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/TechArena2026-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/techarena-2026-epiminds-wins-top46-standouts/) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters*next*. ### Latest Features [This Biotech Founder Turns Pond Scum Into Luxury LeatherBloom Biotech transforms food-grade microalgae into carbon-negative leather that runs on existing textile lines and costs less than conventional materials.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-24.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Pedro-Vicente-1-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/algae-leather-sustainable-fashion-bloom-biotech/) [A Language Dies Every 14 Days. This Founder Built AI to Stop It.Chad Quinn discovered that reconnecting Indigenous communities with their languages dramatically reduces suicide rates. So he built an AI platform to make language revitalization scalable—before more disappear forever.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-25.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Chad-Quinn-Language-Foundry-1.webp)](https://upnext.world/ai-language-revitalization-indigenous-communities/) [Designing the Systems Clean Technology Needs to ScaleClean technology doesn’t fail because of ideas. It fails when capital, process, and execution can’t keep up. Green Power Plus is building the systems that help clean innovation move faster, scale smarter, and reach the market without waiting for permission.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-20.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/1_Colombo-Esmeralda-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/designing-the-systems-clean-tech-needs-to-scale/) [Why Replacing Diesel Can’t WaitReplacing diesel doesn’t mean waiting for perfect solutions. Serenity Power is cutting emissions now with flexible fuel cells that work with today’s infrastructure. Founder Aleisha Cerny explains why urgency and pragmatism matter in the energy transition.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-21.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Aleisha-Cerny-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/why-replacing-diesel-cant-wait/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## ****Tracking the Global Startup Circuit** Founders. Ecosystems. Signals. Join the Briefing Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Ecosystem Partner Highlight ### Skinnovation — Austria | Mar 25–27 Skinnovation brings together 1,000+ founders, investors, and operators in Innsbruck for one of Europe’s most unconventional startup gatherings. From ski-lift pitches to curated networking, the event blends robust deal flow with strong community energy. As part of the UpNext World Tour, we are supporting the ecosystem as a Community Lead and tracking signals emerging from the DACH region. If you are attending, let’s connect. Our community receives 25% off tickets with code **01\_UPNEXT**. Learn more and secure your ticket → [https://skinnovation.at/](https://skinnovation.at/?ref=upnext.world) --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road Here’s where the tour is heading next as we continue tracking emerging signals and spotlighting founders across global ecosystems. - **4YFN @ MWC Barcelona** — Spain | Mar 2–5 - **START Summit** — Switzerland | Mar 19–20 - **Skinnovation** — Austria | Mar 25–27 - **Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX)** — Canada | Mar 25 *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ## UpNext Global Partners As the UpNext World Tour expands, we are opening a limited number of partner conversations. We spotlight founders across global ecosystems, providing visibility, context, and narrative as they scale. We work across three tracks: **Ecosystem Partners** — Elevate your accelerator, EDO, or innovation program **Capital Partners** — Early visibility into emerging startups across markets **Growth Partners** — Bring expertise to founders actively scaling Interested in partnering? Let’s start a conversation. --- ### *Final Thought* ## The 15 Minute Founder System From our study of founders, nearly all agree on one thing. Showing up consistently builds leverage. > More visibility. > More inbound. > Stronger positioning. And yet most still do not do it. The common excuse is time. But we are in the middle of the AI shift. Founders are automating workflows, compressing execution cycles, and moving faster than ever. If AI makes you more efficient, why aren't you more visible? 🤔 The issue is not time. It is translation. Most founders do not struggle with ideas. They struggle to translate what is happening inside their company into the future they are building toward. Here is the simple system: 1. Record for 15 minutes. 2. Capture what you are seeing, deciding, or learning this week. 3. Use AI to structure it into a clear narrative. 4. Publish consistently. Not to chase attention. But to clarify direction. The founders who stand out are **NOT** louder. They are clearer. They do not just explain what they built. They frame why it matters and where it leads. In a world flooded with content, clarity compounds. If you want to read the full breakdown of the system, it is on Future POV. Gratefully, Edwin P.S. If someone came to mind while reading this, feel free to forward it to them. > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ### This Biotech Founder Turns Pond Scum Into Luxury Leather URL: https://upnext.world/algae-leather-sustainable-fashion-bloom-biotech/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T19:50:13.000Z ### Global luxury brands have expressed interest.**Fashion Needs Materials That Do Not Destroy the Planet** The global fashion supply chain is under growing pressure as water consumption rises, emissions expand, and microplastic pollution spreads. Brands want traceability and circular design. Governments are adding new requirements that force companies to rethink how textiles are made. Yet the industry remains trapped between rising expectations and limited material options that can meet both cost and scale. Most bio-based textiles still depend on expensive processes or require brands to overhaul their manufacturing lines. For many innovators, the science is promising, but the economics fail when the material reaches the production floor. Pedro Vicente understands this tension. He grew up in a small village on the Portuguese-Spanish border, where resources were limited and practicality guided every decision. His years in biotech taught him how often good science becomes inaccessible because it is too costly or too abstract for everyday people. That experience shaped the question at the center of his work. What if sustainable textiles could be built from ingredients that were already abundant, affordable, and carbon negative? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **Bloom Biotech Builds Leather-Like Materials With Microalgae and Practical Science** This idea became Bloom Biotech, the company Pedro now leads from Belgium. Bloom transforms food-grade microalgae biomass into leather-like materials through a proprietary bioprinting process. The company sources algae from existing food producers and waste streams, then converts it into yarns and sheets using room temperature production and food-grade chemistry. The approach reduces emissions, avoids solvents, and fits into the equipment brands already use. An unusual combination of humility and ambition drove Pedro’s move into this field. He had worked in cosmetics, cultivated meat, and vaccine development. Each experience exposed him to the gap between scientific promise and real-world outcomes. When he and his co-founder explored business ideas, microalgae textiles stood out as a path that could support both environmental goals and large-scale manufacturing. A simple experiment confirmed that intuition. A weekend test produced a narrow strip of algae-based material that felt surprisingly close to leather. Designers responded with curiosity. From that point, Bloom pivoted fully into textile innovation. The company has already achieved significant early results. Leather experts have validated their 80 percent microalgae prototype. Global luxury brands have expressed interest. A lab-scale printer now supports production of 500 to 1000 square meters per year. Bloom was invited to present a central piece at Fashion InStyle 2026\. These milestones reinforce Pedro’s belief that practical science can change how materials are made. ### **Scaling a Material That Can Fit Into Every Brand’s Production Line** The next stage of Bloom’s journey focuses on scale. The team is closing its 600k euro pre-seed round and preparing to expand production. Pilot volumes between 5k and 20k square meters per year are planned. Pre-industrial volumes may reach up to 500k square meters per year. EU market-ready materials are expected by 2028\. The company also aims to establish its first dedicated manufacturing facilities. Pedro’s motivation remains grounded in the values he carried from his village to his scientific career. He wants to build materials that benefit ordinary people and support healthier production across the fashion ecosystem. He believes science can be both creative and accessible and that sustainable textiles should match the performance and affordability that brands need. Bloom Biotech is moving toward that vision with a clear path and a material that could redefine how the world makes leather. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### A Language Dies Every 14 Days. This Founder Built AI to Stop It. URL: https://upnext.world/ai-language-revitalization-indigenous-communities/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T19:48:01.000Z ### **Why Language Loss Threatens Identity and Well-Being** Every fourteen days, a language disappears. Around 6,700 endangered languages are at risk. Each loss carries stories, identity, and a way of thinking that cannot be recreated once it is gone. For Chad Quinn, Founder and CEO of Language Foundry, this crisis became personal the moment he encountered research showing the benefits to a community when people reconnect with their language and culture. As he put it, “There is a massive reduction in suicide and truancy when people get reconnected with their language.” Chad grew up on Thetis Island, across a narrow channel from Penelakut Island. His parents ran a marina that became a natural gathering point. He attended school alongside Indigenous classmates and learned a dialect of Salish. Years later, his mother uncovered that his great-grandmother was Indigenous, making sense of the racism his grandmother had faced and illuminating a blended identity he had lived without fully understanding. That personal lens, paired with firsthand experiences of friends losing elders who carried irreplaceable knowledge, shaped his conviction that language revitalization is a race against time. ### **How Language Foundry Creates Community-Grounded Learning** Language Foundry is built on one principle. Communities must own their voices, their data, and their learning pathways. Chad’s AI background helped him see a way to create technology that supports this rather than imposes on it. Interactive lessons, artwork, syllabics, and AI-enhanced avatars all originate from community contributions. Teachers can guide learners even without speaking the language. Students hear familiar voices and see local stories brought to life. The approach is rooted in ethics. As Chad said, “The only way this works is if the community owns the data and the tools.” This commitment led his team to develop models that require minimal recorded speech from elders and keep ownership fully in community hands. The results have been powerful. Roughly eleven thousand learners, hundreds of teachers, and dozens of school boards now use the platform. Interest grows weekly as more languages and dialects come online. Communities that once struggled to find instructors can now offer structured, culturally grounded learning with confidence. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **Where Community Led Revitalization Can Go Next** Chad views language as a foundation for leadership and resilience. Reconnection with language brings back a way of thinking that offers new possibilities for how communities confront change. He often draws on a metaphor from agriculture. “A monocrop can be wiped out by a single disease,” he said. “Societies are the same. We need many points of view to stay resilient.” This belief fuels the pace of his work. New communities reach out weekly. School boards request large-scale deployments. Partnerships are forming across North America and Europe. The goal is accessible tools that support language preservation at scale while maintaining cultural integrity. Chad describes the journey as something that keeps unfolding in front of him. The right people and opportunities appear at the right time. It feels less like a choice and more like alignment. As he said, “At some point you realize this is the only path you can take.” Language Foundry is now expanding its course libraries, growing its infrastructure, and preparing to bring more than 100,000 learners onto the platform. The vision is a world where languages no longer fade quietly and where technology helps young people strengthen their identity rather than lose it. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### Techarena 2026: Epiminds Wins + TOP46 Standouts URL: https://upnext.world/techarena-2026-epiminds-wins-top46-standouts/ Last updated: 2026-02-17T16:40:47.000Z Techarena 2026 had a different energy this year. Sharper. More grounded. The conversations weren't about pitching the future of AI—they were about building companies that can actually scale. What stood out wasn't hype, but execution. The startups that made it to the TOP46 arrived with traction signals, defensible moats, and a realistic path to market leadership. You could feel the difference between tech ideas and tech companies—especially among the finalists, where founders were defending their approaches in front of investors who've backed category leaders. And that's where Techarena cut through. Not as a showcase, but as a proving ground. The teams that advanced didn't just have compelling decks—they had compelling answers to the hard questions about go-to-market, competitive positioning, and unit economics. Epiminds' win wasn't surprising. Their AI-native marketing OS does something tangible: it deploys 20+ autonomous agents to automate performance marketing workflows at scale. That's not visionary. It's operational. Below is a closer look at the winner and the cohort of startups that demonstrated the kind of clarity and conviction that gets deployed, not just funded. --- ## Techarena 2026 - Winner This year's Techarena competition surfaced Sweden's strongest cross-section of technical founders tackling real, category-defining problems—from AI-native infrastructure and climate tech to fintech, health tech, and enterprise software. Out of hundreds of applications, 46 startups were selected as finalists, with one team ultimately taking home the top prize. What stood out wasn't hype, but execution. Epiminds demonstrated clear problem definition, strong technical foundations, and a credible path to adoption—offering a snapshot of where European early-stage innovation is heading next. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/02/Epiminds-1.jpeg) Photo: Camilla Svensk for Techarena ### WINNER: [EPIMINDS](https://epiminds.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founders:** [**Elias Malm**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliasmalm/?ref=upnext.world) **&** [**Mo Elkhidir**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mo-elkhidir/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Epiminds is an AI-native marketing operating system that deploys autonomous agent teams to run data, creative, and strategy at scale. Led by an AI bot named Lucy, the platform handles analytics, campaign planning, copywriting, and execution across Google Ads, Meta Ads, and other channels—turning marketing teams into strategic decision-makers rather than tactical executors. **What stood out:** Moving from dashboards to autonomous execution in performance marketing. While most martech platforms offer optimization suggestions, Epiminds deploys over 20 specialized AI agents that collaborate to automate everything from reporting to creative briefs and ad set configuration. Lucy drafts and recommends complete campaigns but requires human approval before publishing—creating an augmented senior colleague rather than a black-box automation tool. The platform is platform-agnostic, orchestrating multiple ad platforms and data sources rather than locking customers into a single walled garden. **Traction:** $6.6 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Working with \~20 performance marketing agencies across the Nordics, Netherlands, and US, collectively representing over 200 brands. Reached \~$100k+ in CARR within the first 10-12 weeks of launch. Agencies report saving \~40% of time on routine marketing tasks. **Why they won Techarena 2026:** Combining deep marketing-ops expertise with cutting-edge AI engineering to solve a high-volume, capital-intensive problem where small efficiency gains translate into massive dollar savings. The founder-market fit is exceptional—Elias Malm (ex-Google marketing leader) and Mo Elkhidir (ex-Spotify AI engineer) bring exactly the credibility needed. They demonstrated rapid product-market fit with 16+ paying clients and >200 brands in under three months, and a clear "marketing OS" vision that resonated with judges seeking real-world AI impact at scale. --- ## Techarena 2026 - Standout Startups Beyond the winner, Techarena brought together Sweden's most promising tech founders building across AI, climate tech, fintech, health tech, and enterprise software. Not all made it to the final pitch stage, but the teams below stood out for their technical depth, market timing, and execution velocity. What made them notable wasn't just the innovation—it was how clearly they articulated their go-to-market strategy, understood their competitive moat, and demonstrated early traction signals. These are the startups worth tracking as they move from early revenue to scale. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### [**ÄIO** ](https://aio.bio/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Nemailla Bonturi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nemailla-bonturi-4a3a4853/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ÄIO produces sustainable fats and oils through microbial fermentation, converting low-value industrial sidestreams into high-value lipids for food, cosmetics, and oleochemicals. The process uses 97% less land and 10x less water than conventional oil production, addressing supply instability in a $350B global market facing climate and geopolitical pressures. **What stood out:** This is infrastructure-level decoupling of the oils market from agriculture. ÄIO doesn't just optimize margins—it rewrites input economics by valorizing waste streams (dairy, sawdust sugars) through proprietary fermentation. The platform approach across three product lines (Encapsulated Oil, RedOil, ZymaLipid Complex) positions them as a materials supplier rather than a single-application play, enabling faster market penetration and diversified revenue. **Traction:** Three products at the market-ready stage with INCI registration for cosmetics. 120+ collaboration partners globally testing oils across industries. Scaled production from 1L to 10,000L with a food-grade pilot plant operational. Novel food permit submitted in Singapore. Over €11M raised in equity and grants. One patent filed, ready for 100,000L scale-up. **Why they made the TOP46:** The planet is running out of arable land while fat demand grows. ÄIO represents the shift from extraction to precision fermentation in commodity ingredients—a transition already proven in insulin and enzymes, now reaching the trillion-ton oils economy. With regulatory momentum building and cost curves dropping toward parity by 2027, they're positioned at the inflection point where bioprocessed materials move from premium to mass market. --- ### [AINOSTICS](https://www.ainostics.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Hojjat Azadbakht** ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hojjat-azadbakht-5865a155/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** AINOSTICS builds AI imaging platforms that transform routine MRI scans into early, automated diagnoses across major neurological diseases. Its flagship product, BR\[AI\]N, analyses standard brain scans and delivers clinically actionable insights within seconds, enabling earlier intervention and precision treatment. **What stood out:** Platform depth and regulatory ambition. BR\[AI\]N supports up to 10 major neurological conditions—including dementia, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and brain tumours—using standard MRI, CT, and PET data. The system has received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation and demonstrates up to 92% accuracy in predicting Alzheimer’s disease years before clinical diagnosis. Unlike black-box AI tools, AINOSTICS emphasizes explainable, traceable outputs integrated directly into hospital workflows. **Traction:** AINOSTICS has validated its technology on over 100,000 imaging datasets and secured more than $10 million in non-dilutive funding. The platform has been piloted across multiple NHS hospitals and generated $1.5 million in revenue last year through collaborations with hospitals, research organizations, and pharma companies. It has also received over 10 international innovation awards and built partnerships across major imaging and healthcare networks. **Why they made the TOP46:** Neurological disorders represent a trillion-dollar burden in Europe alone, and emerging disease-modifying therapies require earlier, more precise diagnostics. AINOSTICS is positioning itself not as a single-condition tool, but as a neuro-diagnostics platform with regulatory momentum and companion diagnostic potential. It’s a clinically grounded AI company targeting one of healthcare’s most urgent unmet needs. --- ### [BrainLink](https://brainlink.se/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder: Dan Farahmand** **Pitch:** BrainLink builds the world’s first remote, truly wireless intracranial pressure monitoring and treatment system, targeting millions of people living with hydrocephalus and other brain pressure disorders. The implantable ICP device connects to secure cloud software and clinician dashboards, enabling continuous, long-term monitoring and remote management without frequent hospital visits. **What stood out:** A medtech platform built from inside clinical experience. Dan’s background as a neurosurgeon shapes BrainLink’s approach to solving a core gap in neurological care: traditional pressure monitoring is invasive, episodic, and resource-intensive. The combination of wireless sensing, smartphone connectivity, and cloud access offers a step change in how clinicians diagnose and manage brain pressure. **Traction:** BrainLink has developed IP and completed hardware/software design. The platform is being validated with key opinion leaders and has signed initial customers and clinical partners in Europe. Public mentions from TechArena highlight it as a breakthrough innovation with a growing international profile. **Why they made the TOP46:** Brain pressure disorders like hydrocephalus affect millions globally and are underserved by current diagnostics. BrainLink’s wireless system enables continuous remote monitoring, reducing hospital burden and enabling earlier intervention. It’s a clinically grounded solution with real potential to shift standards of care and support future therapeutic integration. --- ### [Braive](https://braive.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Hermine Bonde Jahren**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hermine-bonde-jahren-39859429/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Braive is an evidence-based mental health treatment platform designed to help clinics and insurers deliver measurable outcomes at scale. The platform integrates structured digital treatment programs, psychometric testing, AI-supported documentation, and video care into a single workflow, enabling scalable, standardized, and trackable mental health treatment. **What stood out:** Braive is focused on treatment, not administration. While many digital health tools optimize scheduling or operations, Braive is built to deliver clinically validated care pathways that deliver measurable symptom reduction. The platform increases clinician capacity by up to 4x and demonstrates an 80% improvement in symptoms across 100,000 patients treated—backed by structured outcome tracking and research partnerships. **Traction:** Braive has supported over 100,000 patients and nearly tripled ARR from 2024 to 2025, reaching 23M SEK ARR. Through partnerships in Sweden and Norway, the company now reaches 40% of the occupational health market and has expanded beyond the Nordics with a large-scale partnership in India. The platform operates on a scalable per-clinician subscription model with 67% gross margins and MDR Class IIa status on track. **Why they made the TOP46:** Mental health systems face rising demand, limited clinician capacity, and increasing pressure to prove outcomes. Braive combines evidence-based treatment delivery with scalable SaaS infrastructure, positioning itself as a repeatable engine for standardized, high-quality mental healthcare across Europe and beyond. --- ### [**CatchAll by NewsCatcher** ](https://www.newscatcherapi.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Margaretha von Boetticher**](https://de.linkedin.com/in/margaretha-von-boetticher-a06466213?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** CatchAll is a recall-first web search API built on NewsCatcher's proprietary index, designed to retrieve complete event coverage rather than ranked results. The system addresses workflows where missing information has consequences—regulatory monitoring, risk analysis, competitive intelligence—by exhausting topics instead of surfacing top matches. **What stood out:** This is a search rebuilt for completeness, not relevance. Standard search APIs are optimized for ranking and speed, returning the top few results. CatchAll inverts that—it's designed to find everything, then structure and deduplicate it. The distinction matters for AI agents and enterprise research where partial recall creates blind spots. The proprietary web index gives them end-to-end control over retrieval and extraction, enabling event-level structuring and live monitoring at scale. **Traction:** Y-Combinator-backed. Customers include the US Department of State, Samsung, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Transparency International, and multiple Fortune 1000 and generative AI companies. December 2025 CatchAll launch generated 800+ signups and 4+ paying customers. Event coverage 3x higher recall and 60% higher F1 score than competitors. **Why they made the TOP46:** AI agents and enterprise intelligence systems inherit the limitations of the search infrastructure on which they're built. If the underlying API is optimized for speed and ranking, agents will always operate with incomplete information. CatchAll positions itself as the coverage layer for agentic workflows—the infrastructure that ensures nothing relevant is missed. As agents move from demos to production use in compliance, risk, and decision-critical contexts, exhaustive retrieval becomes table stakes. If they can demonstrate reliable recall at scale, this would become foundational infrastructure for the next generation of research and monitoring systems. --- ### [CHRP](https://www.chrp.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Jeff Smith**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandexpert/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** CHRP measures cognitive and emotional readiness in real time by analyzing passive music listening behavior. The platform detects shifts in performance state before productivity declines or burnout sets in, giving individuals self-awareness and organizations an early-warning system for their workforce. **What stood out:** This is behavioral biometrics for mental state, derived from a signal people already generate. Rather than surveys or wearables that require active participation, CHRP instruments existing behavior—music choice becomes a proxy for readiness. The insight that music patterns shift before performance declines creates a leading indicator where most tools only measure lagging outcomes. Deployment across military, athletics, and enterprise shows the pattern holds across high-stakes contexts. **Traction:** Live deployments generating $100K+ ARR from paid pilots. Active users include U.S. Navy EOD units, Ohio State Wrestling, and self-insured employers in construction and staffing. Over 400 users are generating readiness data. Expanding to Nordic customers and scaling the NIL program across D1 athletics programs. **Why they made the TOP46:** Organizations spend billions managing human performance after problems surface—turnover, medical claims, accidents, and underperformance. CHRP addresses the measurement gap: there's no continuous, passive signal of cognitive readiness, as there is with heart rate variability for physical recovery. If music-listening behavior reliably predicts performance state, it becomes infrastructure for workforce intelligence, much as environmental sensors became infrastructure for facilities management. The model scales anywhere Spotify penetration is high, and performance volatility is expensive. --- ### [Clinicgram](https://www.clinicgram.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder: Ibon Uribe** **Pitch:** Clinicgram is a software-only AI platform that turns smartphones into Spectral Intelligence tools for chronic wound care. By combining visible and thermal imaging with decision support and longitudinal monitoring, the platform standardizes assessments, detects risk earlier, and improves healing outcomes across primary care and hospital settings. **What stood out:** A hardware-free approach to advanced diagnostics. While most wound care innovation relies on specialized equipment, Clinicgram delivers CE-approved, AI-powered analysis directly through existing clinical workflows. The platform boosts diagnostic sensitivity from roughly 50% to over 90% and delivers results in under one minute—enabling non-specialists to perform advanced assessments at scale. **Traction:** Clinicgram has generated €50K in ARR, 100% retention across five paying customers, and a qualified pipeline exceeding €1M. The platform has processed over 30,000 clinical assessments and 30,000+ images, with an MDR Class IIa regulatory submission underway. Strategic partnerships span Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America, with structured public procurement discussions progressing toward regional scale. **Why they made the TOP46:** Chronic wounds represent a €100B+ burden and consume up to 4% of healthcare budgets. By delivering AI-driven prevention, management, and monitoring through pure software, Clinicgram expands advanced wound care beyond specialist units into primary and community care, where most patients are treated. It is positioning itself as a scalable infrastructure solution for the largely analog healthcare segment. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### [CRUXO](https://cruxo.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Jakub Spryngl**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakub-spryngl-580210169/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** CRUXO is an AI-powered retail media platform that automates campaign planning, execution, and optimization across online and offline channels. The system centralizes fragmented advertising workflows for brands and retailers, replacing manual processes and disconnected tools with unified campaign orchestration. **What stood out:** Retail media is now a $130B+ category, but the operational infrastructure hasn't caught up. Brands running campaigns across retailer networks face manual planning, siloed channel execution, and no unified measurement—especially when coordinating in-store and digital placements. CRUXO addresses the orchestration gap by automating the full funnel, from media planning to performance tracking, across fragmented touchpoints. The team's background in retail, media, and brand management means they've lived the problem and understand both buyer and seller workflow requirements. **Traction:** Live in 11 European markets and scaling. Platform deployed across retailers and brand clients with ongoing expansion. **Why they made the TOP46:** Retail media is exploding as brands follow consumer attention to retailer properties and first-party data becomes more valuable than third-party targeting. But the operational complexity is immense—campaigns span physical stores, e-commerce, in-app, and offsite channels with different measurement standards and buying workflows. CRUXO is building the campaign operating system for this new channel, just as trade desk infrastructure enabled programmatic advertising. If they can prove cross-channel attribution and demonstrate margin improvement for both brands and retailers, they become essential middleware as retail media evolves from experimental budget to primary growth lever. --- ### [Cytidel](https://www.cytidel.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Matt Conlon**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/conlonmatthew/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Cytidel is a real-time vulnerability intelligence platform that helps enterprises cut through alert noise and focus on the security flaws that are actually being exploited. Instead of relying on static CVSS scores, Cytidel analyzes live threat signals, actor behavior, and contextual company data to prioritize the top 1 percent of risks most likely to lead to a breach. **What stood out:** Cytidel shifts vulnerability management from volume to precision. The platform monitors over 1,000 sources, identifies exploitation signals up to 17 days earlier than official databases, and dynamically updates CVE risk ratings in real time. Rather than adding another dashboard, it becomes a decision layer that tells security leaders exactly what to fix first. **Traction:** Over €1M in sales in the first year post-beta. Selected as a finalist in the European Cyber Security Organisation CISO Choice Awards. Named Startup of the Year in the National Startup Awards 2025. Early trials show 91 percent reduction in irrelevant CVEs triaged and less than 1 percent flagged as truly requiring action. **Why they made the TOP46:** Security teams are overwhelmed by thousands of vulnerabilities, but only a fraction pose real business risk. Cytidel provides the intelligence backbone for prioritization based on real-world exploitation and threat-actor behavior. It is an infrastructure play for regulated industries where cyber risk is a board level concern. --- ### [DREV](https://www.drev.tech/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Arelys Sosa**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arelys-sosa-619b4939/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** DREV builds contamination-control and material-recovery systems designed specifically for battery manufacturing and recycling environments. Its technology captures hazardous microscopic metal particles known as black dust at the source, improving worker safety, stabilizing operations, and recovering valuable critical metals that would otherwise be lost. **What stood out:** DREV reframes contamination as both a safety risk and a resource opportunity. Instead of treating black dust as waste, the company captures and recovers high-value materials like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper. Its multi stage filtration system operates in sealed containment and is 100 percent water free, eliminating secondary hazards common in traditional cleaning methods. The solution is purpose built for gigafactory scale operations rather than adapted from general industrial cleaning tools. **Traction:** €3.5M raised in equity and €2M in grants. Validated at a world-leading gigafactory with active industrial pilots. ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified. Backed by Unconventional Ventures, Butterfly Ventures, Almi Invest GreenTech, and EIT Manufacturing. Pilot results show an 85 percent reduction in airborne particles**high-value** and measurable recovery of critical metal dust during operation. **Why they made the TOP46:** As gigafactories scale globally, contamination and material loss become structural risks to safety, yield, and circularity. DREV positions itself at the intersection of worker protection and critical mineral recovery. It is an industrial deep tech play addressing one of the battery industry’s most overlooked bottlenecks. --- ### [eAgronom](https://www.eagronom.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Robin Saluoks**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-saluoks-097487a7/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** eAgronom helps farmers monetize regenerative agriculture by turning everyday farming practices into verified soil carbon removals. The platform combines automated farm-level data collection, carbon program certification, and farm management tools, enabling farmers to generate carbon income while managing operations in a single system. **What stood out:** A full-stack approach to soil carbon. Instead of relying on manual reporting and fragmented verification processes, eAgronom integrates automated data capture directly into farm management workflows. By embedding certification into operational software, the company removes key bottlenecks in soil carbon markets—data errors, high verification costs, and slow scaling. **Traction:** eAgronom supports more than 3,500 farmers across Europe and Africa, covering approximately 2.5 million hectares. The company has raised significant venture backing and operates certified soil carbon programs aligned with leading voluntary carbon standards, positioning itself as one of Europe’s largest soil carbon platforms. **Why they made the TOP46:** High-integrity carbon removals are in short supply, while demand from corporates continues to rise. eAgronom bridges agriculture, climate finance, and digital infrastructure—enabling scalable, verifiable soil carbon credits while improving farm economics. It is building the operating layer for regenerative agriculture in Europe. --- ### [Easyrain](https://www.easyrain.it/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Giovanni Blandina** ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanniblandina/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Easyrain delivers next-generation safety solutions for ADAS and autonomous vehicles, enabling safe operation in low-grip conditions, including heavy rain, aquaplaning, snow, and ice. Its ecosystem combines virtual sensors, active safety hardware, and cloud intelligence to restore vehicle grip and unlock autonomous driving in conditions where current systems fail. **What stood out:** Easyrain not only detects grip loss but also actively restores it. The DAI virtual sensor platform estimates real-time friction and monitors vehicle health without additional hardware, while the AIS system is the world’s first active anti-aquaplaning solution, spraying pressurized water ahead of the tires to regain traction. This goes beyond interpretation into physical intervention, positioning the company as a critical enabler of Level 3+ autonomy in extreme weather. **Traction:** Easyrain has secured multiple OEM contracts, including long-term agreements with Hyundai Motor Company and integration into the NVIDIA AI Systems Inspection Lab platform. The company has raised €18.1M to date and is executing a Series B to industrialize its DAI software and scale globally. Certifications include ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 (in progress), with NVIDIA Inspection Lab validation. **Why they made the TOP46:** Low grip conditions remain one of the last major roadblocks to reliable autonomous driving. Easyrain combines software-first virtual sensing, active hardware safety systems, and cloud-based predictive insights into a modular ecosystem designed for OEM integration. It is a differentiated automotive deep-tech play addressing one of autonomy’s most persistent safety gaps. --- ### [E**mulate**](https://emulate.energy/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Shwan Lamei**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shwan-lamei/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Emulate builds infrastructure software that enables utilities to integrate residential EVs, heat pumps, and batteries into a single controllable system. By transforming distributed household devices into a unified “virtual battery,” utilities can reduce grid costs first and unlock new flexibility revenues in energy markets. **What stood out:** A full-system optimization approach. Rather than optimizing individual devices or stopping at analytics, Emulate coordinates the entire household as a single energy asset and connects it directly to tariffs and wholesale markets. Framing flexibility as a battery-equivalent resource—backed by MIT research—positions the company as infrastructure, not a feature layer. **Traction:** Emulate is the market leader in Sweden, operating in one of the world’s most advanced electricity markets. The platform integrates directly with consumer devices and enables utilities to participate in electricity markets through aggregated residential loads. Consumers report savings of up to 50% on EV charging and 25% on heating. **Why they made the TOP46:** Electrification is accelerating, and grid infrastructure alone cannot absorb the load. Emulate offers a software-first path to flexibility at scale—turning distributed devices into coordinated, market-ready assets. With expansion underway across Europe and the US, the company represents a credible platform play in the transition to decentralized energy systems. --- ### [In Parallel ](https://www.in-parallel.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Kristian Luoma**](https://ch.linkedin.com/in/kluoma?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** In Parallel is an intelligent management system that maintains a living execution plan by continuously integrating meetings, decisions, and system signals. The platform eliminates manual coordination overhead by automatically capturing what matters, who owns it, and what changed—keeping execution reality aligned without managers acting as the integration layer. **What stood out:** This attacks the coordination tax directly. Deloitte estimates that 40% of managers' time goes to reporting, status chasing, and replanning because the execution state lives in people's heads, not in systems. In Parallel positions itself as the connective tissue between strategy and work—not a planning tool or task tracker, but the system that keeps both synchronized with operational reality. The Living Execution Plan becomes the source of truth, updating itself as meetings occur and priorities shift. **Traction:** Five enterprise customer pilots deployed. ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certified, SOC 2 Type II attested. Early customers report 25% faster blocker resolution, 30% reduction in reporting workload, and 65% increase in key learnings shared across teams. **Why they made the TOP46:** Organizations have planning systems and execution systems, but nothing that maintains alignment between them as reality changes. That gap creates the coordination overhead—status meetings, reconciliation work, information hunting—that compounds as organizations scale. In Parallel is building the missing layer: a system that observes execution signals and automatically updates the shared plan, turning coordination from manual labor into automated infrastructure. If they can prove ROI at enterprise scale and demonstrate network effects as more teams connect their execution contexts, this becomes the operating system for how knowledge work actually gets managed. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### [LifesaverSIM](https://www.lifesaversim.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Yuriy Dyachyshyn**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ydyachyshyn/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** LifesaverSIM is a mobile, game-based training platform that transforms complex first aid and tactical medical protocols into immersive simulations. Built for first responders, military personnel, and civilians in high-risk environments, the platform trains users through repeatable gameplay and captures objective readiness data at scale. **What stood out:** Simulation as instinct training. LifesaverSIM does not rely on passive learning or VR hardware. It runs on mobile devices, enabling large-scale deployment while building procedural memory through high-engagement gameplay. The roadmap includes a physiology-driven virtual patient engine, AI-powered personalized coaching, and an NLP-to-simulation pipeline—positioning the platform as a deep-tech rather than edtech platform. **Traction:** The platform has 130,000+ registered users in Ukraine and a 4.9 rating based on 3,500+ reviews. It is officially integrated with Ukraine’s government e-ID app, Diia, and the Ministry of Defense platform, Army+, and serves as a standard TCCC training tool for elite units, including the 3rd Assault Brigade and Azov. International pilots are underway across the Nordics, Baltics, Japan, and UN-linked institutions. **Why they made the TOP46:** In crisis environments, training gaps cost lives. LifesaverSIM combines scalable mobile delivery, validated operational use, and government integration into a dual-channel subscription model serving both individuals and institutions. It represents a practical, data-driven approach to national resilience and emergency readiness. --- ### [Lumit](https://lumit.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Daniel Lindau**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dlindau/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Lumit provides white-label online ordering infrastructure that enables restaurants to sell directly from their websites, bypassing third-party delivery platforms. The system gives restaurants control over customer relationships and margins while maintaining the convenience of digital ordering. **What stood out:** This is a disintermediation infrastructure for an industry held hostage by platform economics. DoorDash and Uber Eats extract 20-30% commissions while owning the customer relationship. Lumit offers the counter-position: restaurants keep their margins and data in exchange for running their own channel. The model works because consumer behavior has shifted—direct ordering is now normalized, and restaurants have an incentive to steer customers toward their owned channels once the capability is available. **Traction:** Live in 120+ cities and towns. $10M revenue in 2025\. White-label platform deployed across independent and chain restaurants. **Why they made the TOP46:** The restaurant industry spent a decade building dependency on aggregator platforms that now control pricing power and customer access. Lumit represents the infrastructure for the reversal—enabling restaurants to reclaim distribution without rebuilding technology from scratch. The expansion into the US in summer 2026 is well-timed: regulatory pressure on delivery platforms is intensifying, commission rates remain punitive, and restaurants are increasingly sophisticated in their channel economics. If Lumit can prove unit economics at the US scale, they become the Shopify to DoorDash's Amazon—the platform that makes owned commerce viable for an entire vertical. --- ### [Nordic Salt Cycle](https://nordicsaltcycle.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder: please c** **Pitch:** Nordic Salt Cycle uses molten salt chemistry to upgrade Europe’s critical mineral supply chain. By processing low-grade feedstocks such as waste lithium-ion batteries in a single step, the company removes unwanted material and produces high-purity nickel, cobalt, and lithium intermediates for downstream partners—making recycling economically viable without subsidies. **What stood out:** A chemistry-first industrial solution. Rather than building a parallel recycling ecosystem, Nordic Salt Cycle upgrades the existing one. Its molten-salt process bypasses the most chemical-intensive and costly stage of mineral recovery. The company combines deep expertise in extractive metallurgy with a staged scale roadmap from lab to pilot to commercial, and a first-of-a-kind facility. **Traction:** TRL 5 completed for battery recycling. TRL 3 validated for multiple additional critical mineral streams. Scaling from gram to multi-kilogram production in under one year. Recycling efficiency meets EU targets, with over 95% purity achieved at scale. Pilot plant operations are scheduled for summer 2026, with a commercial demonstrator planned for 2027. **Why they made the TOP46:** Europe imports 90 percent of its critical minerals, creating strategic and geopolitical risk across energy, digital infrastructure, and defense. Nordic Salt Cycle positions recycling as an economically competitive safety net rather than a subsidy-dependent alternative. It is a deep-tech materials play targeting a multi-billion-euro supply chain under pressure. --- ### [Normain](https://normain.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Sara Landfors**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/landfors/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Normain builds Extractional AI that delivers trusted insights from complex documents. Instead of chat-based AI that produces unpredictable answers, Normain enables domain experts to extract, structure, and verify insights in a repeatable and auditable way. **What stood out:** Trust as infrastructure. Sara positioned Normain as the trust layer between human expertise and AI power. The platform is purpose-built for experts in risk, compliance, M&A, and sustainability—prioritizing predictability, verifiability, and auditability over generative speed. It’s not another chat interface; it’s a validation-first workflow. **Traction:** Normain signed a Big Four customer and grew ARR by 250% in the last three months. The team includes alumni from BCG, Validio, and Sana Labs, with backing and advisory from leaders in the Nordic tech ecosystem. The company is targeting a €20B risk and compliance consulting segment within a €6.4T professional services market. **Why they made the TOP46:** As AI adoption accelerates, reliability and governance are becoming competitive advantages. Normain addresses the core limitation holding back enterprise AI use: lack of trust. By focusing on extraction, validation, and expert workflows, the company is positioning itself as foundational infrastructure for professional services teams that cannot afford hallucinations. --- ### [**Ochy**](https://www.ochy.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Khaldon Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaldonevans/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Ochy is delivering lab-quality running gait analysis in 60 seconds using only a smartphone. By turning a short video into biomechanical insights, the platform makes injury prevention and performance optimization accessible beyond specialized gait labs. **What stood out:** A clear shift from hardware-dependent analysis to scalable AI infrastructure. Claudio emphasized accessibility—no sensors, no wearables, no expensive lab setup. Just a camera and AI. That unlocks usage across retail stores, coaches, medical professionals, and individual runners at global scale. **Traction:** Ochy has surpassed 100,000 users, maintains a 4.7 App Store rating, and has reached €600K+ in ARR. Revenue grew from €89K in 2024 to €411K in 2025, with adoption across sporting goods retailers and medical professionals. **Why they made the TOP46:** Ochy sits at the intersection of AI, health, and sports performance, addressing both a $30B sports injury rehab market and the broader global running economy. With SaaS, API, and white-label models, the company is positioning itself as infrastructure for running gait data—not just an app. --- ### [Opper AI](https://opper.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Göran Sandahl**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/goransandahl/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Opper lets teams treat all AI models as one system. Instead of manually managing prompts, vendors, and cost trade-offs, Opper provides a control plane that automatically selects models, routes tasks, handles failures, and manages budgets—so AI agents can run reliably at scale. **What stood out:** A clear infrastructure thesis. Göran framed Opper as the orchestration layer above foundation models. Rather than binding teams to a single provider, Opper abstracts away model complexity and lets users define outcomes rather than prompts. That shift—from prompt engineering to task definition—signals a move toward agent-native infrastructure. **Traction:** Opper is already deploying across defense, government, and critical infrastructure environments, including Fortune 100 companies. For a pre-seed company, the focus on regulated and mission-critical environments suggests strong early validation around reliability and control. **Why they made the TOP46:** As enterprises move from experimentation to production AI agents, orchestration and governance become essential. Opper positions itself as the infrastructure layer for multi-model execution—providing visibility, cost control, and reliability across AI agents. It’s an infrastructure bet on the next phase of enterprise AI adoption. --- ### [Optise](https://optise.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Ómar Thor Ómarsson**](https://is.linkedin.com/in/omaromarsson?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Optise is a self-improving B2B website platform built to drive measurable revenue outcomes. Using multiple data sources and AI agents, the platform continuously analyzes and automatically improves websites to increase traffic, leads, and customers—without relying on developer queues or agencies. **What stood out:** A performance-first thesis. Optise is not another design tool or analytics dashboard. It executes improvements autonomously. The focus is on thousands of small, compounding optimizations rather than visual redesigns, positioning the website as a dynamic revenue engine instead of a static marketing asset. **Traction:** Pre-seed funding from Iceland’s leading VC. 24 paying B2B customers validating product impact and platform refinement. Early market validation across startups and larger B2B organizations. **Why they made the TOP46:** In B2B, the website is often the primary revenue channel, yet optimization remains manual and fragmented. Optise reframes the website as a self-improving system powered by AI agents. It is an infrastructure play for B2B growth teams looking to move from design cycles to continuous performance iteration. --- ### [Propstreet](https://propstreet.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Henrik Olofson**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/holofson/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Propstreet is an AI-native dealmaking platform for commercial real estate that automates investor targeting, tracks relationship history, and maintains investment strategy intelligence. The system replaces manual prospect lists and fragmented CRM data with a trained model that suggests the right buyers for each deal based on 300,000+ transaction patterns. **What stood out:** This is institutional memory as infrastructure. CRE dealmaking runs on relationship capital that lives in email threads and personal networks—Propstreet makes it queryable and predictive. The lead generator trained on actual investor behavior shifts the focus from intuition to pattern recognition. The semantic search layer and auto-updating buyer profiles turn every interaction into reusable intelligence, mitigating knowledge loss when brokers leave or market conditions shift. **Traction:** $300K ARR with 40 paying customers across 4 countries. Approximately 10% of Nordic commercial real estate deal volume runs through the platform, representing roughly €12B in transaction value processed to date. Model trained on 300,000+ investor-deal interactions. **Why they made the TOP46:** Commercial real estate is a relationship business where deal flow depends on knowing who buys what, when, and why. That intelligence has historically been analog and non-transferable. Propstreet is productizing dealmaker expertise the same way GitHub Copilot productized developer patterns—by learning from the corpus of actual decisions. As CRE becomes more fragmented and cross-border, platforms that can surface non-obvious buyer matches and preserve institutional knowledge become a coordination infrastructure for the entire market. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### [QA.tech](https://www.qa.tech/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Daniel Mauno Pettersson**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmaunopettersson/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** QA.tech builds AI agents that understand your product and test its end-to-end quality. The platform acts like a real user, executing tests, catching regressions, and generating context-rich bug reports across web, mobile, and API flows. **What stood out:** QA.tech’s AI doesn’t rely on brittle scripts. Instead, its agents actively explore applications, adapt to changes, and simulate real user behavior, spotting gaps traditional automation often misses. This moves testing from a maintenance burden to an adaptive, product-aware system. **Traction:** Founded in 2023 and based in Stockholm, QA.tech has raised significant seed funding (\~€3M in 2024), and is already used by development teams that have replaced hundreds of hours of manual test work with autonomous AI agents. Reviews note its ability to generate and evolve tests, integrate with CI/CD workflows, and provide actionable test results. **Why they made the TOP46:** Modern development teams face a tension between velocity and reliability. QA.tech’s product-aware AI agents bridge that gap by shifting quality assurance from manual scripting into automated, contextual testing that scales with the product—making it infrastructure for high-velocity engineering organizations. --- ### [Relox Robotics](https://www.reloxrobotics.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Mikael Boman**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaelboman/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Relox Robotics builds fully autonomous outdoor robots that replace repetitive, low-value, and hazardous manual work. Its flagship product, the autonomous range picker, eliminates the need for diesel tractors on golf driving ranges—operating 24/7 while reducing labor costs, emissions, and safety risks. **What stood out:** This isn’t a prototype—it’s a deployed system with years of real-world validation. Mikael emphasized that Relox has been operational for over six years, with a proven ROI of 9–12 months and a machine lifetime exceeding five years. The product eliminates risk for staff and guests while delivering predictable financial returns to range owners. **Traction:** Relox has over 100 customers across 16+ countries and 10+ distributors worldwide. The company has sold 68+ robot systems and reached EBITDA breakeven. A new distribution agreement with a major Swedish robotics company (to be announced publicly) strengthens its European expansion, alongside its established presence in the US and Australia. **Why they made the TOP46:** Relox is part of a broader automation shift in the golf industry. With proven product-market fit, strong distributor networks across three continents, and plans to scale US manufacturing while launching its next product, the company represents a focused robotics play with tangible unit economics—not speculative automation. --- ### [Repass](https://repass.io/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Sara Mahdavi Rakstang**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-mahdavi/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Repass is a Transparency and Traceability-as-a-Service platform that helps SMEs participate in data-driven value chains. By centralizing scattered product data, enabling Digital Product Passports, and automating compliance workflows, Repass allows manufacturers, brands, and wholesalers to meet new EU regulatory requirements while strengthening competitiveness and consumer trust. **What stood out:** A democratization angle in a regulatory-heavy market. Rather than building another complex enterprise system, Repass delivers no-code integrations and workflow automation designed specifically for SMEs. The focus on interoperability across textiles, furniture, food, and other consumer goods sectors positions the platform as horizontal infrastructure for the adoption of the EU Digital Product Passport. **Traction:** Repass has 20+ paying customers across Scandinavia, spanning sport and outdoor, furniture, consumer goods wholesale, fashion, and local food. The company has raised €830K in private equity and projects revenue growth from €60K in 2025 toward €450K in 2026, targeting break-even in Q1 2027\. Partnerships include GS1 Nordic and CIRPASS2, as well as complementary Nordic tech providers. **Why they made the TOP46:** With 23 million European SMEs facing increasing compliance pressure under EU Ecodesign and Digital Product Passport regulations, Repass addresses a structural gap: data fluency for smaller players. By offering modular bundles by market segment and positioning transparency as an operational service—not just reporting—Repass is building infrastructure aligned with the future of regulated consumer goods markets. --- ### [RiACT](https://www.riact.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Magnus Philip Ritzau**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/magnus-philip-ritzau/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** RiACT builds a universal software layer for industrial robotics. Its platform, RiFLEX, standardizes hardware integration and allows manufacturers, OEMs, and integrators to deploy, reconfigure, and operate robots without deep robotics expertise—turning automation into a software-driven system rather than a hardware puzzle. **What stood out:** A clear thesis: automation is fragmented, and software—not hardware—is the missing layer. Magnus positioned RiACT as the operating system for robots, starting with machine tending, which represents over 40% of all robot installations. The dual-user platform—intuitive runtime tools for operators and developer tools for OEMs—signals platform ambition rather than point-solution tooling. **Traction:** RiACT has sold 40+ licenses, reached approximately €1M in revenue in 2025, and has deployments running 24/7 in production environments. The company is backed by Navigare Ventures (part of the Wallenberg ecosystem) and Butterfly Ventures, with €1M committed to its current €3M round. A growing pipeline and a shift toward channel partners position it for recurring revenue expansion. **Why they made the TOP46:** RiACT is targeting the €200B robotics opportunity with a software-first strategy. By abstracting away hardware complexity and serving as the default integration layer for automation vendors and manufacturers, the company is positioning itself as foundational infrastructure for industrial robotics—not just another robotics tool. --- ### [Sharp Vision](https://sharpvision.fr/en/?ref=upnext.world) [**Carolina Valadas**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolina-lucena-valadas/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Sharp Vision builds AI-powered regulatory platforms that give governments real-time control over digital financial flows. The SaaS solution enables authorities to monitor markets, recover lost tax revenues, detect fraud, and enforce compliance across sectors such as online gambling, mobile money, and other digital ecosystems. **What stood out:** A direct fiscal impact narrative. Carolina positioned Sharp Vision not as an abstract RegTech, but as a revenue-recovery engine for governments. The combination of real-time monitoring, automated enforcement capabilities, and data sovereignty is particularly relevant in emerging markets where digital adoption has outpaced regulatory infrastructure. **Traction:** Founded in 2021, Sharp Vision now operates in six jurisdictions with national-level government clients. The platform has reached 70 million users, manages €5B in annual financial flows, and reports €40M in ARR, with over 50% year-over-year revenue growth. Governments using the system have seen average tax revenue increases of over 350%. **Why they made the TOP46:** Sharp Vision sits at the intersection of AI, fiscal policy, and digital sovereignty. With a B2G SaaS model built around multi-year government contracts and expansion across continents, the company is positioning itself as foundational infrastructure for financial intelligence in emerging markets. --- ### [SPRYT](https://spryt.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Neill Dunwoody**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/funwoody/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** SPRYT builds Asa, an AI medical receptionist that lives inside WhatsApp and SMS. The platform orchestrates the full appointment journey—booking, reminders, payments, and transport—using predictive AI and behavioral science to reduce no-shows and improve access to care. **What stood out:** This is not a reminder tool. Neill framed SPRYT as an intervention engine. The system predicts at-risk patients, identifies barriers such as logistics or language, and deploys personalized, conversational nudges at scale. It replaces static notifications with adaptive, multi-agent AI engagement. **Traction:** In NHS North Central London, SPRYT increased cancer screening booking conversions by 160% and reduced each practice's admin time by 8 hours per week. The company is now live in the US, has won the HIMSS Pitchfest, Ireland’s National Enterprise of the Year 2025, and the London Health and MedTech Startup of the Year 2025. **Why they made the TOP46:** Healthcare access breaks down at the scheduling layer. SPRYT turns predictive analytics into measurable attendance outcomes. With deployments across the UK and the US and a scalable AI infrastructure model, the company is positioning itself as the front-door operating layer for healthcare systems. --- ### [SweGreen](https://www.swegreen.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Sepehr Mousavi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sepehrmz/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** SweGreen grows leafy greens and herbs directly inside retail and hospitality environments using AI-driven, automated farming systems. Through a Farming as a Service model, retailers subscribe to on-site production—eliminating transport, reducing waste, and gaining full control over freshness, yield, and cost. **What stood out:** A full-stack approach to localized food infrastructure. SweGreen combines hardware, AI-based parameter control across 100+ variables, cloud management, and a subscription model with zero upfront investment for customers. Rather than selling produce by the bag, they sell guaranteed harvest output—with >95% service level—shifting farming from a supply chain to an in-store asset. **Traction:** SweGreen operates 20+ active installations across Sweden and Germany, including major retailers such as ICA, Coop, Axfood, and EDEKA. The company reports zero churn and 100% contract renewals, with two patents filed and over 80,000 hours of R&D invested. The business projects ARR growth from $2M toward $140M by 2030 with expansion into the US and UAE underway. **Why they made the TOP46:** SweGreen reframes vertical farming from centralized facilities to embedded retail infrastructure. By collapsing 10–14 middle actors in the traditional supply chain into one on-site production unit, they address food security, sustainability, and margin pressure simultaneously. It’s an operationally proven agtech model with recurring revenue and global rollout ambition. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### [**TioTech AS**](https://www.tiotech.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Anders Teigland**](https://no.linkedin.com/in/andersteigland?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** TioTech develops TitanB, an ultra-safe, high-power anode material engineered for industrial batteries. Designed for harsh environments and continuous operation, TitanB enables six-minute charging, long lifetime performance, and safe operation in extreme temperatures — unlocking electrification in sectors where conventional batteries fail. **What stood out:** A chemistry-first approach to industrial electrification. Rather than incremental battery optimization, TioTech rebuilds the anode at the molecular level. TitanB eliminates the need for complex safety systems, withstands Arctic and desert conditions, and supports 24/7 operations — directly addressing uptime and durability constraints across mining, logistics, marine, and heavy industries. **Traction:** TioTech holds 22 granted patents across five patent families and operates a 100-tonne-per-year pilot facility in Bergen. The company has signed agreements for battery cell development with partners in Taiwan and technical sales agreements in the UAE. First systems are deployed in extreme-temperature environments, and plans are in place for a first-of-a-kind 2,000-tonne-per-year facility. **Why they made the TOP46:** Industrial electrification cannot rely on EV-optimized chemistry. TioTech targets specialty and hard-to-abate sectors that demand safety, rapid charging, and a long service life under harsh conditions. With a functioning pilot line and a defined scale-up roadmap, the company is a deep-tech materials play positioned at the infrastructure layer of next-generation industrial batteries. --- ### [TrialMe ](https://www.trialme.eu/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Carlotta Hillger**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlotta-hillger-0b18571ba/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** TrialMe is a recruitment platform that connects women to clinical trials by removing logistical and trust barriers. The platform addresses chronic underrepresentation in medical research and helps trial sponsors overcome enrollment failures through community-based engagement and success-based pricing. **What stood out:** This is supply-side infrastructure for research diversity. Clinical trials fail at enrollment because the default recruitment model ignores caregiving schedules, location constraints, and legacy distrust—barriers that disproportionately exclude women. TrialMe doesn't just list trials; it builds participant pipelines through education, peer support, and transparency. The timing aligns with regulatory enforcement: EMA's ACT EU diversity requirements take effect in 2026, creating compliance pressure that makes inclusive recruitment a procurement necessity, not a values exercise. **Traction:** Won AstraZeneca HackHerHealth Innovation Challenge. Accepted into COAX and Daya Ventures accelerators. First paid pilot launching in February 2026, recruiting 200+ participants for a metabolic pharmacology trial. Two UK paid trials are under negotiation. LOI signed with the University of Gothenburg. User testing shows 70% conversion willingness and an onboarding time under 8 minutes. **Why they made the TOP46:** Women experience twice the adverse drug reaction rate of men because most drug development data comes from male subjects. Regulators now mandate diversity, but pharma lacks the participant infrastructure to deliver it. TrialMe is building the missing layer between regulatory obligation and operational capability—a pre-qualified cohort that reduces cost-per-recruit as the database scales. This becomes category-defining if they can prove retention across trial phases, turning episodic matching into a durably engaged research community. --- ### [Volare](https://volare.fi/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Jarna Hyvönen**](https://fi.linkedin.com/in/jarna-hyvonen?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Volare upcycles agricultural and food sidestreams into high-quality protein and oil ingredients for aquafeed, pet food, and industrial applications. By combining insect bioconversion with energy-efficient processing, the company transforms waste streams into scalable, sustainable alternatives to fishmeal, soy, and palm-based products. **What stood out:** A circular industrial model built for scale. Volare does not position itself as an alternative protein startup alone, but as infrastructure for converting low-value sidestreams into high-value inputs. It's a fully electric, cost-efficient process that integrates proven technologies with proprietary IP, enabling industrial-scale production with strong product consistency and quality. **Traction:** Demonstration facility operating continuously for four years. Pet food products using Volare ingredients have been available to consumers since 2022. Offtake agreements secured with industry leaders for the first industrial-scale factory, Volare 01. First large-scale factory in Finland is currently under construction at Series A+ stage. **Why they made the TOP46:** With a projected 100 megaton global protein supply gap by 2050 and mounting pressure on oceans and rainforests, circular protein infrastructure is critical. Volare combines sidestream valorization, industrial scalability, and signed offtake demand—positioning itself as a core enabler in sustainable feed and chemical value chains. --- ## **Execution Over Hype, Scale Over Specs** Techarena isn't just a pitch competition—it's a proving ground. The teams highlighted here reflect a broader shift in European tech: founders who understand that innovation isn't measured by what you build, but by what gets deployed. Go-to-market clarity, defensible moats, early traction—these aren't nice-to-haves. They're the work. ### Did we miss anyone? Possibly. PITCH always moves faster than any single recap can capture. What’s documented here reflects the signal we observed—but some of the most interesting work often emerges just outside the spotlight. We’ll continue tracking the founders and ideas that point to what’s UpNext.Techarena isn't just a pitch competition—it's a proving ground. The teams highlighted here reflect a broader shift in European tech: founders who understand that innovation isn't measured by what you build, but by what gets deployed. Go-to-market clarity, defensible moats, early traction—these aren't nice-to-haves. They're the work. ### WHX Xcelerate 2026: Innovation Meets Clinical Reality URL: https://upnext.world/whx-xcelerate-2026/ Last updated: 2026-02-12T21:31:09.000Z WHX had a different energy this year. Sharper. More clinical. The conversations weren't about pitching healthcare trends—they were about solving actual problems in operating rooms, maternity wards, and oncology departments. What stood out wasn't innovation theater, but precision. The startups that made it to Xcelerate arrived with regulatory clarity, clinical evidence, and a realistic path to implementation. You could feel the difference between health-tech ideas and health-tech solutions—especially on the Future X Stage, where founders were defending their approaches in front of investors who'd funded actual medical device rollouts. And that's where Xcelerate cut through. Not as a showcase, but as a filter. The teams that advanced didn't just have compelling decks—they had compelling answers to the hard questions about reimbursement, regulatory pathways, and clinical adoption. Predictheon's win wasn't surprising. Their Predictive Decision Assistant does something tangible: it gives anesthesiologists ten minutes of advance warning before adverse events. That's not visionary. It's operational. Below is a closer look at the winner, the runners-up, and a selection of startups that demonstrated the kind of clarity and conviction that gets deployed, not just funded. --- ## Xcelerate 2026 - Winner & Finalists This year's Xcelerate competition surfaced a strong cross-section of clinical founders tackling real, category-defining problems—from anaesthesia safety and maternal health to early cancer detection, regenerative medicine, and precision diagnostics. Thirty finalists reached the Future X Stage, representing a global mix from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America, and Latin America. Only three teams took home cash prizes and guaranteed exhibition space at WHX 2027. What stood out wasn't novelty, but viability. The finalists demonstrated clear clinical validation, regulatory awareness, and a credible path to adoption—offering a snapshot of where healthcare innovation is moving beyond proof of concept and into actual deployment. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/02/WHX-Xcelerate-Predictheon-2-1.jpg) ### WINNER: [**PREDICTHEON MEDICAL**](https://www.predictheon.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Eva Gubern**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eva-gubern-anfruns-7b563041/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Predictheon makes surgeries and anesthesia safer by bringing AI into the operating room. The platform uses proprietary AI models built on real patient data to provide anesthesiologists with real-time, personalized information. Predictheon is transforming reactive monitoring into proactive intervention that anticipates complications before they occur. **What stood out:** Moving from reaction to prediction in the operating room. Anesthesiologists manually integrate over 100,000 data points per hour from disparate monitors, often responding only after adverse events have begun. Predictheon's AI analyzes data in real time to anticipate complications before they manifest, enabling anesthesiologists to proactively adjust anesthesia levels. The technology is built by training proprietary AI models on real patient data rather than relying on generic algorithms. **Traction:** Network of 150+ anesthesiologists waiting to deploy Predictheon in their operating rooms. UN AI For Good award recipient for building AI that is reliable, unbiased, transparent, and clinically validated. Seed stage with commercial launch planned for Europe by 2028. **Why they made the finals:** With 300 million surgeries performed each year globally and 20% experiencing anesthesia-related complications, the problem isn't small—it's systemic. Predictheon is solving it by bringing predictive intelligence to a field that has remained reactive for decades. By enabling anesthesiologists to see what's coming rather than responding to what's already --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/02/WHX-Xcelerate-MeNow-1.jpg) ### 1st Runner Up: [MeNOW Health](https://www.linkedin.com/company/me-now-health/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Kausar Tahir**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kausar-tahir-66880933?originalSubdomain=ae&ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** MeNOW Health is a digital multilingual platform that supports women in perimenopause in a clinically informed, culturally sensitive manner. The platform bridges women and the healthcare ecosystem by meeting them where they are with easy-to-use, multilingual resources that increase patient trust and compliance. **What stood out:** Cultural relevance as a clinical imperative. MeNOW Health recognizes that the lack of awareness, education, and culturally relevant resources for women in midlife isn't just a gap—it's a barrier to care. By building a multilingual platform that addresses perimenopause through culturally sensitive frameworks, they're solving the accessibility problem that prevents millions of women from getting support. The focus on being the "bridge between women and the healthcare ecosystem" signals an understanding that effective health solutions must fit the cultural context of the communities they serve, not force patients to adapt to Western-centric models. **Traction:** Winner of the 2025 GCC Mental Award for Best Startup in Women's Wellbeing. Accepted into multiple competitive accelerators globally. Featured in media coverage. Pre-seed stage with next milestone: launching workplace corporate training and clinic subscription model. **Why they made the finals:** Perimenopause affects every woman, yet remains profoundly under-resourced—especially for non-English speaking populations and women in culturally diverse communities where midlife health is stigmatized or underdiscussed. MeNOW Health is solving the dual problem of clinical gaps and cultural barriers by creating a platform that's both medically informed and culturally resonant. By positioning as the bridge between women and healthcare—rather than replacing clinical care—they're building the infrastructure to make perimenopause support accessible, trusted, and actionable for women who have been systematically underserved by one-size-fits-all approaches. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2026/02/WHX-Xcelerate-BiPERTherapeutics-1.jpg) ### 2nd Runner Up: [**BiPER Therapeutics**](https://biper-tx.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Mehdi Chelbi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehdi-chelbi-6b719a11?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** BiPER Therapeutics is revolutionizing cancer treatment by developing new drugs that push cancer cells to burn out. The company's lead candidate, BPR001-615, is the first and only oral drug in development that selectively inhibits BiP—a key protein for tumor survival and resistance that is overexpressed in cancer patients. **What stood out:** Targeting the resistance mechanism itself. BiPER isn't developing another chemotherapy or immunotherapy—they're attacking BiP, the protein that enables tumors to survive and develop resistance in the first place. As the only company pursuing selective oral BiP inhibition, they've identified a novel vulnerability in cancers that are not responsive to existing treatments. The lead candidate has demonstrated tumor regression in multiple animal models, both as a single agent and in combination with standards of care, validating the mechanism across indications **Traction:** Lead clinical candidate BPR001-615 is 6 months from clinical trials with demonstrated tumor regression in multiple animal models across several indications. Generating interest from pharma companies and investors. Series A+ stage, currently closing Series A to finance clinical development through Phase 2b clinical efficacy in BiP-high gastrointestinal cancer patients. **Why they made the finals:** Despite recent progress, 50% of cancer patients remain without solutions due to chemotherapy resistance, immunotherapy non-response, and ineligibility for targeted therapies. BiPER is addressing the patients left behind by current treatments—not by creating incremental improvements, but by targeting the fundamental mechanism that allows tumors to survive and resist therapy. By selectively inhibiting BiP, they're opening a new therapeutic avenue for the half of cancer patients who currently have no options. --- ## WHX Dubai Xcelerate Pitch Event - Standout Startups Beyond the finalists, Xcelerate brought together a wider cohort of healthcare founders building across diagnostics, digital health, therapeutics, and clinical infrastructure. Not all competed on the Future X Stage, but the teams below stood out for their clarity, clinical relevance, and readiness to scale. What made them notable wasn't just the technology—it was how well they understood their regulatory pathway, reimbursement model, and the specific clinical workflows they were entering. These are the startups worth tracking as they move from pilots to deployment. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### **Startup:** [**ABCDx**](https://www.abcdx.ch/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Ingrid Lansard**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ingridlansard/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** ABCDx is developing the first rapid, AI-based blood test to detect Large Vessel Occlusion (LVO) stroke in under 10 minutes. Built for pre-hospital use, the test equips paramedics with actionable insight when time matters most—before patients ever reach imaging. By combining patented blood biomarkers with an AI-powered mobile reader, ABCDx enables faster triage decisions and directs patients to the right treatment pathway earlier. **What stood out:** A clinically grounded approach to AI in healthcare. Rather than relying on symptom scoring or complex equipment, ABCDx focuses on a simple, deployable diagnostic that fits directly into emergency workflows. The emphasis on time saved—and the downstream impact on survival and disability—was clear and compelling. **Traction:** ABCDx is at the seed stage with strong clinical validation: an 800-patient prospective study underway with Charité Berlin, over 2,000 patients evaluated across studies, and €2.7M in non-dilutive funding from the European Innovation Council. The team also holds multiple patents in brain-related blood biomarkers. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** ABCDx tackles one of the highest-impact problems in acute care with a solution that is both technically sophisticated and operationally realistic. Ingrid articulated a path from clinical evidence to real-world deployment across Europe, the US, and the Middle East—positioning the company as a potential category-definer in rapid stroke diagnostics. --- ### **Startup**: [Braillic Limited](https://braillic.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Camroo Ahmed**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/camrooahmed/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Braillic is building affordable AR-guided surgical navigation for underserved economies. ArNav overlays a precise 3D map of the patient's CT/MRI directly onto their anatomy, giving surgeons millimeter-level, heads-up, "X-ray-like" guidance—making complex neuro and orthopedic surgeries safer and more accessible at a fraction of conventional navigation costs. **What stood out:** Addressing the accessibility gap in surgical precision. Many life-saving surgeries become "inoperable" not because surgeons lack skill, but because hospitals can't afford the navigation systems needed for minimally invasive procedures. Braillic delivers the same millimeter-level accuracy via AR at a fraction of the cost, enabling complex procedures in low-tier hospitals that previously had to refer patients elsewhere—often at the expense of time, money, and lives. **Traction:** 5 pilot customers deployed. Pre-seed stage company moving from validation to scale. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Surgical navigation shouldn't be a luxury limited to top-tier hospitals. Braillic is democratizing access to precision surgery by making AR-guided navigation affordable for underserved economies. By replacing expensive navigation towers with accessible AR technology, they're enabling surgeons to perform complex procedures they couldn't risk before—turning "inoperable" cases into treatable ones and bringing life-saving precision to the hospitals that need it most. --- ### **Startup**: [**Calla Lily Clinical Care**](https://www.callali.ly/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Thang Vo-Ta**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/thangv/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Calla Lily Clinical Care is a versatile vaginal drug-delivery platform for threatened miscarriage and IVF, with broader applications in menopause, oncology, and the microbiome. The patented device provides superior retention, mess-free delivery, and dosage confidence—solving the fundamental inadequacy of existing intravaginal drug delivery methods **What stood out:** A novel way to approach women's health and drug delivery. Callavid isn't optimized for one condition—it's designed to be adaptable across fertility, pregnancy, gynecological conditions, and live biotherapeutics. The device maintains correct drug positioning while absorbing leaked excipients, offering convenience during daily activities and unique advantages for vaginal microbiome colonization. The new strategic collaboration with Merck validates the platform's commercial potential beyond single-indication development. **Traction:** A strategic collaboration with Merck was announced at WHX Dubai. Clinical stage beginning this year with a 60-person bioequivalence trial for progesterone delivery in miscarriage and IVF. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Women's health has long been underserved by inadequate drug delivery methods—no existing product offers adaptability across conditions while providing true convenience and dosage confidence. The team is building the infrastructure for a new generation of intravaginal therapeutics. By creating a versatile drug delivery system rather than a single-use device, they're enabling capital-light growth through pharma licensing partnerships while addressing critical unmet needs across fertility, pregnancy, and gynecological health --- ### **Startup**: [**Eupnoos**](http://www.eupnoos.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Arshia Gratiot**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arshia-gratiot?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Eupnoos listens to your breathing to detect early heart and lung changes using clinically validated AI technology. The platform analyzes natural breathing sounds through smartphone microphones, translating subtle patterns into objective signals of lung function. By learning what's normal for each person, Eupnoos detects meaningful changes over time—enabling early intervention across asthma, interstitial lung disease, drug-induced lung injury in oncology, and heart failure before symptoms become severe. **What stood out:** Turning everyday breathing into continuous early detection. Most lung health tools only detect damage after it's already progressed—relying on infrequent symptoms, basic oxygen checks, or hospital tests that show damage once it's progressed. Eupnoos works differently: it analyzes how the lungs function day-to-day, learns individual baselines, and spots problems much earlier. Critically, it doesn't just flag changes—it helps explain why, distinguishing between ongoing lung disease, temporary inflammation, fluid buildup, or medication reactions. Using technology people already have (smartphone microphones) makes it accessible for home use while remaining reliable enough for clinical settings. **Traction:** CE Class I-approved lung health screening app launching on Apple App Store. Studies are being completed and are ongoing across the UK, Europe, and other regions, covering chronic lung disease, heart failure-related lung fluid, and lung safety in cancer treatment. €650K+ raised through investment and grants. Three patent families filed. Paid pilot projects delivered with healthcare and industry partners. Active discussions with pharmaceutical companies for clinical trial lung safety monitoring. Multiple innovation awards across UK and Europe. Strong team combining doctors, scientists, engineers, and AI specialists. Seed stage. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Respiratory disease is one of the world's most common and dangerous health problems, yet lung health remains invisible between hospital visits. Most people only discover problems when symptoms become severe—often too late to prevent serious harm. Eupnoos is making lung health measurable, understandable, and actionable in everyday life by teaching machines to "listen" to lungs the way doctors once did with stethoscopes. By turning natural breathing into a continuous early signal, they're enabling intervention long before patients reach crisis—bringing the same accessible monitoring that exists for heart rate and blood pressure to an organ that has been flying blind. --- ### **Startup**: [**Healp**](https://www.healp.co/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Elizabeth Tikoyan**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/etikoyan/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Healp uses AI to diagnose patients faster by comparing symptoms to real patient experiences, surfacing likely conditions and guiding users to the right doctors and tests. The platform cuts unnecessary appointments, lab work, and delays by providing a clinical roadmap based on verified, longitudinal data from patients who've lived through similar diagnostic journeys. **What stood out:** Moving from theoretical medicine to lived-experience intelligence. While traditional diagnostic tools ask "what condition fits this symptom in a textbook," Healp's AI asks "which real-world patients have lived through this exact trajectory, and what was their diagnosis?" The platform doesn't just offer possibilities—it provides custom diagnostic roadmaps specifying exact sub-specialists and high-yield tests needed, replacing the "referral merry-go-round" with precision navigation. The focus on pattern matching from actual patient outcomes rather than theoretical symptom checking represents a fundamental reimagining of diagnostic intelligence. **Traction:** Tens of thousands of users across 70+ countries, with 40% rare disease patients and 75% Gen Z/Millennials providing unique longitudinal data. Backed by Techstars (with J.P. Morgan), BARDA, Halcyon House, U.C. Berkeley, and NYCEDC. Finalizing pilots with major U.S. hospital systems (under NDA). Won Audience Choice Award at DIA and Fan Favorite at Digital Health Innovation Summit. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** 84% of patients experience misdiagnosis, with the diagnostic odyssey lasting an average of 7 years for complex conditions—contributing to over $1 trillion in annual healthcare waste. Healp is solving the systemic failure of the diagnostic process by turning collective patient experiences into shortcuts to accurate diagnosis. By capturing the longitudinal patient journey and identifying hidden symptom patterns that haven't been codified in clinical literature, they're cutting years off the search for answers and restoring hope to millions trapped in medical limbo. --- ### **Startup**: [**iHealthScreen Inc.**](https://ihealthscreen.org/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Alauddin Bhuiyan**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alauddin-bhuiyan-36707111/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** iHealthScreen provides fully automated screening for ophthalmic and cardiovascular diseases through AI-powered retinal imaging. The iPredict platform screens for multiple conditions—diabetic retinopathy, AMD, hypertensive retinopathy, glaucoma, cardiovascular disease, and MI/stroke risk—enabling early diagnosis and timely intervention to prevent blindness, save lives, and eliminate economic burden. **What stood out:** The eye as a window to total health. iHealthScreen's approach recognizes that retinal imaging reveals not just eye conditions but cardiovascular disease and stroke risk. By combining AI with retinal analysis, they've created a single screening platform that detects multiple life-threatening conditions with high accuracy—making comprehensive health screening as simple as looking into a camera. **Traction:** Regulatory approvals across major markets: CE Mark, UK MHRA, Australia TGA, UAE DoH, with FDA clearance underway. Three US patents granted. Commercial deployments with customers in USA (multiple NY clinics), UAE (Burjeel Hospitals, One Health, Pure Health), and Australia. Platform offers telemedicine integration, EHR connectivity, and predictive analytics. Growth-stage company targeting deployment in 1,000+ clinics for large-scale AMD and DR screening. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Preventable blindness and cardiovascular incidents remain leading causes of disability and death globally—not because treatments don't exist, but because screening happens too late or not at all. iHealthScreen is ending this by making multi-disease screening automated, accurate, and accessible. With regulatory clearance across major markets and proven commercial traction, they're scaling the infrastructure to make early detection routine rather than exceptional. --- ### **Startup**: [Kapsule](https://www.kapsuletech.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**David Chen**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-chen-kapsule/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Kapsule is building the Bloomberg Terminal of health data—a single access point for high-quality, regulatory-compliant healthcare datasets. The platform enables large corporates, researchers, and tech firms to unlock health data for commercial strategy, consulting, and research without navigating fragmented systems or legal barriers. **What stood out:** A clear solution to one of healthcare’s hardest constraints: access. David focused on incentives, privacy, and data sovereignty, showing how Kapsule enables data sharing at scale while remaining compliant across jurisdictions. It’s infrastructure, not analytics theatre—and that distinction matters. **Traction:** Kapsule operates across 14 countries, connects 17,000+ health facilities, and provides access to 75M+ health records. The company is already working with some of the world’s largest institutions and is operating at growth stage with a live, expanding dataset. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Kapsule is positioning itself as foundational infrastructure for global health intelligence, particularly across emerging and underserved markets. David articulated a credible expansion strategy—Series A readiness, China market entry, and GCC growth—backed by real scale, not pilots. This is a platform play with geopolitical and commercial relevance. --- ### **Startup:** [**Limb**](https://limb.ae/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Shamma Alsaedi**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shamma-alsaedi-2671851b9/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Limb is an AI-powered physiotherapy platform that extends care from the clinic into the home. Using privacy-first computer vision, Limb helps patients perform prescribed exercises correctly while giving physiotherapists visibility into progress between in-person sessions. **What stood out:** A deep understanding of real-world r**ehabilitation barriers**. Shamma’s pitch emphasized **privacy, culture, and trust**—critical factors often overlooked in health AI. By enabling exercise correction without storing videos and designing for **cultural context**, Limb removes friction that prevents patient adherence. **Traction:** Limb is at MVP stage with strong early validation: First Place at Build It Demo Day, First Place in the UAE Ministry of Education’s Tomorrow’s Pioneers Entrepreneurship Challenge 2024, and Second Place at the MBZUAI and startAD Inaugural Pitch Event. The company has a strategic partnership with HealthPoint for real-world data validation and is a two-time MBZUAI Incubation grant recipient. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Limb addresses a costly gap in physiotherapy with a solution designed for how care actually happens outside the clinic. Shamma articulated a focused path toward pilots and clinical validation, positioning Limb as an enabling layer for rehab centers—not a replacement—at a time when accessible, hybrid care models are increasingly essential. --- ### **Startup**: [**Muun Health**](https://www.linkedin.com/company/muun-health/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Kerli Luks**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerli-luks?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Muun Health is changing how we manage women's hormonal health by developing a novel wearable sensor that enables continuous, convenient data collection. The platform enables real-time tracking of female hormones for the first time, moving hormonal monitoring from periodic lab tests to ongoing, personalized data collection. **What stood out:** Addressing the fundamental invisibility of female hormonal health. Currently, there are no methods to track female hormones in real-time, leaving individuals and clinicians working with incomplete, delayed, or entirely absent data when making critical health decisions. Muun Health's wearable sensor approach brings continuous hormonal monitoring from the lab to everyday life, enabling truly personalized care based on objective, ongoing data rather than subjective symptoms or infrequent testing. The focus on convenience and continuous measurement represents a category-defining shift in how half the population can understand and manage their health. **Traction:** In 2025, Muun Health grew R&D from 4 to 13 researchers, reached laboratory PoC, obtained €150k in grant funding and closed the €546k pre-seed round. They established academic, industrial and clinical partnerships in 7 different countries in the EU. Muun Health received the HealthTech of the Year 2025 at Estonian Startup Awards. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Respiratory disease is one of the world's most common and dangerous health problems, yet lung health remains invisible between hospital visits. Most people only discover problems when symptoms become severe—often too late to prevent serious harm. Eupnoos is making lung health measurable, understandable, and actionable in everyday life by teaching machines to "listen" to lungs the way doctors once did with stethoscopes. By turning natural breathing into a continuous early signal, they're enabling intervention well before patients reach crisis—bringing the same accessible monitoring available for heart rate and blood pressure to an organ that has been operating in the dark. --- ### Startup: [**Rosetta Omics**](https://rosetta-omics.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Wahid Awad**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/wahidawad/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Rosetta Omics uses AI-powered multi-omics analytics to deliver personalized treatment predictions that improve outcomes for cancer patients. The platform integrates high-resolution genomics, proteomics, lipidomics, and spatial profiling data to generate clinically actionable predictions of treatment response—going far beyond single-biomarker approaches to match each patient with their most effective therapy. **What stood out:** Multi-layer molecular intelligence meets AI prediction. Rosetta Omics combines diverse molecular data from a patient's tumor in a single analysis, using label-free mass spectrometry and spatial multi-omics to extract rich molecular information from routine biopsy samples. This holistic approach not only identifies effective treatments for individual patients but discovers new biomarkers and therapeutic targets that traditional methods miss. The platform empowers clinicians to deliver the right therapy at the right time while supporting pharma partners in accelerating drug development—making precision oncology both clinically relevant and commercially scalable. **Traction:** 1st place among top 20 European startups at HealthTech Innovation Days (Paris). Winner of Pfizer Healthcare Hub France acceleration program (Season 5) and ESCP Business School & BPCE Innovation Prize. Labeled Deep Tech Pioneer by Hello Tomorrow and recognized by Bpifrance. Three successful POC studies in colon cancer with Institut Curie, POC in kidney cancer with CHU Rennes, and additional studies being prepared with Gustave Roussy. Awarded prestigious France 2030 AI Pioneers grant (2026). Incubated at Agoranov and Station F. Multiple Bpifrance grants secured. Early collaborations with top French cancer hospitals. Seed stage, raising €3M in 2026 for first retrospective clinical trial. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Cancer treatment remains trial-and-error for millions of patients because standard therapies aren't tailored to each tumor's unique biology—leading to ineffective treatments, unnecessary side effects, wasted time, and high costs. Rosetta Omics is solving this by integrating multi-omics molecular data with AI to predict treatment response before therapy begins. By moving from single biomarkers to comprehensive molecular profiling, they're transforming precision oncology from promise to reality—improving survival chances, reducing treatment failure, and ensuring patients get the right care at the right time. --- ### **Startup**: [**Pioneera Biosciences**](https://pioneerabio.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Alireza Daneshvar**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alireza-daneshvar/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Pioneera is redesigning how cures are discovered, validated, and delivered through Discovery 4.0—an AI-driven platform that integrates biology, data, and machine learning to design, test, and optimize precision immunotherapies before they reach patients. The platform functions like "ChatGPT for immunotherapy development," transforming complex biological data into optimized, precision-engineered treatments that improve success rates while reducing time, cost, and risk. **What stood out:** Immune orchestration instead of incremental optimization. Pioneera is the first to unify AI-driven design, pan-omics integration, and high-throughput biological validation into a single end-to-end system. Rather than optimizing therapies one variable at a time, their platform simultaneously accounts for disease biology, patient-specific constraints, safety, and resistance mechanisms—before clinical use. This integrated, pre-clinical de-risking model moves immunotherapy development from reactive treatment to proactive cure design, addressing the fundamental problem: not a lack of science, but fragmented discovery models that make therapies slow, expensive, and unpredictable. **Traction:** Discovery 4.0 platform built and validated with 300+ AI-generated constructs benchmarked in silico, significantly outperforming commercial comparators. Strategic partnership with PrePaire Labs for fully automated, organoid-based screening enabling parallel validation of thousands of candidates. Active programs across CAR-T, CAR-NK, NK/NKT, and targeted therapies. Collaborations with medical institutions and technology partners in UAE and Europe advancing pilot studies. Forbes 30 Under 30, Abu Dhabi Global Health Week Innovation Awards nomination, Rising Star of the Year by MedTech World. Chosen startup at Riyadh Global Medical Biotechnology Summit Demo Day. Growth stage, next milestone: launching hub-and-spoke precision oncology clinic integrated with AI platform. **Why they made it to Xcelerate:** Today's immunotherapies fail 20-70% of the time due to resistance, antigen escape, and safety risks—not because the science is lacking, but because development methods rely on isolated tools, linear workflows, and late-stage trial-and-error. Pioneera is solving this systemic inefficiency by integrating the entire discovery process into a single platform that designs and de-risks therapies computationally before clinical use. By moving precision medicine from fragmented optimization to integrated orchestration, they're making advanced therapies faster, more predictable, and ultimately accessible rather than exceptional. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## More Stops Ahead. Follow the global circuit of startup ecosystems and the founders shaping what’s next. Get the Next Recap Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ## **Clinical Readiness, Not Just Clinical Potential** Xcelerate isn't just a pitch competition—it's a stress test. The teams highlighted here reflect a broader shift in health-tech: founders who understand that innovation in healthcare isn't measured by what you build, but by what gets adopted. Regulatory pathways, reimbursement models, clinical workflows—these aren't afterthoughts. They're the work. ### **Miss anyone?** Probably. Xcelerate moves faster than any single recap can capture, and some of the most promising teams are still in stealth or early pilots. What's documented here reflects the founders who were ready to be seen, but the next breakthrough is likely already in development, just not yet on a stage. We'll continue tracking the teams and technologies shaping what's UpNext in healthcare. ### What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-2026-02-11/ Last updated: 2026-02-11T13:00:26.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*, your weekly briefing on the founders, stories, and signals shaping what’s coming next in global tech. In this issue, we recap what stood out at Web Summit Qatar, track two pitch stages where momentum is building this week, and spotlight founders tackling real-world challenges in clean technology and energy. You’ll find insights from the road, coverage from WHX Dubai Xcelerate and TechArena TOP46, and two featured founder stories exploring what it actually takes to scale clean technology systems and move faster on replacing diesel today, not someday. We also share an updated look at where the UpNext World Tour heads next and how partners can get involved as the journey continues. Thanks for being here, here we *goooo*! --- ### *Event Recap* ## Web Summit (Doha, Qatar) Last week in Doha, Web Summit Qatar brought together founders, investors, operators, and ecosystem leaders from across the globe, reinforcing the region’s growing role as a leading hub for early-stage innovation. The energy felt intentional. Conversations were grounded. Founders weren’t pitching abstract futures — they were building for real problems, regional realities, and near-term execution. The signal was clear: this wasn’t about spectacle, it was about substance. At the center of the week was the PITCH competition. From hundreds of startups, a small group stood out by combining strong problem definition with credible paths to adoption. The winner, Plantaform, set the tone with a focused, scalable approach to food security and sustainability, alongside finalists and standout teams advancing health, AI, hardware, and infrastructure. We followed the competition from the early rounds to the finals, highlighted the winner, runners-up, and standout startups, and mapped the signals shaping what comes next — not just for the region, but for the global startup ecosystem. Check out our full recap and standout founder list below. [Web Summit Qatar PITCH 2026A look inside the Web Summit Qatar PITCH 2026 finals—featuring the winner, the finalists, and the standout startups shaping what’s UpNext in tech.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-19.png)UpNext.WorldEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-04-at-04.48.06-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/web-summit-qatar-pitch-2026-whats-upnext/) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view*—not just what they’re building, but why it matters*next*. ### Latest Features [Designing the Systems Clean Technology Needs to ScaleClean technology doesn’t fail because of ideas. It fails when capital, process, and execution can’t keep up. Green Power Plus is building the systems that help clean innovation move faster, scale smarter, and reach the market without waiting for permission.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-20.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/1_Colombo-Esmeralda-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/designing-the-systems-clean-tech-needs-to-scale/) [Why Replacing Diesel Can’t WaitReplacing diesel doesn’t mean waiting for perfect solutions. Serenity Power is cutting emissions now with flexible fuel cells that work with today’s infrastructure. Founder Aleisha Cerny explains why urgency and pragmatism matter in the energy transition.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-21.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Aleisha-Cerny-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/why-replacing-diesel-cant-wait/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### *This Week* ## WHX Dubai Xcelerate (Dubai, UAE) and TechArena TOP46 (Stockholm, Sweden) This week, our focus turns to two pitch stages where meaningful momentum is taking shape: WHX Dubai Xcelerate and TechArena TOP46. In Dubai, WHX Xcelerate puts healthcare innovation front and center. Founders here are not experimenting at the edges. They are addressing delivery, access, cost, and outcomes in one of the world's most complex and regulated sectors. At the same time, in Stockholm, TechArena TOP46 continues to raise the bar for early-stage ambition. The competition has become a proving ground for founders who pair strong problem clarity with category-level thinking. Across both events, a common thread is emerging. Strong technology is expected. What separates the standouts is clarity of problem, clarity of narrative, and clarity on what comes next. We are tracking pitches, spotlighting founders, and capturing signals from both stages this week. Full recaps, standout startups, and founder highlights coming soon. --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## What’s Ahead on the Road As the UpNext World Tour continues to take shape, here’s a look at where we’re heading next as part of our ongoing coverage roadmap. These are the events where we’ll be tracking emerging signals, spotlighting founders, and connecting with ecosystems shaping what comes next. - **4YFN @ MWC Barcelona** — Spain | Mar 2–5 - **START Summit** — Switzerland | Mar 19–20 - **Skinnovation** — Austria | Mar 25–27 - **Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX)** — Canada | Mar 25 *Coverage varies by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they are confirmed. If you are planning to attend any of these or think there is an ecosystem we should be paying attention to, let us know where we should show up.* --- ## UpNext Global Partners As the UpNext World Tour continues to roll out, we are still opening the door to a small number of new partners. UpNext Global is built to spotlight founders and startups across global ecosystems, giving them visibility, context, and narrative as they scale. Our partner program is designed for organizations that want to engage earlier, go deeper, and help shape what comes next. We work across three partner tracks: **Capital Partners** Connect with founders early and gain visibility into emerging startups across global ecosystems. **Growth Partners** Bring your expertise to founders who are actively building and scaling. **Ecosystem Partners** Elevate your startups and extend the reach of your accelerator, EDO, or innovation program. Interested in partnering with UpNext Global? We’re opening a limited number of conversations. --- ### *Final Thought* ## Stop Being a Spokesperson There’s a difference between showing up and standing for something. Lately, that difference has been impossible to ignore. Across pitch stages, interviews, and private conversations, I keep seeing the same pattern. Many founders are present. Few are positioned. They can explain what their company does, but not the world it’s trying to create. They speak on behalf of a product, not from a point of view. Being a spokesperson is safe. It’s reactive. It keeps you close to features, updates, and talking points. But it doesn’t move people. Founders who break through operate differently. They don’t just communicate progress. They articulate direction. They frame the problem in a way that makes their solution feel inevitable. And once you hear it, you can’t unsee it. > *That’s the power of narrative.* In an era when AI has flattened content, lowered the cost of creation, and flooded every channel with noise, clarity has become the real advantage. The founders who stand out aren’t louder. They’re clearer. They’re not just pitching products. They’re inviting others into the future they’re building toward. This season on the road reinforced that lesson again and again. The next wave of breakout companies won’t be defined by who posts the most or ships the fastest. They’ll be shaped by founders who stop being spokespeople and start becoming narrators. That shift changes everything. Gratefully, Edwin > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ### Web Summit Qatar PITCH 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/web-summit-qatar-pitch-2026-whats-upnext/ Last updated: 2026-02-04T12:51:48.000Z ## The winner, finalists, and early signals shaping what’s UpNext in tech. Web Summit Qatar had a different kind of intensity. Focused. Intentional. Conversations moved quickly, often skipping the small talk and getting straight to the work. What stood out wasn’t scale for scale’s sake, but signal. Teams arrived clear on the problems they were solving and where they were headed next. You could feel the shift from idea-stage optimism to execution-driven ambition—especially in the rooms where early-stage founders were pressure-testing their thinking in real time. And that’s where PITCH cut through. Not as a side attraction, but as a lens into what’s actually being built now. The teams that made it through stood out not just for how they pitched, but for the clarity, conviction, and readiness behind what they’re building. Below is a closer look at the winner, the finalists, and a selection of startups that left a strong impression throughout the PITCH program. --- ## PITCH Qatar 2026 - Winner & Finalists This year’s PITCH competition surfaced a strong cross-section of technical founders tackling real, category-defining problems—from infrastructure and climate resilience to commerce, mobility, and applied AI. Only three teams advanced to the final round, each bringing a distinct and future-facing take on their market. What stood out wasn’t hype, but execution. The finalists demonstrated clear problem definition, strong technical foundations, and a credible path to adoption—offering a snapshot of where early-stage innovation is heading next. --- ### WINNER: [Plantaform](https://plantaform.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Alberto Aguilar**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alberto-aguilar-a2138aa4/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Plantaform builds indoor growing systems powered by proprietary fogponics technology, enabling faster plant growth while using a fraction of the water required by traditional agriculture. By making hyper-fresh food possible anywhere, the company is addressing one of the most fragile aspects of the global food system: long supply chains, water scarcity, and the rising cost of fresh produce. Originally designed for home use, the platform has evolved into a scalable solution spanning compact indoor units and commercial-grade systems adapted to**,** challenging environments. **What stood out:** A rare combination of deep technology and real-world deployment. Fogponics—originally developed by NASA for space cultivation—isn’t positioned here as novelty, but as infrastructure. Plantaform’s ability to scale the same core technology from kitchens to desert greenhouses signals long-term ambition beyond consumer hardware. **Traction:** Plantaform has generated over $1M in revenue across North America, with deployments in homes, schools, and major retail partners, including Costco. The company has received international recognition, including CES 2025 Best of Innovation and a deal on *Dragons’ Den* Season 19, and is now expanding into the GCC through pilot projects and commercial greenhouse initiatives. **Why they made the finals:** Plantaform is solving a global problem with local relevance. Alberto was clear about why water-scarce regions like the GCC represent a natural next market—and why the same platform can serve consumers, developers, and governments alike. It’s a vision rooted in food security, sustainability, and scale, backed by proven demand. --- ### Finalist: [&Again](https://www.andagainandagain.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Roanne El Alaili**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/roannealaili/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** &Again is a social commerce app for pre-loved and sustainable fashion—designed to make resale feel curated, social, and aspirational. Often described as *Asos meets TikTok, but sustainable*, the platform reframes second-hand shopping from a transactional marketplace into a culture-led experience built for Gen Z and millennial consumers. Rather than focusing on guilt or climate messaging, &Again positions circular fashion as desirable, expressive, and community-driven. **What stood out:** A sharp understanding that behavior change in fashion doesn’t come from ethics alone—it comes from culture. Roanne is building resale around storytelling, influence, and identity, turning sustainability into something people want to participate in rather than feel obligated to support. **Traction:** The MVP launched in September 2025 and is already showing strong early momentum: 2,000 downloads, 800 sign-ups, and over 2,000 items listed. More than 400 items have been sold, generating \~200,000 AED in revenue. The platform is also building organic reach, with 2,000 Instagram followers and 14 influencers onboarded representing a combined audience of 10M+. **Why they made the finals:** &Again is tackling a massive global problem—fashion overproduction and textile waste—through a lens that fits the region and its consumers. Roanne’s approach blends social commerce, brand, and community to unlock circularity at scale, making her one of the more culturally attuned pitches in the competition. --- ### Finalist: [Glüxkind Technologies](https://gluxkind.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Kevin Huang**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinzwhuang/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Glüxkind is reinventing the stroller by applying AI and robotics to everyday parenting. Designed for modern urban families, the company’s flagship product delivers real-world assistance—reducing physical strain, improving safety, and easing the mental load of caring for young children. Rather than adding surface-level “smart features,” Glüxkind positions the stroller as a co-pilot for parents, built to actively support mobility and safety in real environments. **What stood out:** A clear focus on assistance, not novelty. Kevin’s pitch emphasized practical, AI-driven mobility—push assist, braking support, and safety features that address real pain points parents face daily. It’s a rare example of robotics applied thoughtfully to consumer hardware, where trust and reliability matter more than spectacle. **Traction:** The product is already in market across seven countries, with strong early validation: two CES Innovation Awards, $9.5M in pre-orders following its debut at CES 2023, and two granted patents. This level of traction at a pre-seed stage signals both demand and execution capability. **Why they made the finals:** Glüxkind represents a shift from passive baby gear to intelligent mobility. Kevin articulated a long-term vision that extends beyond a single product—using AI to redefine how families move through cities. It’s a hardware-first company with platform-level ambition, backed by real customer pull. --- ## Standout PITCH Startups And while the finalists anchored the stage, the depth of talent across this year’s PITCH program was impressive. Many founders came in with clarity, conviction, and real progress. Here is a selection of teams that stood out—whether through the problems they’re solving, the way they pitched, or the momentum they’re building. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### [Certean](https://www.certean.com/?ref=upnext.world) — [Said Damoun](https://www.linkedin.com/in/said-damoun-8920643aa/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Certean uses AI to turn global regulatory compliance from a months-long consulting exercise into a clear, automated assessment. Instead of asking what a product *is*, Certean analyzes what it *does*—identifying all applicable regulations across markets before manufacturers sell, ship, or scale. **What stood out:** A fundamentally different way of thinking about compliance. By searching *effect*, Certean surfaces the hidden, horizontal regulations that traditional tools and consultants routinely miss—wireless components, batteries, lasers, sensors. The result is a system that scales with complexity, learns from every assessment, and turns regulatory risk into a repeatable, defensible process. --- ### [Fenestra](https://www.fenestra.app/?ref=upnext.world) — [Shaun McCallum](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shauncoree/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Fenestra is a spatial AI canvas built for early-stage architectural design, helping architects turn sketches, CAD files, and rough 3D models into clear spatial visuals in seconds. It enables teams to communicate ideas earlier and faster—without disrupting existing workflows. **What stood out:** A sharp focus on the *earliest* and most under-supported phase of architectural work: idea communication. Fenestra doesn’t replace design tools—it accelerates understanding, reducing friction between architects, clients, and collaborators when clarity matters most. --- ### [Fincart](https://fincart.io/?ref=upnext.world) — [Mostafa Masry](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mostafa-masry/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Fincart is an operating system for e-commerce in emerging markets that unifies multi-courier shipping, cash collection, and customer delivery management on a single platform. Built for cash-on-delivery realities, it helps merchants sell more while saving time and money by replacing fragmented logistics and payments workflows with one integrated stack. **What stood out:** A clear understanding that logistics, cash reconciliation, and working capital are inseparable in emerging markets. Fincart’s end-to-end approach turns operational data into intelligence—powering routing, credit, and performance—something point solutions simply can’t do. The near-5× YoY growth, 95%+ retention, and zero marketing spend reinforce strong product-market fit. --- ### [Gig Engineer](https://gigengineer.io/?ref=upnext.world) — [Kirshen Naidoo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirshen-naidoo/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Gig Engineer enables companies to scale their core engineering teams on demand through an AI-powered, plug-and-play project-delivery platform. Built specifically for engineering workflows—not generic freelancing—it matches projects to vetted engineers and manages scope, contracts, payments, and delivery in a single digital workroom. **What stood out:** A clear focus on *core* engineering work and measurable efficiency gains. By addressing idle time, talent mismatch, and project-level delivery—rather than hourly staffing—Gig Engineer reframes workforce flexibility as an operational advantage for engineering-led enterprises, not just a cost play. --- ### [Intriq AI ](https://intriq.ai/home?ref=upnext.world)— [Jess Liew](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jess-liew/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Intriq deploys autonomous AI agents for consultants across the full engagement lifecycle, with a particular strength in deep financial diagnosis. Unlike LLM-only tools, its agents write and execute code to analyze raw, messy financial data—allowing advisors to go deeper, faster, and with audit-ready accuracy. Early users are completing projects up to 58% faster. **What stood out:** A clear focus on where AI actually creates leverage in consulting: data preparation and financial analysis. Intriq’s code-executing agents move beyond surface-level summaries and into reproducible, verifiable diagnostics—addressing one of the most persistent time drains in corporate finance and transaction advisory work. --- ### [PromptGuard](https://promptguard.co/?ref=upnext.world) — [Arouba Zubair](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arouba/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** PromptGuard is the firewall for AI prompts—providing plug-and-play security, auditability, and cost control for GenAI applications and autonomous AI agents. It sits in front of the LLM, not inside it, enabling teams to block prompt injection, data leakage, unsafe actions, and runaway behavior in minutes. **What stood out:** A sharp reframing of prompts as the new security perimeter for AI systems. PromptGuard’s focus on speed, visibility, and enforceable boundaries speaks directly to real production risk—especially as AI agents and shadow AI proliferate faster than governance can keep up. --- ### [SEE](https://see.com.co/?ref=upnext.world) — [Abdelrahman Ghareeb](https://www.linkedin.com/in/abdelrahman-ghareeb-b6734a54/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** SEE is an AI-driven sports intelligence platform that turns any camera into a standardized athlete assessment tool. By translating movement into objective, repeatable performance metrics, SEE builds a 360° athlete profile—covering physical, skill, and psychological dimensions—without requiring labs, wearables, or expensive setups. **What stood out:** A strong push toward democratizing athlete evaluation. SEE replaces subjective scouting and intuition-driven development with accessible, data-backed insights, making consistent talent identification and progress tracking possible at scale—well beyond elite or professional environments. --- ### [SWAI.Ai](https://swai.ai/?ref=upnext.world) — [Mehrdad Sadraei](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mehrdad-sadraei/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** SWAI enables agencies to replace fragmented tool stacks with an autonomous execution layer—launching profitable campaigns at machine speed. Instead of copilots or workflow glue, SWAI delivers an Autonomous Revenue OS that compresses weeks of agency execution into minutes while dramatically reducing cost and manual input. **What stood out:** A clear diagnosis of margin collapse in the agency model—and a decisive architectural response. By eliminating prompt engineering, tool stitching, and human-in-the-loop bottlenecks, SWAI reframes AI from “assistance” to full-stack execution. The focus on data sovereignty and GCC-specific compliance signals strong regional intent and enterprise readiness. --- ## **Signals, Not Snapshots** PITCH is often framed as a competition. What matters more is what it reveals. The teams highlighted here reflect a broader shift toward clarity, execution, and category-level thinking—founders building with a strong sense of where their markets are headed, not just where they’re starting. PITCH Qatar offered a clear snapshot of that momentum, surfacing builders moving from promise to proof. This is the kind of early signal we pay attention to. ### Did we miss anyone? Possibly. PITCH always moves faster than any single recap can capture. What’s documented here reflects the signal we observed—but some of the most interesting work often emerges just outside the spotlight. We’ll continue tracking the founders and ideas that point to what’s UpNext. ### Designing the Systems Clean Technology Needs to Scale URL: https://upnext.world/designing-the-systems-clean-tech-needs-to-scale/ Last updated: 2026-02-03T21:36:51.000Z ## Why Green Power Plus Is Treating the Energy Transition as a Capital, Process, and Execution Problem ### Growing up inside beauty and delay produced an early awaren**ess of stalled systems.** Esmeralda Colombo grew up in a small town in northern Italy, between Venice and the Dolomites, surrounded by cultural richness and limited institutional momentum. It was a place where talent existed, but opportunity arrived slowly, a contrast that left a lasting mark. “I was raised there in a place where there was no theater class,” she recalled, describing a childhood defined less by scarcity than by constraint. That tension deepened during Italy’s sovereign debt crisis, when many young professionals were forced to leave. Colombo became part of a generation shaped by migration, living and working across Berlin, Brussels, New York, San Francisco, and Northern Europe. Each move revealed a different relationship between ambition and infrastructure. In the United States, especially, she encountered a culture that trusted the future and invested accordingly. Law became her entry point into understanding why some systems moved and others stalled. Licensed in Italy and New York State and later a Fulbright scholar at Columbia, Colombo moved between academia and practice while remaining close to implementation. Her early startup experience in food waste reduction reinforced a lesson that would follow her into clean energy: innovation rarely fails because of ideas—it fails when systems cannot absorb them. She exited the venture in July 2021 with an ROI of 18,582.83%, having built Italy’s first food waste reduction SaaS ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### Exposure to U.S. innovation reframed clean technology as a capital and process challenge. Working in renewables, hydrogen, and energy finance, Colombo saw a recurring pattern. Capital existed, but it moved slowly. Tenders stretched over years. Financial close became an obstacle course. Companies with viable technology struggled to survive long evaluation cycles. “It was not really a call from the environment but a call to improve the way innovation is really brought to the world,” she said, describing the frustration of watching good projects stall for procedural reasons. Her perspective sharpened as her own time horizon expanded. Becoming a mother made questions of durability impossible to ignore. “Having children and getting the future in your arms” compelled a reckoning with the kinds of systems that today’s decisions leave behind. Short-term optimization, she concluded, creates long-term fragility. Cleantech will dominate the future, with the Cleantech–National Security nexus alone expected to exceed $1.5T in value. Yet the sector faces significant execution challenges: 60% of projects experience cost overruns averaging 40.6%; only 27% stay on budget; and 45% of renewable energy projects are rejected by banks due to low bankability. Compared with the oil and gas sector, the sector faces greater complexity and fewer standardized pathways to capital. GP+ exists to bring order and merit, and to enable innovators to succeed. It replaces fragmentation with integrated, vertical, agentic AI: a unified platform purpose-built for cleantech workflows, designed to plug directly into how projects are discovered, structured, financed, and delivered. GP+ acts as the AI-native operating layer that standardizes execution and capital flows across the cleantech value chain, starting with market access and procurement and expanding across bankability and clean data centers. Each function addresses a known bottleneck, but the intent is to achieve coherence rather than to provide point solutions. ### Green Power Plus reflects a belief that integration determines whether innovation survives. That belief underpins Green Power Plus, which Colombo co-founded to address what she sees as a structural mismatch between clean technology ambition and institutional readiness. The company focuses on AI-driven systems that accelerate tenders, engineer bankable financial models, surface qualified commercial opportunities, and design resilient data infrastructure. Each function addresses a known bottleneck, but the intent is to achieve coherence rather than to provide point solutions. Colombo argues that ecosystems overloaded with single-problem startups often optimize for venture cycles rather than client reality. “If we just run startups based on the one problem we believe that VCs want to hear, then we run startups for VCs and not for clients,” she said, summarizing a critique shaped by years inside the sector. Her aim is to reduce the friction that causes good projects to fail before they reach scale. That systems-oriented view has begun to resonate externally. In 2025, Green Power Plus was recognized at VivaTech, with support from McKinsey, for its scalable approach, an acknowledgment that solving multiple interconnected problems within a single platform reflects where the market is moving. For Colombo, the recognition mattered less as an award than as confirmation that integration is becoming a necessity rather than a preference. Her work sits at the intersection of finance, technology, and operations, driven by a conviction that clean innovation must become easier to fund and easier to execute. The future she argues for is not one of louder ambition but of quieter alignment, in which systems are designed to allow progress to occur at the speed capital already knows how to achieve. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### Why Replacing Diesel Can’t Wait URL: https://upnext.world/why-replacing-diesel-cant-wait/ Last updated: 2026-02-02T13:29:36.000Z ## Serenity Power’s Founder on Cutting Emissions Now Using the Fuels We Already Have ### Power Where Diesel Still Rule A clean energy startup that emerged from the University of Toronto ecosystem is developing advanced solid-oxide fuel cells to generate localized electricity in areas where diesel generators and conventional combustion units still predominate. The team is small, just three people. They are focused on making on-site power more efficient, more practical, and easier to deploy across industries that rely on portable generation. Solid oxide fuel cells operate at high temperatures and can run on multiple fuels, including hydrogen, natural gas, and blends. That flexibility matters in a transition where hydrogen is often expensive and where retrofitting every pipeline for hydrogen is not realistic in the near term. Cerny first describes the value proposition in performance terms. Fuel cells can reach up to 60 percent efficiency, around double what a typical combustion engine achieves, which means less fuel is required for the same power output. The environmental case is tied to both carbon and air quality. Because the system does not rely on combustion, it avoids pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, and particulate matter, which are associated with respiratory illness. In her framing, the category is about more than decarbonization. It is also about eliminating the dirty side effects that follow diesel conventional combustion units wherever they are used, from urban streets to remote worksites. ### **Building for the Customers Who Need It Now** Over the past year, the team spoke with more than 100 potential customers to test where the technology could land first. The conclusion was that the system could help in many areas, but the focus would come from identifying who needs it immediately and has the budget to move forward. That process led them toward the energy industry and toward Calgary, where they could be closer to operators, pilots, and partners. The use cases Cerny lists make the opportunity tangible. Diesel generators and conventional combustion units show up on construction sites, at mining operations, at oil and gas facilities, and behind film and television crews on location. They also appear in everyday urban life, such as food trucks operating loud equipment that vents fumes into the street. Replacing diesel and conventional combustion units in even a slice of those settings can deliver meaningful reductions in emissions and local pollution, while also lowering operating costs when diesel and conventional combustion units is more expensive. The move to Calgary was also enabled by momentum in non-dilutive financing. Cerny said the team is entering 2026 with about $1 million in grants and pitch competition winnings, but will need additional capital to fully execute. The aim now is to deliver technology milestones starting in the first quarter of 2026, while staying close to industry feedback rather than building in isolation. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **A Climate Worldview Built on Urgency, Not Ideology** Cerny’s path into climate work started long before the company. She describes early activism, including a period abroad where she became so involved that it derailed her studies. She also connects her outlook to growing up in a low-income, single-parent household while attending school alongside wealthier peers, which made her sensitive to how different realities can coexist. That background informed both her motivation and her shift in strategy. “I think what I’ve learned is that even through my activist journey, is that things aren’t black and white,” she said, describing how easy it is to label entire technologies or industries as good or bad without understanding tradeoffs and supply chains. She points to the complexity of hydrogen production, including how much of it is still sourced from natural gas, and to how “zero emission” standards can overlook upstream impacts such as electricity and water use, mining, and materials. One conversation stood out for clarifying her stance on progress. “I’d rather make 30% lower CO2 today than wait 20 years to make 100%,” she said, describing a mindset rooted in time pressure rather than purity tests. In that view, collaboration with incumbents is not a surrender. It is leverage, especially when infrastructure and capital already exist, and the goal is to scale quickly. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### What’s UpNext: Signals for a Global 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/signals-for-a-global-2026/ Last updated: 2026-01-21T13:00:28.000Z Welcome to the first *What’s UpNext* newsletter of 2026. Last year, we were on the ground across Toronto, Lisbon, Dubai, and Helsinki, spending time with founders, ecosystems, and partners building with conviction. Those conversations sharpened our perspective and clarified what matters most right now. Visibility is no longer the constraint. Clarity is. As we step into 2026, we’re expanding the UpNext World Tour and going deeper into the stories, points of view, and signals shaping what’s coming next in global tech. This issue sets the tone for the year ahead — where we’re heading, what we’re building, and the founders worth paying attention to. Thanks for being here, here we *goooo*! --- ### *UpNext World Tour* ## Early 2026 Tour Outlook As we plan the first half of 2026, here’s where we’re planning to head as part of the UpNext tour and coverage roadmap: - **Web Summit Qatar** — Qatar | Feb 1–4 - **RiseUp Summit** — Egypt | Feb 5–7 - **WHX Dubai** — United Arab Emirates | Feb 9–12 - **Techarena** — Sweden | Feb 11–12 - **4YFN @ MWC Barcelona** — Spain | Mar 2–5 - **START Summit** — Switzerland | Mar 19–20 - **Skinnovation** — Austria | Mar 25–27 - **Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX)** — Canada | Mar 25 *Coverage plans vary by event and may include both in-person and remote coverage. More details will be shared as the tour takes shape.* *More events will be added as they’re confirmed. Planning to attend any of these? Let us know where we should show up.* --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we explore the human side of innovation, the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the future they are creating. Each Founder POV Spotlight goes beyond what’s being built. It captures *how a founder thinks*, *why their perspective matters*, and *what must change for their vision to become real*. This is not product storytelling. It is point of view, made visible. ### Latest Features [The Eyes Physical AI Has Been Waiting ForDiffraqtion founder Johannes Galatsanos-Dueck builds quantum cameras that help machines see twenty times farther and react faster than ever. His work merges AI and astronomy to improve safety, space awareness and physical AI.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-18.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Diffraqtion-POV-1-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/eyes-physical-ai-has-been-waiting-for/) [Charging the FutureSamira Soltani is building the invisible infrastructure behind the next era of urban mobility. As CEO of Wireless PnC, she is removing one of the biggest barriers to EV and micromobility adoption by making charging as simple as parking.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-16.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/samira-soltani-640x640-1.webp)](https://upnext.world/charging-the-future-samira-soltani/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## *What's UpNext?* As we continue building UpNext, we’re excited to keep expanding the World Tour and connecting with founders and startups across ecosystems worldwide. Alongside our event coverage, we’re developing an ecosystem program designed to work with accelerators, EDOs, and innovation organizations to help amplify their programming by spotlighting the startups they support. The goal is simple: give founders more visibility, context, and narrative as they build with conviction. If you’re open to exploring this or curious to learn more, just reply to this email. We’d love to connect. --- ## UpNext Global Partners In 2025, we piloted this approach with a small group of early supporters. In 2026, we’re building it properly. As we head into the new year, we’re opening the doors to partners who want to help shape the next chapter of UpNext. The UpNext World Tour is designed to spotlight founders and startups across global ecosystems, giving them visibility, context, and narrative as they scale. This year, we’re inviting a small group of partners to support that mission and connect more deeply with the next wave of breakout companies. We’re shaping a partner program built around three tracks: - **Capital Partners** — connect with founders early and get in front of emerging startups across global ecosystems - **Growth Partners** — bring your expertise to founders who are actively building and scaling - **Ecosystem Partners** — elevate your startups and extend the reach of your accelerator, EDO, or innovation program If you’re interested in supporting founders on a global stage and helping shape what’s coming next, we’d love to explore this together. Just reply to this email to start the conversation. --- ### *Final Thought* ## Visibility Without Clarity Over the past year, one pattern kept showing up in conversations with founders across ecosystems. Visibility is no longer the hard part. Clarity is. Founders today have more ways than ever to be seen. Stages, platforms, content, press. But being visible is not the same as being understood. Attention without clarity doesn’t compound. It dissipates. What separates the founders who break through isn’t how loud they are. It’s how clearly they can articulate the problem they’re solving, why it matters now, and what future they’re actually building toward. Clarity creates gravity. It gives people something to believe in, repeat, and rally around. Without it, visibility becomes noise. With it, even small moments of attention can turn into momentum. That’s what we’ve been paying attention to on the road. Not who’s getting the most exposure, but who’s able to frame their work in a way that sharpens understanding and builds conviction. That’s also the work we’re focused on this year. Helping founders move from visibility to clarity, and from clarity to conviction. Gratefully, Edwin > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ### The AI Engine Jewelry Ecommerce Has Been Missing URL: https://upnext.world/ai-engine-jewelry-ecommerce/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T19:55:06.000Z ## Turning product photos into confident buys with AI-powered 3D and virtual try-on ### Jewelry Retail That Never Really Went Online When Yevgeniy Makhmutov talks about jewelry, he is not speaking as an outsider chasing a shiny vertical. He grew up in his parents’ stores in Kazakhstan, watching them build a thirty-year business that now spans Central Asia, Hong Kong, and Italy. By the time he was managing dozens of locations, he knew the industry inside and out. What he saw worried him. Jewelry is a three-hundred-billion-dollar market, yet online sales remain a small fraction of that total. Conversion rates are often under two percent. Returns can reach thirty-five percent because what customers see on a flat product page does not match what arrives in the box. Rings do not fit. Metal and stones look different in real life. Retailers eat the cost. At the same time, the cost of going digital has been brutal. Turning a single ring into a high-quality three-dimensional model can cost hundreds of dollars and take days of specialist work. For a store with a thousand unique pieces, fully digitizing an inventory is simply out of reach. Even big brands tend to digitize only their bestsellers, leaving the rest behind. Makhmutov understood that if nothing changed, many traditional players would continue to sit on the sidelines while sales shifted online around them. ### **Turning a Family Pain Point into an AI Platform** Before he was a founder, Makhmutov was a retailer trying to solve his own problem. Together with a longtime collaborator who had already built and sold a software product, he began collecting data on real jewelry pieces. Over two and a half years, they assembled tens of thousands of examples and trained their own AI models. The result is AR Bling, a platform that lets a retailer upload a simple photo of a ring and receive a fully usable three-dimensional twin in minutes—the economics flip. Instead of paying hundreds of dollars and waiting a week, a store with a subscription can digitize hundreds of products each month at a cost per product that drops to cents. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. On top of that, the team built what Makhmutov calls a smart sales agent. A retailer connects a product catalog, adds a small snippet of code to their site, and a conversational assistant appears. Shoppers can drop in a photo of a ring they saw on a friend, type that they want something similar under a certain budget and in a specific metal, and receive highly accurate matches from that retailer’s own inventory. The experience stays inside a single chat window. Shoppers can explore a three-dimensional view, use augmented-reality try-on through their phone camera, share the piece with friends, and complete the purchase without bouncing between multiple pages and forms. For retailers, it means less time answering repetitive messages on WhatsApp or Instagram and more sales completed while buyers are still excited. ### **Opening the Door for a New Generation of Jewelry Brands** Makhmutov’s view is that jewelry will follow a pattern already visible in other sectors. Brick-and-mortar will remain important for high-end luxury, yet growth will come from digital-first brands that know how to convert online. AI is the missing infrastructure that lets that shift happen in a conservative industry. He also sees a cultural change. Independent designers and small labels can now enter the market with far less capital. They can lean on AI tools to explore designs, create production-ready files, and present collections with the same immersive experience once reserved for global names. Even 3D designers who initially feared losing work are starting to come around. For those who adopt the tools, AI halves the production cycle, freeing them to focus on creativity and higher-value projects. Makhmutov may be taking meetings in Milan and Toronto today, but his vision remains grounded in the same family counters where he started. He wants a world where a shopper in any city can see how a piece truly looks on their hand before buying, and where a talented jeweler with a fresh idea can compete with legacy players. In his words, technology is already here. The question is who will use it to turn static catalogs into living, wearable stories. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### The Eyes Physical AI Has Been Waiting For URL: https://upnext.world/eyes-physical-ai-has-been-waiting-for/ Last updated: 2026-01-15T20:43:17.000Z ## How Diffraqtion is giving machines the ability to see farther, react faster, and act with confidence ### Why Today’s Machines Cannot Keep Up Physical AI is advancing quickly. Robots, drones, and autonomous systems are expected to make real-time decisions, yet most operate with limited awareness. Their cameras do not see far enough, and they process what they see too slowly. The hardware that delivers strong vision is large, costly, and impossible to scale. In space, the limits are even more severe. Satellites can track movement only at narrow windows of dawn or dusk. For the rest of the day, activity occurs without visibility. A small spacecraft can approach a valuable asset undetected, enabling evasive action in time. On the ground, the stakes are immediate. A drone moving toward a target might be visible for only a few seconds. A robot or autonomous vehicle acts with limited awareness because its sensors cannot gather sufficient information. Distance and speed keep outpacing the systems built to protect people. Johannes Galatsanos-Dueck saw the challenge early. As a young chess player watching Garry Kasparov lose to IBM’s Deep Blue, he realized that intelligence relies on how well machines perceive the world. That loss shifted his path toward AI. He studied computer science, wrote his thesis on board game algorithms, and spent years thinking about how machines pay attention to the right information and discard the rest. His parallel passion for astronomy pushed the question even further. How far can we see, and what would we do with that knowledge? ### Where Diffraqtion Chang**es What Is Possible** [Diffraqtion](https://diffraqtion.com/?ref=upnext.world) approaches vision in a different way. Instead of capturing everything and processing it later, its quantum cameras work inside the light itself. They discard what does not matter and extract only what carries meaning. The result is a camera that sees twenty times farther and reacts a thousand times faster than today’s systems. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. This design unlocks new capabilities. A satellite the size of a cup can match the resolution of telescopes that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. A defense system can detect a drone two miles away rather than a few hundred yards. Time to react expands from seconds to minutes, and lives can be protected. Governments across the United States and Europe have taken notice. Diffraqtion works with NASA, DARPA, and several other agencies. Its first prototype is already tracking satellites from the ground and is preparing for deployment in space, where the camera will operate without atmospheric limits. Johannes’ background in AI guides the architecture. His experience in search algorithms and his lifelong fascination with telescopes merge in a system that thinks like advanced AI while seeing like a precision instrument. It is an uncommon combination of insight that shapes the company’s advantage. ### What a World of C**learer Vision Looks Like** Johannes imagines machines that move through the world with instinctive awareness. Robots navigate crowded spaces with confidence. Autonomous vehicles avoid collisions with accuracy. Drones and aircraft maintain constant awareness of their surroundings. He also imagines a safer global landscape. When threats are detected early, conflict becomes harder to start. Drones, missiles, and fast-moving objects lose the advantage of surprise. Governments gain time to respond, and civilians gain protection. Beyond security, new scientific and environmental insights emerge. Researchers can study wildlife populations, track illegal fishing, observe environmental change, and measure activity across land and sea with clarity that once seemed out of reach. Johannes believes a clearer vision leads to wiser action. With Diffraqtion, he is building the eyes that will help machines, researchers, and nations see with a level of understanding the world has never had. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### Charging the Future URL: https://upnext.world/charging-the-future-samira-soltani/ Last updated: 2026-01-14T19:42:39.000Z ## How Samira Soltani Is Building the Invisible Infrastructure Behind Smarter Cities ### **When Progress Meets a Bottleneck** For years, electric mobility has promised cleaner cities, quieter streets, and a future free from fossil fuels. Yet one stubborn problem has persisted: charging. While car manufacturers race to build faster and sleeker EVs, the infrastructure that powers them has struggled to keep up. For micromobility, the fleets of scooters, bikes, and compact electric vehicles that are redefining city travel, this challenge is even greater. Each night, operators spend hours retrieving, plugging in, and redeploying vehicles across the city. It is a manual and expensive process that erodes profit margins and slows the transition to sustainable transportation. For Samira Soltani, CEO and co-founder of **Wireless PnC**, this challenge is not a roadblock. It is an invitation. “Charging still is a bottleneck for EV adoption,” she says. “But with the right technology, it does not have to be.” Born and raised in Iran, Samira learned early how to adapt and innovate under constraints. During years of sanctions and limited access to research tools, she often built the devices she needed from scratch. “Nothing was readily available,” she recalls. “So I learned to find another way.” That mindset, turning limitations into creative solutions, became the foundation for everything she does today. When she immigrated to Canada and saw the challenges cities faced with EV infrastructure, she recognized a familiar pattern: big goals hindered by practical gaps. And she knew how to bridge them. ### **The Invisible Infrastructure That Makes Mobility Work** Wireless PnC’s answer is elegantly simple. Instead of plugging in, vehicles charge as soon as they park. The company’s patent-pending wireless charging pads transfer energy seamlessly, keeping fleets powered at all times without human intervention. The result is an 80 percent reduction in operational costs for fleet operators, marking a major step toward organized and efficient cities. “With wireless charging, there is no need for pickup and charge,” Samira explains. “Vehicles are always ready and powered. It keeps things simple, clutter-free, and scalable.” The company has already tested its MVP at Centennial College and launched pilot programs with fleet operators in Ontario and BC. Wireless PnC is now preparing for paid pilots in 2026, backed by 1.5 million dollars in non-dilutive funding and a new pre-seed round of 1 million USD to accelerate commercialization. With additional grants expected to match that investment, the team is positioning itself to power the next generation of micromobility infrastructure. Samira’s technical background, spanning 15 years with global automotive leaders such as Mercedes-Benz and Great Wall Motors, gives her a deep understanding of mobility systems. But her real advantage lies in her perspective. She does not view innovation as a race for complexity, but rather as a process of refinement. Her goal is not to invent gadgets for their own sake but to create invisible infrastructure that quietly supports people and the planet. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **A Future Where Cities Breathe Easier** Samira envisions a world where charging infrastructure is no longer visible, inconvenient, or even noticed. It is simply present, reliable, and universal. In her words, “We want this technology to be everywhere, in the hands of everyone.” Her vision extends far beyond convenience. By eliminating one of the main barriers to micromobility, she sees an opportunity to reshape how cities move and breathe. When charging is effortless, more people will choose scooters, bikes, and compact EVs for short trips. Fewer cars on the road mean less congestion, lower emissions, and cleaner, calmer streets. That transformation, Samira believes, starts small—one charging pad, one neighborhood at a time. As cities partner with companies like Wireless PnC, the invisible backbone of the future will begin to take shape beneath our feet. It will not be about plugging in but about staying in motion. “Every challenge I faced taught me to find another path,” Samira says. “Now, I am helping cities find theirs.” --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights Flashpoint Global produces each Founder POV Spotlight using its proprietary category leadership framework. Every Spotlight begins with a Future Narrative session, where a founder’s POV is clarified and operationalized as the lens through which new categories are built. The result is content that moves founders beyond product messaging and into the role of category leader, helping the market understand the problem, the stakes, and the future being created. *If you are a founder building a new category,* [*learn more*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)*.* ### Bridging the Language Divide URL: https://upnext.world/bridging-the-language-divide/ Last updated: 2026-01-29T23:02:54.000Z ## How KrosAI is Unlocking the World’s Next Billion Voices ### **The Inequity Created by Language** When Joshua Barimon Firima talks about inclusion, he doesn’t mean it as a buzzword. For him, it’s personal. Born and raised in Nigeria in a large family of nine children, he learned early what it meant to create leverage where none existed. “*I grew up knowing that not everyone starts on the same playing field*,” he says. “I had to find ways to compete in environments where others already had access to more resources.” That sense of inequity stayed with him. As he entered the tech world, Joshua began to see a pattern: the same structural imbalance he faced growing up existed globally in technology. Billions of people across emerging markets are left behind due to one invisible barrier: language. “Businesses want to reach new markets, but the language gap makes it impossible to communicate authentically,” Joshua explains. “And for users, it’s not just a translation problem. It’s about identity. They want to use technology without having to change who they are.” This insight became the seed for KrosAI, a company designed to enable businesses to communicate with customers in their own local languages and dialects. For Joshua, without solving the language barrier, the promise of AI-driven inclusion would remain out of reach for most of the world. ### **Building AI That Speaks Like You** KrosAI is developing infrastructure-level tools that enable businesses to effectively serve customers in emerging markets. Its technology fine-tunes AI models to understand and speak local languages across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. The company provides APIs, similar to OpenAI’s model access, that allow organizations to integrate voice and text understanding directly into their existing systems. The approach is bold. “We’re building the backbone for inclusive AI,” Joshua says. “Just like fintech opened up financial systems across Africa, we’re opening access to technology through language.” He believes this could double the market potential for many companies. “If you were doing 100 million a year serving only English-speaking customers, imagine what happens when you unlock the rest of the market,” he explains. “You don’t have to change your product. You just have to let people use it in their language.” KrosAI has already launched, generating $36,000 in annual recurring revenue and serving several B2B clients, with tens of thousands of end users. The company is backed by investors and accelerators, including Right Side Capital, MARL Accelerator, Microsoft for Startups, Google for Startups, and NVIDIA Inception Program. Next, Joshua is preparing for a pre-seed round in January 2026, with plans to expand through partnerships with telecommunications companies that can distribute AI agents directly through their networks. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **Eliminating Language Barriers and Opening Doors** Joshua’s vision extends far beyond business growth. His goal is to create a world where technology no longer forces people to conform to its standards. “Human nature thrives when people feel included,” he says. “When you can access technology in your own language, you’re not just using a tool, you’re being seen.” He draws a clear line between what fintech achieved in the last decade and what he believes AI can do next. Fintech gave millions of people access to the global economy. KrosAI, he believes, can do the same for communication, education, and access to information. “AI can bring equity, inclusion, and prosperity to every region,” Joshua says. “It can help billions of people participate in the global digital economy without losing their cultural identity.” Behind his drive is a relentless but straightforward mission: to give others the opportunities he had to fight for. “Everything I am today came from refusing to accept no as an answer,” he says. “I want to give people like me more shots at life, ten chances instead of one.” Joshua Firima is building a bridge across the world’s language divide and redefining what true inclusion in the age of AI can look like. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### Engineering Precision Meets Human Potential URL: https://upnext.world/engineering-precision-meets-human-potential/ Last updated: 2025-12-08T16:33:25.000Z ### How Purple Wins Is Rewriting the Economics of People Performance For nearly two decades, Mina Johl has worked at the intersection of engineering, operations, HR, and business in some of the most asset-intensive, low-margin industries on the planet. She saw a pattern everywhere she went. Whether it was oil and gas, construction, nuclear power, or global manufacturing, companies were bleeding margin in ways they could not quantify. The loss was not coming from equipment, supply chains, or capital. It was coming from people. And no one could measure it. That realization sparked the creation of Purple Wins and its flagship platform, Navetra, an organizational intelligence engine that turns people-related inefficiencies into quantifiable insights leaders can act on. As Mina puts it, "I want to be known as the woman who put engineering precision behind human capital." ## **Where Companies Bleed and No One Sees It** Across sectors, Mina saw the same issue repeating. Companies prided themselves on knowing their customers, but they lacked a meaningful understanding of their employees. They treated culture and collaboration as intangible, unmeasurable forces. Decisions were made on instinct rather than evidence, and the cost of misalignment accumulated silently in the background. "Mid-market industrial companies do not know they are lagging a significant portion of their margins in people and talent inefficiencies," Mina explains. "They have always been tagged as intangible or soft culture when in reality they have a very real impact on the bottom line." From hiring delays to cross-functional silos to training gaps, Mina observed that inefficiencies in human systems could derail even the most well-designed operations. Asset-heavy sectors already operate on thin margins. One misalignment in accountability, communication, or leadership cohesion can shift millions of dollars. "When you invest the right way in people, you often get the right output from people," she says. "You just have to know how to measure it." Leaders could measure everything except the one metric that mattered most: the performance of the humans driving the operation. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## **Turning Human Complexity Into Quantifiable Intelligence** Navetra is Mina’s answer to a global blind spot. It is the first platform built to reveal the real financial impact of people inefficiencies using actuarial analysis, research from global institutions, AI-driven insight, and Mina’s eighteen years of cross-functional experience. "I’ve looked at the same problem from five different functions and across four different industries," she says. "Most people stay on one track their whole career. My pivots gave me a lens that is very hard to come by." Her platform measures ten categories of people-bleed and shows exactly where money is being trapped or lost. It compares companies with industry-leading benchmarks and offers strategic action plans for three-, six-, and twelve-month horizons. A trained AI agent guides leaders in real time, answering questions, modeling scenarios, and recommending interventions grounded in data. Across the first fifteen case studies, Purple Wins uncovered an average of 18 to 22 percent of margin trapped inside organizations. For a two-hundred-million-dollar company operating at ten percent margin, Navetra can reveal an additional three to four million dollars in value. In a world where every percentage point matters, this is transformational. ## **A Future Where HR Leads the Strategy, Not the Paperwork** Mina’s vision extends far beyond dashboards and data models. She is building a future where people-performance is no longer treated as a soft metric. With organizations embracing predictive analytics and AI-guided decision making, she sees HR stepping into a new era of strategic relevance. "I see HR finally having a defendable strategic seat at the executive table," Mina says. "Not because of sentiment surveys but because they can show the financial impact of their decisions." She also sees organizations adopting AI with intention rather than panic. With clarity around what people inefficiency costs and where improvements matter most, leaders can decide how technology should serve their workforce rather than replace it blindly. Most of all, she sees a future shaped by shared knowledge and collective advancement. "If we lean on one another to share knowledge and resources, we will get a lot further than reinventing the wheel," she says. Purple Wins is not simply a platform. It is Mina’s effort to change the way the world values people, measures performance, and builds companies that thrive because humans are aligned, empowered, and understood. --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### What’s UpNext: From Slush to 2026 URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-from-slush-to-2026/ Last updated: 2025-11-26T13:50:31.000Z Welcome to *What’s UpNext*, your weekly recap spotlighting the founders, stories, and signals shaping what’s coming next in global tech. We’re closing out an incredible run across Europe — from Web Summit in Lisbon to the final stop of the year at Slush in Helsinki. It’s been a season of sharp pitches, real conversations, and founders building with conviction. This issue pulls together the moments and insights from the road as we wrap 2025 and shift our focus toward a bigger, more global 2026. Thanks for being here, here we *goooo*! --- ### *Event Recap* ## Slush (Helsinki, Finland) Last week in Helsinki, *Slush* brought together founders, operators, investors, students, and ecosystem leaders from every corner of the world — all gathered to build, connect, and push the frontier forward. The atmosphere this year was classic *Slush*: dark, electric, fast, and focused. The conversations felt sharper. The dealmaking felt real. And the momentum across the floor showed why Slush remains the benchmark for what a modern startup event can be. At the centre of it all was *Slush 100*. Out of thousands of applicants, only a handful reached the final stage — and they showed up. *Diffraqtion* took the top prize with one of the cleanest, most compelling pitches of the year, with equally strong showings from the rest of the finalists pushing deep tech, climate, and AI infrastructure forward. We followed the action from the floor to the finals, captured the stories behind the standout founders, and mapped the signals pointing to what’s coming next in European and global tech. Check out our full recap and standout founder list below. [Inside Slush 100: Diffraqtion Wins It All, Plus the Finals and Standout FoundersA full recap of the Slush 100 finals including the winner, the runner ups, and the standout startups that shaped Slush 2025 and showed where global tech is headed next.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-12.png)UpNext.WorldEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Slush100-2025-Winner-Diffraqtion-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/inside-slush-100-diffraqtion-wins-it-all-plus-the-finals-and-standout-founders/) --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view* — not just what they’re building, but why it matters, and how their story might redefine what comes *next*. ### Latest Features [Building a Company That Helps You Live in the Moment and Still Share ItDori Adams, founder of Shutterb, turns adversity into innovation with a platform that connects event organizers to smartphone storytellers. Her mission: help people stay present, capture real moments, and bring authenticity back to content creation.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-11.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/UpNext-shutterb-Dori-Adams-1.JPG)](https://upnext.world/building-a-company-that-helps-you-live-in-the-moment-and-still-share-it/) [How Pratik Parmar Is Building Digital Freedom Through AIPratik Parmar, founder of Atomo Innovation, is redefining AI through decentralization. His mission is to make intelligence local, private, and free from cloud dependence—empowering creators worldwide to build secure, on-premise AI that brings computing power back to the people.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-10.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/ENS_Supernova_Finals_BRoll_01649-1.JPG)](https://upnext.world/how-pratik-parmar-is-building-digital-freedom-through-ai/) [When Nurses Build TechnologyFormer ICU nurse turned tech founder Magdalena Druml is using AI to fix what healthcare forgot: real-time insight. Through her company Nox Avis Tech Solutions and its product HeliDoc, she’s turning chaos into clarity and building a future where technology truly serves care.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-13.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/ENS_Firehood_Pitch_BRoll_01021-1-1.JPG)](https://upnext.world/magdalena-druml-helidoc-ai-healthcare/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## *What's UpNext?* *Slush* wrapped, we’re back home — and now the real work begins. With U.S. Thanksgiving this week, we’re sending appreciation to everyone celebrating and everyone who’s been part of this season’s momentum. Grateful, truly. This window is giving us what every founder craves: focus. We’re taking everything we picked up on the road — from Lisbon’s PITCH finals to the energy in Helsinki — and channeling it straight into the *2026 UpNext World Tour*. More cities. More stages. More chances to spotlight founders who are building with conviction. We’re also in the studio editing our Slush PopUps, clearing the backlog, and lining up deeper features on the breakout startups we met this season. If you’ve crossed paths with us these last few months, chances are your story is coming up next. 2026 is going to be bigger. Louder. More global. And we’re opening the doors now. If you're a founder looking to share your story with the world — or an ecosystem ready to put your rising stars on the map — there’s room on this tour. Let’s build the next wave together. --- ## UpNext Global Partners This year’s tour was powered by a small group of partners who believed early — [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), [Siift.ai](https://siift.ca/?ref=upnext.world), [LCube Studios](https://impact.lcubestudios.io/?ref=upnext.world), [Allium IP](https://www.alliumip.com/?ref=upnext.world), [Slingshot Telecom](https://slingshot.tel/?ref=upnext.world), [Empact Ventures](https://empact.ventures/?ref=upnext.world), and [Gowling WLG](https://gowlingwlg.com/en-ca?ref=upnext.world). We’re deeply grateful for their support and collaboration throughout the season. Now we’re scaling. As we build the *2026 UpNext World Tour,* we’re opening the doors to a new wave of partners who want to support founders on the global stage. Three tracks, built for impact: - **Capital Partners** — get in front of the next wave of breakout startups - **Growth Partners** — align your expertise with founders who are actually building - **Ecosystem Partners** — elevate your top startups and connect them to global opportunities If you want to reach founders globally and be part of the movement shaping *What’s UpNext*, we’re taking on new partners now. [**Let's chat about partnering with UpNext →**](https://api.whatsapp.com/message/KADIND27RWLXM1?autoload=1&app%5Fabsent=0&ref=upnext.world) --- ### *Final Thought* ## Why Helsinki Helped Me See 20x Further *Slush* has a way of sharpening things. Maybe it’s the darkness. Maybe it’s the pace. Maybe it’s the founders who show up ready to build, not posture. Whatever it is, something about Helsinki always helps me see further — and this year, that clarity hit differently. Watching Diffraqtion win the Slush 100 wasn’t just a highlight, it was a reminder. Great founders don’t wait for permission. They operate with conviction. They communicate with precision. And they build in a way that makes the future feel obvious once you hear it. > That’s the power of *POV*. It’s what separates noise from signal — especially now, when AI has flattened every lane of creation, communication, and storytelling. The founders who stand out aren’t just pitching products. They’re narrating the world they’re building toward. They’re giving people a way to believe with them. This whole season — Vancouver, Toronto, Dubai, Lisbon, Helsinki — reinforced that message. POV isn’t a luxury. It’s the new requirement. And the founders who embrace it are the ones who will shape the next decade. As we move into planning the *2026 UpNext World Tour*, that’s what I’m carrying with me: clarity, momentum, and a wider horizon than before. Over the next few weeks, I’ll unpack more of the lessons, shifts, and signals that surfaced at Slush — and what they mean for the builders pushing things forward. Gratefully, Edwin > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ### How Pratik Parmar Is Building Digital Freedom Through AI URL: https://upnext.world/how-pratik-parmar-is-building-digital-freedom-through-ai/ Last updated: 2025-11-25T18:57:44.000Z ### **Innovation Locked in the Cloud** Growing up in a small Indian town, Pratik Parmar was the kind of kid who took apart radios and computers to see how they worked. He didn’t have access to fancy labs or imported devices. What he had was curiosity, scraps, and an unshakable belief that intelligence should not be a privilege. Years later, that same belief would lead him to question one of the biggest assumptions in technology: that artificial intelligence must live in massive, centralized data centers controlled by a handful of global firms. Most of today’s AI runs in the cloud, far away from the people who use it. Every command, image, or sensor reading is sent to a remote server and then returned with a response. That process is not only inefficient, but it’s also risky. Data travels across borders, passing through systems that can be compromised or misused. “What happens in your premises should stay in your premises,” Pratik says. For him, the problem is not just about latency or bandwidth. It is about dependence. “We have become so centralized that if one big company stopped for a day, entire systems would collapse. Air traffic, energy grids, everything.” That dependency is what he set out to solve through his company, **Atomo Innovation**. ### **Physical AI That Lives Where You Do** Atomo Innovation builds what Pratik calls *physical AI*, intelligence that lives at the edge, near the people and places where data is created. Instead of sending sensitive information to the cloud, Atomo’s compact, aluminum-cased device combines AI and IoT, enabling local computing. It is, in his words, “AI that belongs close to the human experience.” Inside each device is a proprietary chip capable of performing six trillion operations per second. That power allows companies to run advanced AI models on-site, even without an internet connection. The design is flexible enough to serve hospitals, factories, homes, and public spaces. For example, Atomo is exploring use cases such as detecting cardiac arrest through home cameras and alerting doctors in real time, identifying fires before heat sensors trigger, and helping ambulances diagnose hidden injuries using onboard scanners, all without sending data to the cloud. The company’s business model is equally innovative. Atomo offers both direct hardware sales and “hardware as a service,” where clients pay per device or per data stream for the duration of an event or deployment. A third option, *Atomo Center*, lets users manage their devices from anywhere on Earth while keeping data private and secure. “Startups building physical AI products can use our hardware as their base,” he explains. “It’s like a pizza base. You add your own toppings.” Atomo’s early traction spans India, the United States, Australia, and Canada, with growing interest from Dubai and Oman. For Pratik, though, this is just the beginning. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **Decentralization and the Freedom to Create Locally** Pratik’s vision for the future is radical and deeply human. He envisions a world where intelligence is decentralized, with every household device contributing to the network. “You won’t depend on a company for storage or computation,” he says. “Your fridge could be a server. Your phone could earn money by sharing unused processing power while you sleep.” In this future, the boundaries between physical and digital blur. Each object, from a lamp to a laptop, becomes a node of computing potential. It is a future where innovation no longer flows only from Silicon Valley outward, but from every home, city, and creator connected through trust and curiosity. “Real innovation isn’t about more resources,” Pratik says. “It’s about deeper curiosity.” His mission is to prove that intelligence can be both powerful and private. By building AI that operates locally, he is giving people control over their data, their devices, and ultimately their digital freedom. Atomo Innovation is not just creating hardware. It is reshaping the foundation of how technology interacts with humanity. For Pratik Parmar, the goal is to democratize computing, enabling the next generation of curious kids with limited resources to create their own future without needing permission from the cloud. Watch the founder's UpNext PopUp interview from Expand North Star 2025 --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### Building a Company That Helps You Live in the Moment and Still Share It URL: https://upnext.world/building-a-company-that-helps-you-live-in-the-moment-and-still-share-it/ Last updated: 2025-11-25T18:41:44.000Z ### A World Obsessed with Recording, Disconnected from Living For Dori Adams, the founder and CEO of Shutterb, storytelling is more than a marketing strategy. It’s a way of finding meaning through the moments that test us. Her company—a fast-growing platform that connects event organizers with smartphone content creators—emerged from a lifetime of learning how to see beauty and resilience in imperfection. Dori’s journey began in a household that was once defined by stability and success. Her father ran a thriving plumbing business in Toronto with twenty trucks on the road. The family had every sign of comfort—vacations, a pool in the backyard, the sense of security that seemed permanent. Then, when Dori was still young, everything changed. Her father developed fibromyalgia, one of the first diagnosed cases in Canada, and the prescribed pain medication led to years of dependency and decline. The man who had built the family’s foundation was now losing his business, his health, and his sense of self. By her early twenties, Dori found herself not only pursuing a degree in advertising but also caring for her father as his world unraveled. She managed his hospital stays, his business collapse, and the day-to-day weight of mental illness and addiction. Eventually, after years of struggle, he passed away. “It forced me to keep moving forward,” she recalls. “There was no other option.” That phrase—*move forward*—became her mantra and even her tattoo. It would later become the heartbeat of Shutterb, the company she founded to help people stay present and connected while others capture their moments. ### Empowering Presence Through Storytelling Before founding Shutterb, Dori spent sixteen years in corporate advertising, leading multi-million-dollar accounts and helping brands find their voice through storytelling. She excelled in the world of strategy, content, and brand positioning, but something deeper kept calling her. One night at a concert, she noticed a father and son sharing a small but powerful moment, and she thought, *someone should be able to capture that without them missing it.* That thought stayed with her for years. When her daughter was born in 2019, the idea resurfaced with new urgency. “Becoming a mother changed everything,” Dori says. “I wanted to show my daughter what it looks like to build something from the ground up—to create your own path.” During her maternity leave, she began shaping the early vision of what would become Shutterb. Launched in September 2023, Shutterb has already captured over a thousand events, built a network of trained smartphone creators, and reached six-figure annual revenue. But beyond the metrics, Dori’s vision is deeply human. “We live in a world obsessed with recording,” she says. “I want people to put their phones down, be in the moment, and still get the content they need afterward.” In a market flooded with AI-generated content, Dori sees Shutterb as a reminder of what’s real. Her focus on live experiences—capturing human connection rather than polished perfection—reflects her own story of resilience. “I grew up watching everything fall apart and learning how to rebuild,” she says. “That’s what entrepreneurship is. It’s about showing up again and again, even when it’s hard.” That same mindset shapes how she leads her team and the growing community of “Shutterbees.” Through Shutterb Labs, she trains creators not only in how to shoot content but also in emotional intelligence, storytelling, and client relationships. “Anyone can take a photo,” she says. “But it takes awareness to tell a story that moves people.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### A World Where Authenticity Wins The parallels between her life and her company are striking. Where she once felt responsible for holding her family together, she now channels that drive into building a company that empowers others to find stability, expression, and purpose. She leads with a mix of grit and empathy, always pushing forward, always teaching her team to see meaning where others might see only mess. Today, as Shutterb expands into new markets, Dori’s story continues to shape the company’s identity. She envisions a future where creators around the world earn a living by capturing genuine human experiences—where storytelling is real, inclusive, and deeply felt. She has proven that adversity can become artistry, and that the best leaders aren’t defined by what they avoid, but by what they transform. “Everything I’ve been through taught me how to see people,” she says. “And that’s what Shutterb is really about—seeing the story that’s already there and helping others tell it.” Watch the founder's UpNext PopUp interview from Elevate Festival 2025 --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### Inside Slush 100: Diffraqtion Wins It All, Plus the Finals and Standout Founders URL: https://upnext.world/inside-slush-100-diffraqtion-wins-it-all-plus-the-finals-and-standout-founders/ Last updated: 2025-11-25T10:43:34.000Z [Slush](https://slush.org/?ref=upnext.world) 2025 was something else. It was my first time attending, and nothing prepares you for that walk down the entrance staircase… lights overhead… the entire place glowing like a scene out of TRON. The vibe is part nightclub, part future lab, and completely designed for what Slush does best… help people meet, collaborate, and build. The theme this year was *Ground State*, a nod to the new reality founders are navigating. AI, automation, and synthetic biology are changing how companies are created, and Slush brings the global ecosystem together to make sense of it. With more than 6,000 startups and over 3,000 investors on site, the energy was intense but surprisingly calm—plenty of meeting space, real seating everywhere, and yes… free food that kept everyone moving. Then there is [*Slush 100*](https://slush.org/audience/startups/slush100?ref=upnext.world), one of the most competitive early-stage pitch competitions in the world. The winner receives a one-million-euro investment from General Catalyst and Cherry Ventures… two firms with a long track record of backing category-defining companies like Airbnb, Stripe, Flix, and Auto1. This year’s finalists were exceptional. Technical founders, real traction, clear problem statements… the kind of teams you expect to see leading new categories. Out of thousands of applicants, only three reached the final round. Each represented a different frontier and a different kind of ambition. Below is a closer look at the winner and the two runner-ups — and why they stood out. You’ll also find a curated list of standout startups from our PopUp interviews across the two days at Slush. --- ## Slush 100 2025 Winner & Finalists Slush 100 this year was stacked. Technical founders, hard science, and category-shifting ideas everywhere you turned. From the first pitch to the final three, the bar kept rising. Out of thousands of applicants, only three teams made it through to the last round — each with a distinct view of the future and the traction to back it. Here’s the winner and the two runner-ups who defined the energy of the competition. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/Diffraqtion.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/Kinetic.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/Parsewise.jpg) UpNext PopUp Interviews with the Finalists --- ## Winner of Slush 100 ### [Diffraqtion](https://diffraqtion.com/?ref=upnext.world) — [Johannes Galatsanos](https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannesgalatsanosdueck/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Diffraqtion has developed a quantum-enhanced imaging system that sees far beyond the diffraction limit. Their proprietary camera technology unlocks satellite-level resolution using dramatically smaller, cheaper hardware. It is poised to make real-time, persistent Earth observation economically viable at a global scale. **PopUp Insights:** Johannes breaks down a wildly complex technology with uncommon clarity. The dual-use demand is real — defense, intelligence, energy, agriculture, and supply-chain operators all want higher-fidelity visibility without the $100M price tag of legacy systems. **Traction:** Backed by pre-seed and government R&D grants, with research contracts totaling €5M+ and multiple U.S. and EU defense agencies involved in early testing. Ground systems are scheduled to deploy in 2026, with the first space mission slated for 2028. **Why they placed:** A scientifically elite team with an unmistakably category-creating technology. The pitch balanced ambition with credibility — a rare combination in frontier space tech. --- ## Runnerup ### [Kinetic](https://www.usekinetic.com/?ref=upnext.world) — [Lucas Boller](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucas-boller/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Kinetic transforms email into an interactive surface where users take action directly inside the message — from checkout to authentication to workflow approval. No redirects, no landing pages, no friction. **PopUp Insights:** Email hasn’t meaningfully evolved in 50 years. Lucas is attacking one of the most entrenched communication standards with deep technical execution. The integrations, rendering engine, and security layers required to do this safely make the defensibility clear. **Traction:** Fast-growing early adoption across SaaS and e-commerce, with B2B pilots showing significant uplift in conversion and user engagement, paying customers in multiple markets. **Why they placed:** A breakthrough in a ubiquitous channel. Kinetic feels like the start of a new interaction layer—and investors recognized the inevitability of the category. --- ## Runnerup ### [Parsewise](https://www.parsewise.ai/?ref=upnext.world) — [Max Hofer](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwhofer/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Parsewise turns large, messy document packages into structured, decision-ready datasets. Underwriting, investment, and procurement teams use it to collapse days of document review into minutes. **PopUp Insights:** Max understands the pain deeply — large financial and industrial transactions still hinge on PDFs, spreadsheets, and inconsistent templates. Parsewise’s proprietary extraction engine and ontology mapping make the product sticky and hard to replicate. **Traction:** Live revenue, daily usage inside financial institutions, and strong retention. Early signals show the product becoming embedded infrastructure rather than optional tooling. **Why they placed:** Rock-solid execution, clear commercial traction, and a category with massive enterprise pull. Parsewise already feels like a must-have for teams dealing with document overload. --- ## Slush 100 Standout Startups And while the finalists anchored the stage, the depth of talent across this year’s Slush 100 program was impressive. So many founders came in with clarity, conviction, and real progress. Here are the ones that stood out to me — whether through the problem they’re solving, the way they pitched, or the momentum they’re building. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ## [4QT](https://www.4qt.ch/?ref=upnext.world) — [Marc Vetter](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-vetter-von-luxembourg/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Hybrid electric drivetrains for heavy construction equipment that cut emissions while increasing power and profitability. **PopUp Insights:** Construction operates on thin margins and massive emissions. Marc’s clarity is sharp: adoption only happens when sustainability meets or beats diesel economics. 4QT’s hybrid system delivers that balance. With early revenue, major LOIs, and OEM partnerships forming, they’ve moved fast from prototype to paid deployments. **What stood out:** Deep founder market insight and a realistic, economically aligned climate solution. --- ## [Alteva](https://alteva.tech/?ref=upnext.world) — [Aiko Bernehed](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aikobernehed/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Ultralight lithium sulfur batteries built for electric aviation and long-distance trucking with no cobalt, nickel, or graphite. **PopUp Insights:** Aiko attacks battery weight and supply chain risk head-on. Their lithium-sulfur chemistry unlocks dramatically lighter batteries while removing dependence on China’s 97% controlled supply chain. Fifteen years of R&D show in the defensibility. **What stood out:** A technically elite founder solving a global bottleneck with real prototypes and early customer demand. --- ## [Everday](https://www.ever.day/?ref=upnext.world) — [Estefanía Hernández](https://www.linkedin.com/in/estefaniahdz/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** An intelligence layer that unifies company data to reveal real human capability and internal mobility potential. **PopUp Insights:** Companies sit on scattered people data across HR, ATS, JIRA, and more. Everday unifies it into one source of truth, giving leaders visibility into who can grow, lead, or shift roles without guesswork. **What stood out:** Clear founder conviction, strong early customers in regulated industries, and a vision anchored in capability over titles. --- ## [Merqury Cybersecurity](https://www.merqury.eu/?ref=upnext.world) — [André Xuereb](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrexuereb/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** A technology-agnostic security layer that brings quantum-secure communication to real-world infrastructure. **PopUp Insights:** As global attackers stockpile encrypted data, Merqury bridges the gap between quantum communication hardware and enterprise usability. Already deploying a national-scale network in Malta. **What stood out:** Strong scientific leadership, deep ecosystem partnerships, and crucial timing in the quantum era. --- ## [Normain](https://normain.com/?ref=upnext.world) — [Sara Lindfors](https://www.linkedin.com/in/landfors/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Instructional AI that turns document chaos into structured insights for consultants, risk teams, and compliance professionals. **PopUp Insights:** Built for teams who live inside documents. Their custom AI engine and workflow UI enable precision extraction and 80 percent time savings. **What stood out:** A hardened product shaped by real edge cases and a founder who understands knowledge work deeply. --- ## [Rayca Precision](https://rayca.ai/?ref=upnext.world) — [Pouya Behrouzi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pouyabehrouzi/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** AI-driven therapeutic discovery for immuno-oncology and rare diseases using physics-based simulations and multimodal compound design. **PopUp Insights:** Rayca designs millions of candidates across multiple drug modalities and validates them through automated lab workflows, tightening the AI-lab feedback loop. **What stood out:** A founder fluent in both science and business with validated early compounds. --- ## [Rebaba](https://rebaba.se/?ref=upnext.world) — [Paula Runsten](https://www.linkedin.com/in/paularunsten/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Stationary energy storage built from second-life EV batteries with an agnostic control platform that integrates 40-plus battery types. **PopUp Insights:** The world is overflowing with retired EV batteries that still retain significant capacity. Rebaba turns them into green, affordable grid storage. **What stood out:** Real deployments, paying customers, and a circular model that scales. --- ## [Red Cable Robots](https://www.redcablerobots.com/?ref=upnext.world) — [Roland Baumann](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robomann/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Large-scale cable-driven robots that deliver flexible, cost-efficient automation across warehouses and industrial environments. **PopUp Insights:** Traditional robot arms are limited by reach, cost, and rigidity. Cable robots flip the equation by enabling massive workspaces and lower deployment costs. **What stood out:** Two decades of research culminating in commercial-ready robotics with major scalability. --- ## [SEATOM Technologies](https://www.seatom.fi/?ref=upnext.world) — [Roope Marttila](https://www.linkedin.com/in/roopem/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Nuclear propulsion systems engineered to decarbonize global shipping. **PopUp Insights:** With fuel regulations tightening and synthetic fuels proving too expensive, nuclear is emerging as the only viable zero-emission path for large vessels. **What stood out:** A world-class team with real nuclear maritime experience and a pragmatic, regulation-aligned strategy. --- ## [Solace Care](https://www.solace.care/?ref=upnext.world) — [Valtteri Korkiakosk](https://www.linkedin.com/in/valtteri-korkiakoski/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** An AI-supported end-of-life planning and support platform for individuals, families, and insurers. **PopUp Insights:** Solace operates in an emotionally heavy, underserved category. Their platform modernizes legacy workflows and helps insurers offer meaningful value. **What stood out:** Rare mission clarity with strong early traction and a category ready for reinvention. --- ## [Universal Atmosphere Processing](https://uap.engineering/?ref=upnext.world) — [Brendan Conroy](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-c1/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Atmospheric processors that extract noble gases directly from air for semiconductors, fusion, and advanced manufacturing. **PopUp Insights:** UAP makes previously impractical gas capture commercially viable. Early partnerships include CERN and a global engineering group. **What stood out:** A true hard tech moonshot with credible partners and a clear industrial wedge. --- ## [Omaia](https://www.omaia.ai/?ref=upnext.world) — [Nina Larsen](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-elisabeth-larsen/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** A digital health solution co-created with midwives and psychologists that reduces pregnancy-related anxiety through personalized programs. **PopUp Insights:** One in four pregnancies involves clinically meaningful anxiety. Omaia extends care beyond the clinical system with an accessible, 24/7-guided program. **What stood out:** A mission-driven founder building a clinically grounded, scalable mental health solution. --- ## Slush 2025 in under a minute Here’s a quick walk of the floor — the lights, the energy, the movement — everything that makes Slush feel more like a futuristic nightclub than a conference. If you’ve never been, this is the closest you’ll get without stepping into the TRON tunnel yourself. Slush 2025 in under a minute ### What’s UpNext: Web Summit to Slush URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-web-summit-to-slush/ Last updated: 2025-11-19T13:00:52.000Z Welcome to What’s UpNext, your weekly recap from the road. We are closing out an incredible stretch across Europe, moving from the Web Summit in Lisbon to the year's final stop at Slush in Helsinki. This issue brings together the highlights, stories, and signals we are seeing from founders, investors, and ecosystems around the world. Thanks for being part of the journey as we wrap 2025 and look toward a bigger, more global 2026. Thank you for your time, here we *goooo*! --- ### *Event Recap* ## Web Summit (Lisbon, Portugal) Last week in Lisbon, Web Summit brought together founders, operators, investors, students, and ecosystem leaders from around the world — all converging to explore what’s coming next in tech. The energy this year was different—larger crowds, more intense conversations, and a genuine emphasis on community. From nonstop meetups in the Community Space to the 10-year celebration of Women in Tech, the week felt more global, more intentional, and more connected. At the centre of it all was *PITCH 2025*. Out of 2,725 startups, only three reached the finals — and they delivered standout pitches that showed where the next wave of innovation is heading. Granter took the top prize, with VarsityScape and SegmentStream close behind. We tracked the momentum across the floor, watched the finals live, and captured the founders and ideas shaping the next phase of European and global tech. Check out our full recap and standout startup list below. [Web Summit PITCH 2025: The Finals That Point to What’s UpNextA look inside the Web Summit PITCH 2025 finals with the winner the runners up and the standout startups shaping what happens next in tech.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-6.png)UpNext.WorldEdwin J. Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Web-Summit-PITCH-2025-Winner-Granter-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/web-summit-pitch-2025-the-finals-that-point-to-whats-upnext/) --- ### *This Week* ## Slush (Helsinki, Finland) Helsinki is cold, dark, and somehow buzzing with more energy than ever. Slush 2025 has officially kicked off. What began as a 250-person meetup in 2008 is now Europe’s most important gathering for early-stage founders and the investors backing them. All year, in conversations with startup founders and ecosystem leaders across Europe, one thing kept coming up. You have to experience Slush in person. So we made the trip to see it for ourselves, and now we understand why. This year’s crowd is the strongest yet. > 6,000 startups, 3,500 investors managing more than €4 trillion, 1,700 partners and ecosystem leaders, and a volunteer force of 1,600 students and recent grads powering the entire experience. It is the kind of environment where conversations shift careers, chance encounters lead to funding, and founders walk away with real clarity about what they want to build next. Slush has always thrived in moments of uncertainty, and 2025 is exactly that. Markets are moving, AI is reshaping every category, and founders are navigating uncharted territory. What stands out about Slush is the intention behind it. Bring the right people into the same room and let the collisions do the work. We are on the ground this week meeting founders, capturing stories, and tracking the ideas shaping Europe’s next wave of breakout companies. If Web Summit was the warm up, Slush is the sprint to the finish of our 2025 run. Full UpNext highlights from Helsinki land next week. --- ### *Flashpoint POV* ## Founder Spotlight Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view* — not just what they’re building, but why it matters, and how their story might redefine what comes *next*. ### Latest Features [Making Executive Healthcare AccessibleVictoria Xu, CEO of Morocco Health, is revolutionizing early cancer detection. Her company offers a blood test for multiple cancers, a new scientific discovery that won a Nobel Prize in 2024\. This affordable solution aims to address health equity, starting with early adopters.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-7.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Victoria-Xu-1.jpg)](https://upnext.world/victoria-xu-mironcal-health-early-cancer-detection/) [Turning Plastic Waste into the Building Blocks of the FutureRandy Budiwicaksono, founder of Ravelware Technology, turns Indonesia’s plastic waste into graphene—stronger than steel, lighter than aluminum, and more conductive than copper. His breakthrough process transforms pollution into progress, building a cleaner, smarter future for humanity.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-8.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/ENS_PopUp_BRoll_Day1_3976-2-1.JPG)](https://upnext.world/turning-plastic-waste-into-the-building-blocks-of-the-future/) [When Nurses Build TechnologyFormer ICU nurse turned tech founder Magdalena Druml is using AI to fix what healthcare forgot: real-time insight. Through her company Nox Avis Tech Solutions and its product HeliDoc, she’s turning chaos into clarity and building a future where technology truly serves care.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-9.png)UpNext.WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/ENS_Firehood_Pitch_BRoll_01021-1.JPG)](https://upnext.world/magdalena-druml-helidoc-ai-healthcare/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### *What's UpNext?* ## Heading Home and Looking Toward 2026 This season took us farther than we expected. From Vancouver to Toronto, Dubai, Lisbon, and now Helsinki, with a few powerful stops in Toronto and Ottawa in between, the 2025 tour gave us a front-row seat to how founders and ecosystems are evolving around the world. As we close out our final stop of the year, this moment at Slush presents an opportunity to pause, take stock, and begin shaping what comes next. The conversations, the PopUp interviews, the partner meetings, and the stories we captured across continents made one thing clear. Builders everywhere are seeking clarity, connection, and a platform that enables them to share their future with the world. When we return home, we will reflect on everything we've learned, refine our playbooks, and map an expanded 2026 world tour. More cities, more partners, and more opportunities to spotlight the people pushing the frontier forward. Next year we scale it, and we will not be doing it alone. If you are looking to take your founders, your ecosystem, or your company global in 2026, there is room on this tour wagon. Let’s talk. --- ## Growth Partners We’re proud to collaborate with [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), [Siift.ai](https://siift.ca/?ref=upnext.world), [LCube Studios](https://impact.lcubestudios.io/?ref=upnext.world), [Allium IP](https://www.alliumip.com/?ref=upnext.world), [Slingshot Telecom](https://slingshot.tel/?ref=upnext.world), [Empact Ventures](https://empact.ventures/?ref=upnext.world), and [Gowling WLG](https://gowlingwlg.com/en-ca?ref=upnext.world) — organizations helping founders and ecosystems shape what’s *UpNext*. *Want to reach over *150,000 founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders* driving global innovation?* [**Let's chat about partnering with UpNext →**](https://api.whatsapp.com/message/KADIND27RWLXM1?autoload=1&app%5Fabsent=0&ref=upnext.world) --- ### *Final Thought* ## The Last Stop of 2025 As we wrap the final stop of the UpNext World Tour, I keep thinking back to where this all started. In 2020, during lockdowns, I made a bold declaration to 100X my business. That promise motivated me to develop the early frameworks that continue to guide my work today. First, it was *Clarity*, *Courage*, and *Commitment*. Then it became the one hundred-day philosophy and the SEA Framework: *Study*, *Execute*, *Advise*. Looking back at this year, I can see how much those ideas shaped the entire tour. Before it even had a name, the early signals came through events in Vancouver, Toronto, Brampton, and Ottawa. Then came the official kickoff at Elevate, followed by Dubai, Lisbon, and now Helsinki. SEA ended up running the whole year. Study each ecosystem. Execute in real time. Advise founders and leaders on sharpening their story in a world where AI has flattened every voice. Now we close 2025 with clarity and momentum. Over the next few weeks, I will unpack more of the lessons, signals, and stories that shaped this year and point to what is to come. Gratefully, Edwin > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ### When Nurses Build Technology URL: https://upnext.world/magdalena-druml-helidoc-ai-healthcare/ Last updated: 2025-11-18T14:01:14.000Z ## The Insider Who Stepped Out to Fix the System When [Magdalena Druml](https://www.linkedin.com/in/magdalena-druml-782a05102/?ref=upnext.world) talks about healthcare, she does not just describe a system; she describes a living organism in need of healing. For more than a decade, she lived inside that system, working as an intensive care and anesthesia nurse in Austria. She saw the beauty of life-saving teamwork and the heartbreak of burnout. She saw technology that promised to help, but it ended up creating more paperwork. And she saw how little time anyone had to fix it. > “I used to work 200 hours a month, often in 24-hour shifts,” she recalls. “Everyone knew things could be better, but nobody had time or energy left to change anything.” That insight became the seed of [NoxAvis Tech Solutions](https://noxavis.com/?ref=upnext.world), the company she founded to build technology that actually lightens the load of healthcare professionals rather than adding to it. ## **The Problem: A System Too Tired to Change** Magdalena’s years in intensive care revealed a painful truth about modern medicine. The people inside the system care deeply, but they are trapped in routines that leave no room for innovation. The phrase she heard most often was, “This is how we’ve always done it.” Hospitals are filled with talent and compassion, yet progress stalls under exhaustion. Even simple improvements are pushed aside because everyone is too busy keeping up. She describes a culture of survival rather than transformation. Endless shifts, complex documentation requirements, and outdated systems consume the energy that could have gone into real progress. “When you spend hours reconstructing what you did instead of caring for people, everyone loses,” she says. “Fixing that process is not glamorous, but it changes everything.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## **The Solution: Human-Centered AI** While still working in hospitals, Magdalena pursued graduate studies in nursing science and engineering, learning to code along the way. Programming gave her a new lens on the problems she had been living. “Once I could write software, I could step outside the medical field and see it from another angle,” she explains. “I could see the system not just as something to survive, but as something that could be redesigned.” Her first project, *HeliDoc*, embodies that belief. It is a voice-based documentation assistant that securely listens during emergency care, extracts necessary details, and generates structured medical records in real time. The software allows trauma teams, paramedics, and hospital staff to remain entirely focused on the patient while data is automatically captured. It turns documentation into a natural part of care instead of an exhausting second shift. Nox Avis Tech Solutions designed HeliDoc with clinicians in mind. It is privacy-preserving, workflow-compatible, and tested in real emergency environments, including Austria’s largest air rescue service. Early users describe it as the first tool that truly feels designed for them. The company expects its first commercial rollout this year, marking a critical step toward a more human kind of healthcare technology. ## **The Future: Creating Health, Not Just Treating Sickness** For Magdalena, the technology is only the beginning. Her true mission is to create a future where healthcare systems are designed around care itself. “We call it healthcare,” she says, “but most of what we do is sick care. I want to build systems that actually create health.” She imagines a world where real-time data improves response, research, and prevention. Information would flow seamlessly from the field to the hospital, helping teams prepare interventions before patients arrive and identify early warning signs long before crises occur. Real-time documentation of medications, reactions, and patient responses would also provide new visibility for researchers, revealing patterns that are invisible today. “Right now, nobody really knows what happens in those moments,” she says. “With accurate, time-stamped data, we can finally shine a light on it.” Her unique perspective comes from bridging two worlds that rarely meet: the compassion of nursing and the logic of engineering. She often references Florence Nightingale, who was known as *the lady with the lamp*, walking through wards at night to bring comfort and clarity with light. Magdalena smiles when she draws the comparison. “Florence carried a lamp to illuminate what others could not see,” she says. “I carry the source code to light up what medicine still cannot see.” The symbolism is clear. Both women use the tools of their time to bring understanding where there was once darkness. Magdalena’s long-term vision includes hundreds of projects still waiting to be built, from smarter coordination in trauma response to early detection tools for heart attacks and chronic conditions. Every idea circles back to the same goal: giving people back their time, dignity, and capacity to care. If the future of medicine is about creating health instead of managing sickness, then voices like Magdalena Druml’s and the technology she builds will lead the way. Watch the founder's UpNext PopUp interview from Expand North Star 2025 --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### Turning Plastic Waste into the Building Blocks of the Future URL: https://upnext.world/turning-plastic-waste-into-the-building-blocks-of-the-future/ Last updated: 2025-11-17T13:39:12.000Z ## **Transforming Pollution into Progress** Indonesia’s plastic crisis is staggering. Millions of tons of waste enter the oceans each year, and only a small fraction is recycled. But what if that pollution could become the foundation for the next technological revolution? That is exactly what Randy Budiwicaksono, founder of Ravelware Technology, is doing. His company transforms discarded plastic into graphene, one of the most promising materials on Earth. Graphene is incredibly light, flexible, and stronger than steel. It conducts electricity better than copper and has the potential to reshape industries from computing to energy storage. Using a process that combines flash-joule heating with shock-wave stabilization, Ravelware can convert nearly any plastic, including PET bottles, multilayer packaging, and coconut husks, into high-quality graphene. The result is one of the cheapest and most scalable graphene production systems in the world. ## **Making the Impossible Affordable** While competitors spend eight hours producing just a few milligrams of graphene, Ravelware’s system can create three grams per minute. This breakthrough lowers costs by as much as twenty times while maintaining industrial-grade quality. That kind of efficiency transforms graphene from a laboratory curiosity into an everyday material. Ravelware’s applications already extend far beyond the lab. The company produces graphene-based coatings, sensors, and materials for batteries and structural composites. Randy’s vision does not stop there. He sees graphene as the next-generation replacement for silicon in computing. “If we can produce graphene cheaply,” he explains, “we can remove the biggest barrier to the future of quantum technology.” Graphene’s unique structure could eventually enable chips that are faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient than today’s silicon-based designs. For Randy, this is not just an industrial breakthrough. It is a paradigm shift. “The future of computing is when humans and machines become one,” he says. “Graphene will make that possible.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## **From Average Student to Visionary Inventor** Randy’s path to innovation started in unlikely circumstances. Growing up in Indonesia, he was bullied and often overlooked. “I was never the popular kid,” he says. “My grades were average, but my curiosity was above average.” His fascination with the natural world became both refuge and teacher. He saw physics as the hidden rules of the universe and chemistry as the language of matter. When teachers told him to “get real,” he decided to build a world where imagination could be proven. One teacher joked that he would only be recognized if he won a Nobel Prize, a remark Randy took as motivation. Today, that same drive fuels his mission to turn waste into value and invisibility into influence. “Success,” he says, “is the sweetest form of revenge.” ## **A New Era for Deep Tech in Indonesia** Ravelware is currently scaling up to open the first graphene factory in ASEAN and already exports to Japan, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. With annual revenues around $1.5 million, the company is proving that deep-tech innovation can thrive outside Silicon Valley. Randy believes that real progress requires precision and patience, not the “move fast and break things” mindset common in startup culture. He calls his philosophy *“One is all and all is one,”* emphasizing the interconnectedness of science, business, and nature. It is a mindset built on balance rather than speed. “Innovation must be deep, adaptable, and designed for real-world needs,” he explains. “That is how we build technology that lasts.” Ravelware’s mission is as symbolic as it is scientific. It takes what humanity discards and transforms it into a foundation for the future. For Randy, plastic waste is an opportunity to redefine what is possible when curiosity meets purpose. Watch the founder's UpNext PopUp interview from Expand North Star 2025 --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### Web Summit PITCH 2025: The Finals That Point to What’s UpNext URL: https://upnext.world/web-summit-pitch-2025-the-finals-that-point-to-whats-upnext/ Last updated: 2025-12-02T18:22:47.000Z [Web Summit](https://websummit.com/?ref=upnext.world) hit a different gear this year. More people. More energy. More global perspectives colliding in the same rooms. Lisbon became a true meeting point for founders, operators, investors, students — anyone building what’s next. What stood out most was how intentionally the organizers leaned into community. The Community Space ran nonstop with over 30 meetups, from women founders in AI to Black innovators to climate-focused NGOs. Web Summit also celebrated 10 years of its Women in Tech programme, and you could feel the impact. The rooms were full, the conversations were honest, and the energy was strong. And then there were the students. More than 8,000 from across Portugal came through the INSPIRE programme, alongside 200 university students flown in from across Europe. Whether you love or hate the phrase “future of tech,” you couldn’t ignore it — they were everywhere, asking questions, taking notes, and diving into every meetup they could. But the moment that cut through all the noise was the PITCH finale. Out of 2,725 startups, only 105 reached the stage throughout the week, and on the final day, one team took the top spot. Below is the winner, followed by the two runner-ups who delivered some of the most compelling pitches of the entire event. --- ## PITCH 2025 Winner & Finalists This year’s PITCH cohort was one of the strongest I’ve seen — technical founders, clear problem statements, and real traction across every stage. Out of 2,725 startups, only three made it to the final round, and each brought a distinct, future-facing take on their category. Here’s a closer look at the winner and the two runner-ups who defined the competition. --- ### Winner: [Granter](https://granter.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Bernardo Seixas](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernardo-seixas-/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Granter is an AI grant consultant that helps companies instantly find the right public funding opportunities, check eligibility, write complete applications, and manage reporting and compliance after approval. Their agent is trained on official criteria and expert-reviewed workflows, providing companies with a faster, more reliable path to capital. **What stood out:** A brutally clear pain point matched with a vertical AI agent that feels like the future of government funding. **Traction:** €400K in sales in just nine months, with customers across Portugal, Spain, Germany, Belgium, and Austria — plus 20% of inbound demand already coming from the US. **Why they won:** Granter delivered a pitch that felt both inevitable and scalable. They’re building the missing infrastructure layer for how companies access public capital. --- ### Runner-Up: [VarsityScape](https://varsityscape.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [Daniel Idiare](https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-idiare/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** VarsityScape is an operating system for universities and academies that enables them to launch scalable online programs with real-time cohort learning, peer engagement, and completion rates above 70 percent — far beyond industry averages. **What stood out:** Daniel’s storytelling and clarity were standout moments of the entire competition. He made the problem, the opportunity, and the impact undeniable. **Traction:** 140 academies onboarded, 5,000 learners trained, three cohorts completed, and MOUs signed with major universities across Africa. **Why they placed:** A powerful mission, a validated model, and a category that is only going to grow, VarsityScape is positioned to build the future of online education on the continent. --- ### Runner-Up: [SegmentStream](https://segmentstream.com/?ref=upnext.world) **Founder:** [**Pavel Petrinich**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavelpetrinich/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** SegmentStream is an AI-powered marketing intelligence platform that predicts future ad performance and automatically reallocates ad spend across channels using agentic AI. It finally closes the loop between analytics and optimization. **What stood out:** This is a technical founder solving a technical problem with precision. The platform merges forecasting and execution into a single feedback loop. **Traction:** $1M ARR with customers across the UK, US, and Europe, driven by a lean team and strong organic demand. **Why they placed:** A mature market with real budgets, a compelling new approach, and impressive traction for such a small team. --- ## Standout PITCH Startups And while the finalists anchored the stage, the depth of talent across this year’s PITCH program was impressive. So many founders came in with clarity, conviction, and real progress. Here are the ones that stood out to me — whether through the problem they’re solving, the way they pitched, or the momentum they’re building. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. --- ### [Arbling](https://arbling.com/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Yevgeniy Makhmutov](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yevgeniy-makhmutov-669156113/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** AI-powered jewelry search and configuration that lets customers find pieces from a photo and customize them in a smooth visual interface. **What stood out:** Clear vertical focus and a path to real commerce adoption. --- ### [Bloom Biotech](https://bloom-biotech.com/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Pedro Vicente](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-vicente1997/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Microalgae-based biomaterials that serve as a sustainable, high-performance alternative to conventional leather. **What stood out:** Strong scientific foundation paired with obvious commercial use cases. --- ### [DeltaGen AI](https://deltagen.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Rene Bystron](https://www.linkedin.com/in/renebystron/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Real-time technical answers surfaced directly inside sales calls through an AI agent trained on company-specific knowledge. **What stood out:** A practical copilot that actually supports deal progression. --- ### [GlobalTips](https://globaltips.io/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Dzmitry Khabibullin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/habdzmitry/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Tools that drive more revenue in hospitality by automating guest feedback and improving team performance through simple workflows. **What stood out:** A straightforward solution operators can adopt without friction. --- ### [Green Power Plus](https://greenpowerplus.space/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Sebastian Vognstølen](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-vognst%C3%B8len-0578a0223/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** A shared procurement platform for cleantech projects that improves transparency and speeds up decisions using structured data. **What stood out:** Bringing order and clarity to a historically messy process. --- ### [healthStay.io](https://healthstay.io/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Sean Conaty](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-conaty-294175193/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Personalized wellness insights for hotel guests delivered through AI to elevate the in-stay experience. **What stood out:** A timely take on hospitality that meets rising wellness expectations. --- ### [Infrafon](https://infrafon.com/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Christian Stanke](https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-stanke-infrafon/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** A secure, purpose-built handheld device for frontline workers that merges operational data, alerts, and communication into one unified tool. **What stood out:** Hardware designed with the actual user in mind. --- ### [Language Foundry](https://languagefoundry.com/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Chad Quinn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-quinn-65673152/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Language Foundry is a mission-driven e-learning platform that gives communities the tools to revitalize and preserve their languages. **What stood out:** A mission-driven platform with real traction, empowering communities to preserve their language and culture. --- ### [LIVSTICK](https://livstick.com/?ref=upnext.world) **\-** [Olivier Adler](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerolivier/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** A creator-focused livestreaming device that lets users film, upload, and publish instantly from a pocket-sized tool. **What stood out:** Genuinely simplifies the creator workflow without extra gear. --- ### [Monnett](https://monnet.social/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Christos Floros](https://www.linkedin.com/in/christosfloroslu/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** A social platform built for thoughtful, slower conversations instead of algorithmic engagement loops. **What stood out:** A refreshing direction at a moment where digital noise is peaking. --- ### [Oraczen](https://oraczen.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **\-** [Sameer Pakanaty](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sameer-pakanaty-b29479/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** AI agents that optimize marketplace operations by predicting demand, matching supply, and improving seller workflows. **What stood out:** A grounded application of agentic AI with real operational lift. --- ### [raal.io](https://raal.io/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Mari-Liis Tamm](https://www.linkedin.com/in/msmariliistamm/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** A modern platform that helps companies manage, track, and optimize their IT equipment and assets across global teams. **What stood out:** Clear focus on a universal operational pain point, strong UX, and an approach that scales with distributed companies. --- ### [ROODS](https://roods.io/?ref=upnext.world) **\-**[Paul Engelbert](https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-engelbert-703b01172/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** A location-based storytelling app that turns cities into open-air museums with GPS-triggered audio, curated walking routes, and multilingual stories from local cultural partners. **What stood out:** A beautiful blend of tourism, culture, and tech with clear partner and city-scale potential. --- ### [Stackbob.ai](https://stackbob.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Ole Shved](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ole-shved/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** AI automation for developers that generates tasks, fixes issues, and removes repetitive technical work. **What stood out:** A solid wedge: improving engineering velocity from day one. --- ### [TEMS.AI](https://tems.ai/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Alexandra Podsekina](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-podsekina/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** An AI platform for operational resilience that automates detection, response, and continuous monitoring. **What stood out:** Enterprise-ready thinking with a credible roadmap. --- ### [The Warming Surfaces Company](https://halia.fi/?ref=upnext.world) **\-** [Jani-Mikael Kuusisto](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kuusisto/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Energy-efficient heating systems built on conductive surfaces that improve comfort while reducing consumption. **What stood out:** A rare hard-tech innovation with clear climate benefit. --- ### [Vetlyx](https://vetlyx.com/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Olena Bufan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/olena-bufan-289b06a6/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** AI tools that unite veterinary data to automate admin tasks and support diagnostics. **What stood out:** A well-defined niche with clear operational ROI. --- ### [Vertassit](https://vertassit.com/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Iyad Kayrala](https://www.linkedin.com/in/iyad-kayrala/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Enterprise AI assistants that automate knowledge work using contextual models tailored for large teams. **What stood out:** Crisp technical framing and clear enterprise relevance. --- ### [Visada](https://visada.it/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Giuseppe Tortorelli](https://www.linkedin.com/in/peppetort/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** AI-powered fraud detection for insurers that produces verified, structured case reports. **What stood out:** Direct, problem-first framing for a costly industry issue. --- ### [X1 Pipeline](https://x1pipeline.com/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Chris Coomes](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriscoomes/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** X1 Pipeline is the AI native platform that transforms how startups, investors, and corporations discover, connect, and grow together. **What stood out:** A real-time deal flow engine that finally unifies how founders and investors connect and make decisions. --- ### [Yourney](https://yourney.io/?ref=upnext.world) \- [Daniel Prieto](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielprietomillan/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Scalable leadership development for LATAM teams delivered through adaptive content and measurable progress tracking. **What stood out:** Blends soft-skill development with practical, trackable outcomes. --- ### [ZeroPact](https://zeropact.co/?ref=upnext.world) **\-** [Luis Gonçalves Branco](https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-goncalves-branco/?ref=upnext.world) **Pitch:** Automated carbon accounting that tracks, verifies, and reports emissions through modern infrastructure. **What stood out:** A clear, confident take on a fast-emerging compliance category. --- ## [UpNext: Slush](https://slush.org/?ref=upnext.world) What a week. From the finalists to the breakout teams across the floor, this year’s PITCH cycle felt bigger, more intentional, and full of founders shaping what’s next. Congrats to everyone who stepped up. See you UpNext at Slush Helsinki — the final stop of our 2025 run. ### Making Executive Healthcare Accessible URL: https://upnext.world/victoria-xu-mironcal-health-early-cancer-detection/ Last updated: 2026-01-13T13:47:27.000Z ## How Victoria Xu Is Reimagining Cancer Detection ### **A Global Blind Spot in Early Cancer Detection** When Victoria Xu looks at the world, she sees through a lens shaped by continents, cultures, and contrasts. Having lived and worked across Europe, North America, and Asia, she has witnessed both the cutting edge and the underdeveloped sides of healthcare. “I’ve seen it all,” she said. “From rich to poor, from high tech to low tech. That gives me a unique strength. I can understand why certain systems behave as they do.” This perspective, formed by decades of global experience, is now driving her mission to change how we detect cancer. More than 80 percent of cancers today are not screened for at all. Most early-stage cancers are found by accident, during scans for unrelated issues. As Xu explains, “Early-stage cancers are mostly incidental findings. That’s a huge missed opportunity. If we can catch cancer before symptoms appear, we can save millions of lives.” The limitations of current screening methods, which rely heavily on imaging and risk-based eligibility, mean that countless people go undiagnosed until it is too late. “You can’t do a CT scan every day,” Xu said. “And even if you could, it only targets certain cancers and specific ‘high-risk’ populations. But 15 percent of lung cancer cases are in non-smokers. So risk categories miss a lot of people.” ### **miRoncal’s Revolutionary Approach** Xu founded miRoncal to tackle this global blind spot. The company is developing a simple blood test that can detect early signals of multiple cancers in one sample. The innovation lies in its use of microRNA (miRNA), a biomarker that won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Medicine. “We use miRNA as a universal signal,” Xu explained. “It’s a relatively new discovery, and we were among the first to publish a model based on it. We’re now preparing to launch the first test of its kind in Canada.” The test is powered by artificial intelligence, which analyzes subtle molecular patterns invisible to the human eye. “Our key invention is the algorithm,” Xu said. “It detects a shared signal across different cancers. It’s a blood test, but behind it is an AI model that learns and improves.” miRoncal’s journey mirrors that of the early electric vehicle industry, a field Xu often references. “When Tesla started, no one had proven you could make an electric car that consumers would buy,” she said. “We’re in the same place for early cancer detection. Big companies spend billions and still struggle to bring affordable solutions to market. We’re showing there’s another way.” Her analogy is fitting. Like Tesla, miRoncal is blending science, technology, and consumer insight to democratize access to innovation. “We’re starting with early adopters, people who are health-conscious and want proactive care,” she said. “But over time, our test will become a first line of defense for everyone.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **Redefining Preventive Health** Victoria Xu’s vision extends beyond any single product. Her mission is to shift the mindset of how people think about health. “We can’t rely on governments to pay for everything,” she said. “Public health systems do a great job providing a safety net. But if you want to do more for yourself, you should be able to. That’s empowerment.” Her long-term goal is to make early cancer detection as routine as a cholesterol check. “We’re building something that continuously improves,” she said. “Like Tesla cars that update with new software, our test will evolve. The same data that helps you today can help us refine your health profile tomorrow.” This forward-thinking approach reflects Xu’s blend of investor mindset and personal conviction. “I don’t need to do this for money,” she said. “I’m doing it because I can. Because I should. When you’re in a privileged position, you take risks others can’t, to do something meaningful.” For Xu, miRoncal is not just a biotech company. It’s a movement toward equitable, data-driven healthcare, one where anyone, anywhere, can take control of their health before disease takes control of them. Watch the Victoria Xu's UpNext PopUp interview from Elevate Festival 2025 --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### What’s UpNext: From SAAS NORTH to Web Summit URL: https://upnext.world/whats-upnext-from-saas-north-to-web-summit/ Last updated: 2025-11-12T15:16:58.000Z Welcome to the first edition of What’s UpNext. This is our weekly recap from the road, sharing stories and insights from founders and innovators shaping what’s next. We’re midway through an incredible week at Web Summit in Lisbon, with founders from around the world pitching, connecting, and setting the pace for what’s ahead. Thanks for following along as we continue the journey toward our final stop of the year in Helsinki. Let’s dive in. --- ## Spotlight: SAAS NORTH 2025 Last week in Ottawa, SAAS NORTH celebrated its 10th anniversary, bringing together the country’s top founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders driving the next wave of software innovation. The energy this year was all about scale, from AI-driven growth to global expansion. Xena Intelligence took home the top PitchFest prize, demonstrating how quickly Canadian SaaS companies are evolving to compete globally. We were on-site capturing founder stories, quick interviews, and behind-the-scenes moments with some of the most promising SaaS teams. Check out our full recap and startup spotlights below. [SaaS North 2025 PitchFest Highlights: Xena Intelligence Takes the WinSaaS NORTH marked its 10th anniversary in Ottawa, celebrating a decade of SaaS innovation. UpNext Global was on-site to spotlight 23 founders and the PitchFest-winning moment from Xena Intelligence.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-1.png)UpNext WorldEdwin Frondozo![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/WhatsApp-Image-2025-11-05-at-13.33.30-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/saas-north-2025-pitchfest-highlights-xena-intelligence-takes-the-win/) --- ## This Week: Web Summit This week, we’re covering [Web Summit 2025](https://websummit.com/?ref=upnext.world) from Lisbon, where more than 71,000 attendees from 157 countries are coming together to explore what’s next in tech and innovation. The spotlight event is [PITCH](https://websummit.com/startups/pitch?ref=upnext.world), Web Summit’s flagship startup competition featuring 105 startups from around the world competing for global recognition. These founders represent the frontier of AI, sustainability, fintech, and frontier tech — a true snapshot of the next generation of innovation. It’s a record year for the summit overall: - [1,857 investors](https://websummit.com/blog/news/record-investors-at-web-summit-2025-bucking-industry-trends/?ref=upnext.world) from 86 countries — a 74% jump from last year. - Nearly 200 startups from Web Summit 2024 went on to raise $715 million USD in post-event funding. We’ll be following the PITCH finalists, spotlighting standout founders, and sharing insights from this global stage as they unfold, all part of discovering what’s truly *UpNext*. Stay tuned for our full coverage and founder spotlights in the days ahead. --- ## Founder POV Through our collaboration with [*Flashpoint Global*](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), we’re diving deeper into the human side of innovation — the beliefs, tensions, and turning points that shape how founders see the world they’re creating. Every spotlight explores a founder’s *point of view* — not just what they’re building, but why it matters, and how their story might redefine what comes *next*. ### Latest Features [The Future of Due DiligenceWinnicent Zuo founded Acephalt, an AI platform that streamlines due diligence by using specialized AI “teammates” for tasks like financial analysis. This innovation saves investors time, allowing them to focus on connecting with founders and driving innovation.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-3.png)UpNext WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/winnicent-1-1-1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/future-of-due-diligence-ai-investing/) [Building a Borderless Future: How Amandipp Singh is Rewriting the Rules of AccessibilityAmandipp Singh, founder of Enabled Talent, is redefining job accessibility for people with disabilities. His mission is to empower over one million individuals using AI tools to create inclusive workplaces where empathy and technology thrive. Together, we can transform opportunities for all!![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-4.png)UpNext WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Image-one--1.jpeg)](https://upnext.world/building-a-borderless-future-how-amandipp-singh-is-rewriting-the-rules-of-accessibility/) [A Simple Patch. A Smarter Future for Asthma Care.Turning complex problems into simple tools Sahil Manjania grew up in a family where entrepreneurship was not a buzzword. It was a daily practice of solving real problems with practical ideas. That lens now guides DIA Labs Canada, his medical device company, as it builds a microneedle wearable that continuously![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/icon/Facebook-IG-Profile-1080px-5.png)UpNext WorldDr. Paul Newton![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/thumbnail/Sahil_Manjania_DIA_Labs_3668-1.JPG)](https://upnext.world/sahil-manjania-dia-labs/) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## What’s UpNext: Slush Helsinki Next stop: [Slush Helsinki 2025](https://slush.org/?ref=upnext.world) — the startup world’s winter gathering, where 13,000 founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders converge to redefine what’s possible. We’ll be on-site in Helsinki, capturing founder stories, investor insights, and ecosystem perspectives from one of the most influential startup events in the world. Expect UpNext PopUp interviews, Flashpoint POV spotlights, and behind-the-scenes reflections from the people shaping what’s next — live from the floor. Follow our journey across [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/company/upnextglobal?ref=upnext.world) and [Instagram](https://instagram.com/upnext.worldwide?ref=upnext.world) for daily coverage, highlights, and upcoming features. --- ## Looking Ahead: The 2026 UpNext World Tour As we wrap 2025 at Slush Helsinki, we’re already mapping out our 2026 world tour, expanding into new cities, ecosystems, and collaborations that spotlight founders shaping the future. If you’re part of an accelerator, innovation hub, or city looking to bring the UpNext experience to your region, now’s the time to connect. Get in touch: hello at upnext dot world. Let’s design what’s *UpNext,* together. --- ## UpNext Global Partners We’re proud to collaborate with [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world), [Siift.ai](https://siift.ca/?ref=upnext.world), [LCube Studios](https://impact.lcubestudios.io/?ref=upnext.world), [Allium IP](https://www.alliumip.com/?ref=upnext.world), [Slingshot Telecom](https://slingshot.tel/?ref=upnext.world), [Empact Ventures](https://empact.ventures/?ref=upnext.world), and [Gowling WLG](https://gowlingwlg.com/en-ca?ref=upnext.world) — organizations helping founders and ecosystems shape what’s *UpNext*. *Want to reach over *150,000 founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders* driving global innovation?* [**Let's chat about partnering with UpNext →**](https://api.whatsapp.com/message/KADIND27RWLXM1?autoload=1&app%5Fabsent=0&ref=upnext.world) --- ## Before You Scale in 2026, Get This Right The founders who win next year won’t outspend; they’ll out-clarify. These past six months building *Flashpoint Global* with Paul have been an intentional experiment. We created early revenue. We worked with clients. But we didn’t pay ourselves. Every dollar went right back into the system, into refining the funnel, testing the offer, and learning who we were really serving. We weren’t buying growth. We were building proof. And now, after countless iterations, it clicks. The funnel works because it’s built on belief, not budget. But as I connect with founders across the *UpNext World Tour*, one thing stands out: too many are spending like they already have product-market fit. They’re hiring teams before there’s something to scale, building tech stacks before validating demand, and investing in structure before substance. The truth is, clarity scales faster than capital. When you stay close to your early adopters, you discover the message that moves them. When you lead with your POV, you attract the believers before the market does. That’s the real funnel, a POV-driven ecosystem, not a spending plan. Gratefully, Edwin > *Read more reflections like this on* [*Future POV*](https://edwin100x.substack.com/), *my personal Substack on clarity, conviction, and building movements that last.* ### SaaS North 2025 PitchFest Highlights: Xena Intelligence Takes the Win URL: https://upnext.world/saas-north-2025-pitchfest-highlights-xena-intelligence-takes-the-win/ Last updated: 2026-01-05T20:39:42.000Z ### Ottawa, Canada — November 5-6, 2025 Celebrating its 10th anniversary, SaaS North once again brought together Canada’s leading SaaS founders, investors, and innovators for two days of insight, connection, and bold ideas. From the Gateway Stage at the Rogers Centre, 23 ambitious startups stepped into the spotlight to pitch their vision and compete for the SaaS North PitchFest 2025 title. This milestone year marked a powerful moment for Canada’s SaaS ecosystem, showcasing how founders across the country are scaling meaningful, globally competitive businesses. Our UpNext Global Media Team was on the ground to put a spotlight on the founders who participated in PitchFest and to celebrate this milestone event alongside the community. --- ## Winner: [Xena Intelligence](https://xenaintelligence.com/?ref=upnext.world) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/Akhil-1.jpeg) **Founder:** [Akhil Suresh Nair](https://www.linkedin.com/in/akhilsureshnair/?ref=upnext.world) **Focus:** AI-powered eCommerce growth analytics Taking the crown this year, **Xena Intelligence** impressed judges and the audience alike with its data-driven insights that help consumer brands scale profitably across digital marketplaces. Founder **Akhil Suresh Nair** delivered a sharp, confident pitch that stood out for both its clarity and commercial potential. > “We’re building a world where every brand — big or small — has the intelligence to compete,” said Nair after the win. --- ## Finalists Who Stood Out ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/Ivan.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/DavidPeters.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/Moustafa.jpeg) [**Serenity Vet**](https://serenity.vet/?ref=upnext.world) – [Dr. Ivan Zakharenkov](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-ivan-zak/?ref=upnext.world) > “We’re solving the matchmaking and payment problems for veterinary clinics and freelance vets.” Serenity Vet connects clinics with freelance veterinarians through a simple digital platform, already working with over 550 vets and 200 clinics across Canada. [**Construction Clock**](https://constructionclock.com/?ref=upnext.world) – [David Peters](https://linkedin.com/in/davidfpeters?ref=upnext.world) > “We give small contractors their Saturdays back.” Construction Clock helps contractors automate timesheets using verified GPS data — saving teams hours of manual tracking every week. [**Resilio Climate Solutions**](https://resiliocs.com/?ref=upnext.world) – [Moustafa Naiem](https://www.linkedin.com/in/moustafa-naiem/?ref=upnext.world) > “We help real estate asset owners understand how climate change affects their portfolios.” Resilio is building digital twin models to assess and mitigate climate risk, helping developers future-proof assets. --- ## Founders Who Impressed [**Purple Wins**](https://purplewins.io/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Mina Johl](https://linkedin.com/in/minajohl?ref=upnext.world) [**Eezly**](https://eezly.com/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Phil Dallaire](https://linkedin.com/in/phildallaire?ref=upnext.world) [**AI Eyes**](https://www.aiforeyes.com/en?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Tara Akhavan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/akhavantara/?ref=upnext.world) & [Vanessa Poulin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/poulinvanessa/?ref=upnext.world) [**KrosAI**](https://kros.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Joshua Firima Jr.](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuafirimajnr/?ref=upnext.world) [**Kavodax**](https://kavodax.com/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Gharsa Amin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gharsanay-amin/?ref=upnext.world) [**Parados**](https://www.parados.app/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Pascal McCarthy](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascaldmccarthy/?ref=upnext.world) [**CoLab Education**](https://colab.education/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Ariella Racco](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariella-racco/?ref=upnext.world) [**Digibiomix**](https://digibiomix.com/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Meraj Khan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/drmerajakhan/?ref=upnext.world) [**Home.ca**](https://home.ca/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Peyman Aleagha](https://www.linkedin.com/in/peymanaleagha/?ref=upnext.world) [**Cleversearch**](https://cleversearch.ai/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Mae Woods](https://www.linkedin.com/in/maewoods/?ref=upnext.world) [**Enablism Technologies**](https://enablism.com/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Karan Khiani](https://www.linkedin.com/in/karankhiani/?ref=upnext.world) [**Handle**](https://handleai.co/?ref=upnext.world) **–** Sabit Ali [**CompCrafter**](https://compcrafter.com/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Igbagbo “IG” Ajagunna](https://www.linkedin.com/in/igajagunna/?ref=upnext.world) [**Tappy Rewards**](https://www.tappyrewards.com/?ref=upnext.world) **–** [Harry Crane](https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-crane-39a6a397/?ref=upnext.world) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Meet the Founders Stay tuned as we’ll release full interviews and behind-the-scenes moments from SaaS North’s 10th anniversary. Each conversation reveals the mindset, ambition, and breakthroughs behind Canada’s next generation of SaaS founders. Follow the stories at [UpNext.World](https://instagram.com/upnext.worldwide?ref=upnext.world) or on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/upnextglobal?ref=upnext.world). ### The Future of Due Diligence URL: https://upnext.world/future-of-due-diligence-ai-investing/ Last updated: 2025-11-12T17:26:41.000Z ## How Winnicent Zuo is Using AI to Transform Investment Speed and Trust #### The Problem: Slow Deals in a Fast World For [Winnicent Zuo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/winnicent-zuo/?ref=upnext.world), the pain of slow and fragmented investment decisions is personal. After years of studying both computer science and finance, he realized that while startups were racing ahead with AI-driven speed, investors were still conducting due diligence at the pace of Excel spreadsheets. “Founders move at AI speed, but investors are stuck in the manual era,” he says. “It slows everyone down.” The process is notoriously inefficient. Data is scattered across emails, spreadsheets, and meeting notes. Analysts spend hundreds of hours consolidating reports, while general partners wait for memos before making decisions. The result is wasted time, missed opportunities, and delayed innovation. Zuo saw this firsthand through his own network of founders and investors who were frustrated by how long it took to close a deal. He wanted to change that. #### The Solution: An AI Platform That Thinks Like a Team Zuo founded [Acephalt](https://www.acephalt.com/?ref=upnext.world), an AI-driven due diligence platform that automates and accelerates the entire investment workflow. His insight came from a simple but powerful observation: due diligence requires many kinds of thinking—financial, legal, and market analysis—yet most AI tools treat them as a single type. Acephalt takes a different approach. The platform uses a multi-agent architecture, with specialized AI “teammates” trained by industry experts such as lawyers and certified financial analysts. Each agent tackles a specific part of the due diligence process, from reading financial statements to researching markets and identifying red flags. Together, they create a unified, data-driven report that integrates with tools like CRM systems, Zoom notes, and Google Drive. “Our AI doesn’t just summarize information. It understands context, preferences, and goals,” Zuo explains. “It learns how an investor thinks and then acts like a second general partner—doing the work before you even ask.” Under Zuo’s leadership, Acephalt has already attracted design partners and beta users across North American family offices and venture firms. Early adopters report saving over 1,000 hours of due diligence time, allowing them to focus on what matters most: meeting founders and understanding their vision. Zuo’s unique combination of technical depth and financial expertise gives him a rare advantage. A former mathematics and computer science student who later earned a master’s in financial engineering, he blends machine learning precision with an understanding of how deals actually get done. That dual fluency drives Acephalt’s approach to solving one of the investment industry’s oldest inefficiencies. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. #### The Future: A World Where Investors Move at AI Speed Zuo believes the future of investing is one in which human intuition and artificial intelligence are perfectly in sync. In his view, investors should spend less time cleaning data and more time connecting with founders. “The most valuable part of any deal is the conversation with the founder,” he says. “AI should handle the rest.” He imagines a world where every investor has a personalized AI partner that automatically analyzes pitch decks, researches industries, and prepares investment memos before meetings. When that happens, investors can meet twice as many founders, make faster decisions, and allocate capital more intelligently. And when investors can move faster, startups can too—accelerating innovation across the entire ecosystem. Zuo is already exploring partnerships with incubators, consulting firms, and legal organizations that can use Acephalt’s multi-agent technology to streamline their workflows. He also hints at potential mergers and expansion into other sectors, such as internal auditing. To him, due diligence is just the beginning. “We’re not just building a product,” Zuo says. “We’re building the future infrastructure of trust for how investment decisions are made.” It is a bold vision, but one that fits Zuo’s pattern. He is both a mathematician and a strategist, a coder and a communicator. He has the rare ability to see across disciplines—to understand the logic of algorithms and the psychology of investors. And that blend of analytical rigor and human insight is exactly what the future of finance needs. Watch the founder's UpNext PopUp interview from Elevate Festival 2025 --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### Building a Borderless Future: How Amandipp Singh is Rewriting the Rules of Accessibility URL: https://upnext.world/building-a-borderless-future-how-amandipp-singh-is-rewriting-the-rules-of-accessibility/ Last updated: 2025-11-10T03:32:54.000Z When [Amandipp Singh](https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandippsingh/?ref=upnext.world) was a child growing up in a small town in India, nothing around him was built for people like him. Born partially blind, he had to navigate classrooms, public spaces, and friendships in a world that offered no accommodations. “I wasn’t trying to overcome anything,” he says. “I just had to survive it.” That survival became the foundation for a vision that now spans continents. Today, Amandipp is the founder and CEO of [Enabled Talent](https://www.enabledtalent.com/?ref=upnext.world), an inclusive hiring platform that removes barriers for people with disabilities in the workforce. Based in Brampton, Ontario, his company has already connected more than 18,000 users and partnered with global initiatives such as the UNICEF Startup Lab and leading disability organizations. But his mission extends far beyond metrics. “We want to empower one million people with disabilities to find meaningful work and live with dignity,” he explains. ### **The Problem: Awareness Without Access** Across Canada, more than 27 percent of the population lives with a disability. That is nearly 1.9 million people excluded from the workforce, not because of lack of ability, but because hiring systems remain inaccessible. Globally, over 1.3 billion people live with disabilities, with unemployment rates between 70–90 percent—representing the world’s largest untapped workforce. Amandipp has seen the problem from every angle: as a job seeker, as a policymaker, and now as a founder. “I have worked with governments, colleges, corporations, and nonprofits. What I’ve learned is that accessibility is still treated like a checkbox,” he says. “It’s seen as compliance, charity, or welfare. I see it as untapped talent.” His lived experience revealed how the lack of early empathy education compounds the issue. As a child, he was often ridiculed by classmates who simply didn’t know better. “Empathy is not something we teach in schools,” he says. “It’s not about blaming people. It’s about awareness. People don’t always know how to respond to difference.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/11/upnext-world-tour-map.jpg) ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **The Solution: Hope, Awareness, and Technology** Hope means helping job seekers believe that meaningful employment is possible. Awareness means helping employers see inclusion not as a burden, but as an opportunity. He recalls a powerful example from one of his launch events: a Tim Hortons franchise owner who employs 95 percent of his staff from the disability community and has an average employee tenure of more than ten years. “That is what awareness looks like in action,” Amandipp says. Technology then becomes the third pillar, providing the infrastructure to connect both sides. Enabled Talent doesn’t just post jobs; it facilitates change. The platform guides employers through the process of becoming more inclusive, offering resources like accessibility grants and workplace adaptation support. For job seekers, it provides tailored tools to navigate applications, interviews, and onboarding, all through an accessible design. In October 2025, Enabled Talent celebrated a major milestone with its official global launch in Brampton’s Innovation District, where Amandipp unveiled TARA, an AI-powered voice companion designed to help individuals with vision loss navigate their work environments. The company also announced its selection as the only Canadian startup chosen by UNICEF’s Startup Lab to lead inclusive employment innovation across Africa. The event gathered civic leaders, accessibility advocates, and global partners, underscoring Brampton’s growing role as a hub for innovation and inclusion. Read the launch announcement [here](https://southasiandaily.com/enabled-talent-launches-from-brampton-to-tap-into-the-worlds-largest-untapped-workforce/?ref=upnext.world). ### **The Vision: Beyond Borders, Beyond Disabilities** Amandipp often describes his goal as building something “beyond borders, beyond languages, and beyond disabilities.” His company is now expanding across Africa, as part of the UNICEF Startup Lab, collaborating with leading disability organizations to reach 24 countries within three years. Through Enabled Africa, the initiative aims to empower more than 85 million people with disabilities across the continent. The impact is already visible. “Every week we see stories of people who felt invisible now finding work and confidence,” he says. But he is equally focused on changing how society perceives disability itself. “We don’t need more workplace accommodations,” he explains. “We need fewer barriers.” He imagines a world where technology and empathy coexist. In the near future, he sees companies where people with visual, hearing, or mobility challenges work seamlessly side by side with others, communicating across differences rather than around them. “Empathy can’t be built overnight,” he says. “It develops over time through awareness and shared experience. But once it’s there, it changes everything.” For Amandipp Singh, inclusion is not a checkbox or a corporate initiative. It is a movement powered by humanity, awareness, and innovation. “We are just getting started,” he says. “Every time someone finds a job through Enabled Talent, that’s not just a placement. It’s a proof point that the world can work differently.” Enabled Talent is reimagining what accessibility means in the modern workforce, one voice, one job, and one act of awareness at a time. Visit enabletalent.com or follow Enabled Talent on LinkedIn and Instagram. Watch the founder's UpNext PopUp interview from Brampton Venture Expo 2025 --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### A Simple Patch. A Smarter Future for Asthma Care. URL: https://upnext.world/sahil-manjania-dia-labs/ Last updated: 2025-10-29T03:28:56.000Z ### **Turning complex problems into simple tools** [Sahil Manjania](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahilmanjania/?ref=upnext.world) grew up in a family where entrepreneurship was not a buzzword. It was a daily practice of solving real problems with practical ideas. That lens now guides [DIA Labs Canada](https://dialabscanada.com/?ref=upnext.world), his medical device company, as it builds a microneedle wearable that continuously tracks asthma inflammation for up to 14 days. The aim is straightforward. Replace guesswork with real data so clinicians and patients can make timely, confident decisions. Sahil’s philosophy is equally clear. Complex problems deserve simple solutions. If a tool is hard to use or expensive to access, it will not change outcomes at scale. ### **Data that clinicians can trust** Asthma management still leans on questionnaires and aging devices that were designed for another era. Once a patient leaves the clinic, monitoring usually stops. Clinicians do not get the longitudinal signal they need to titrate medication, plan cessation, or judge response to biologics. DIA Labs is targeting the chemistry that matters. Their microneedle patch samples interstitial fluid and reads inflammatory proteins that rise during exacerbations. The result is a continuous stream of clinically relevant data rather than snapshots. For physicians, that means a more defensible diagnosis, better protocol design, and the potential to reduce both overtreatment and undertreatment. It also opens the door to equitable care. Traditional spirometry has known biases that can misclassify Black, Indigenous, and other patients of color. A biochemical signal can help move decision making beyond tools that embed old assumptions. ## Sign up for UpNext World A global media platform spotlighting bold founders and future-ready ecosystems. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. ### **Confidence for patients to live and move** Ask anyone who has lived with severe asthma. Attacks can arrive with little warning. Fear changes behavior. People skip activities they love, avoid the gym, and hesitate to travel. Parents worry at school drop-off. DIA Labs’ vision is to give patients a quiet layer of confidence. A patch that tracks what is happening inside the body, in real time, so small changes do not become big events. The company talks about management as a daily practice, not a crisis response. That framing matters for children as much as for adults. The goal is not a dashboard for dashboard’s sake. The goal is a life that expands again. Sahil’s approach to innovation is shaped by applied learning. He studied clinical trials and translational science, the space between what research proves and what care teams actually implement. That is why his team starts with needs assessments and workflow mapping before they design features. They ask who will use the tool, where it fits, and how to keep it affordable. They borrow what already works rather than reinventing it. They treat cost and simplicity as core design constraints, not afterthoughts. The company’s first customers will be drug sponsors who want real-world signals during trials for next-generation biologics. The longer arc leads to patients and clinicians in everyday care. A patch. A phone. A continuous read on the state of the airway. That is the product story. The founder story explains the rest. Sahil learned early that networks are force multipliers. He built with engineers he trusted, brought in regulatory and medical advisors, and tapped programs that accelerate medtech talent. He is assembling a team that mixes wet-lab rigor with commercialization sense. The culture is once-and-done problem solving. Fix the root issue so people do not need to stack new tools on top of old ones. DIA Labs is pre-revenue and preparing for clinical testing. The company has secured non-dilutive funding and is opening a pre-seed round to move faster on validation, regulatory work, and reimbursement readiness. The roadmap extends beyond asthma into a broader respiratory portfolio, but the focus is disciplined. Prove the first use case. Show that continuous inflammatory data changes decisions and outcomes. Make it accessible under prescription codes. Then expand. There is nothing flashy about this vision. That is the point. The future of asthma care should feel simple. A small patch. Better information. Fewer surprises. More life. Watch the founder's UpNext PopUp interview from Expand North Star 2025 --- ### About Flashpoint POV Spotlights *Flashpoint POV Spotlights* are in-depth founder features produced by [Flashpoint Global](https://flashpoint.global/?ref=upnext.world)—a thought leadership management studio that helps innovators articulate the world they’re creating. Each story begins with a *Future Narrative Session* and develops into a Minimum Viable POV (MVPov): the founder’s clearest statement of purpose and perspective. Follow UpNext Global to discover more founders shaping the future. *(If you’re a founder interested in clarifying your own POV, stay tuned — applications open soon.)* ### Inside Expand North Star 2025: 80+ Founder Stories, Global Finals, and the Future of Innovation in Dubai URL: https://upnext.world/inside-expand-north-star-2025-80-founder-stories-global-finals-and-the-future-of-innovation-in-dubai/ Last updated: 2025-11-10T05:10:14.000Z The UpNext Global team was on the ground in Dubai for the 10th Anniversary of [Expand North Star](https://www.expandnorthstar.com/?ref=upnext.world) 2025, part of GITEX GLOBAL, the world’s largest startup and investor gathering, to spotlight the founders shaping what’s *UpNext.* The milestone event drew 2,000+ startups and 1,200+ investors managing more than US$1.1 trillion AUM, cementing Dubai’s position as a global hub for entrepreneurship and innovation. The Supernova Challenge 2.0, with its US$300,000 prize pool, showcased ten groundbreaking startups from around the world, while a special “10 Years, 6 Winners, 1 Stage” session brought back past champions to share how winning transformed their journeys. Across four packed days, we captured more than 80 founder stories — innovators, risk-takers, and category creators pitching on one of the biggest stages in the world. --- ## **Grand Prize Winner — AIM Intelligence Inc. (Republic of Korea)** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/10/ENS25-1st-Place-Aim-Intelligence.jpg) In a thrilling display of innovation, AIM Intelligence clinched first place, taking home the $100 000 grand prize. This groundbreaking AI security company is focused on making generative AI safe and reliable — setting the global standard for *AI reliability and Physical AI Safety* by securing both digital models and embodied AI systems. Recognized by Meta, Anthropic, and global accelerators, AIM’s mission is to ensure that as AI evolves, it remains secure and trustworthy. > “As an AI security and safety company, we’re solving a frontier challenge. We have clients in Korea, but now we’re expanding globally — and through the Supernova Challenge 2.0, we’ll enter the Middle Eastern region. This prize helps us grow our talent and resources to make that vision real, ” says Haon Park, Co-Founder of AIM Intelligence. --- ## **2nd Place — Chucao Technology Consultants Spa (Chile)** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/10/ENS_Supernova_Winners_02164.JPG) Chucao secured second place and a $50 000 prize for its patented nanometal injector that boosts mineral recovery in leaching and flotation processes. Their innovation has achieved up to 7.3 % higher gold recovery in pilot tests with top mining companies — a real game changer for sustainable mining and resource efficiency. --- ## **3rd Place — Aerialoop (Ecuador)** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/10/ENS_Supernova_Winners_02130.JPG) Aerialoop earned the third-place prize of $25 000 for its pioneering unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) solutions. They’re building Latin America’s largest drone logistics network, proving that innovation in transport and delivery truly has no borders. --- ## **The Top 10 Finalists of the Supernova Challenge 2.0** 1. **Hubee Design** – *Brazil | AdTech / MarTech* 2. **Social Convert** – *United Kingdom | AdTech / MarTech* 3. **Aerialoop** – *Ecuador | UAV / Drones* 4. **AIM Intelligence Inc.** – *Republic of Korea | Artificial Intelligence* 5. **Carret** – *Singapore | Blockchain* 6. **Phaseshift Technologies** – *Canada | Artificial Intelligence* 7. **Pixonal** – *United Arab Emirates | Artificial Intelligence* 8. **Neuron X Inc.** – *Japan | Blockchain* 9. **Atomo Innovation Pvt Ltd** – *India | Artificial Intelligence* 10. **Chucao Technology Consultants Spa** – *Chile | AgriTech & FoodTech* --- ## **The Firehood Women in Tech Stage: Powering Inclusive Innovation** This year also marked the launch of The Firehood Women in Tech Stage, powered by The Firehood and supported by Expand North Star, championing female founders from around the world. The stage brought together leading women innovators, investors, and ecosystem builders — celebrating not just startups, but the *resilience and brilliance* of women driving the next wave of tech. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/10/ENS_Firehood_Winner_02336-1.JPG) Anurias Das, founder of Genovation, was awarded the $100K investment prize by The Firehood Angels, following an inspiring lineup of women-led pitches across healthtech, sustainability, and AI. The event also featured Hon. Mary Ng, P.C., Canada’s Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development, who reminded attendees of the $12 trillion global opportunity tied to inclusive innovation and trade — a message that resonated across the entire event. --- ## **Spotlight on Canadian Innovation** We were proud to travel as part of the [Canadian Startup Association](https://canadastartups.co/?ref=upnext.world) delegation, showcasing founders who are pushing boundaries beyond borders. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f7/bd/f7bd9425-660a-4347-a458-f5a607a098d3/content/images/2025/10/WhatsApp-Image-2025-10-12-at-01.32.02-1.jpeg) Several Canadian startups advanced to the **Supernova Challenge** semifinals, including: - RideAlike - Phaseshift Technologies - Bidblox - Dia Labs Canada - Yocale One of those semifinalists, Phaseshift Technologies, went on to become a Top 10 finalist, representing Canada on the Supernova Stage. Their work in AI-driven material science and energy efficiency highlights the depth of innovation being built right here at home and scaled to the world. Moments like these remind me why global storytelling matters — when you give founders visibility, you give their ecosystems a voice. --- ## **Japan Web3 Founder Challenge at Founders Space** We also covered the Japan Web3 Founder Challenge, hosted at Founders Space inside Hall 7 — one of the most dynamic stages of Expand North Star’s 10th-anniversary edition. Seven founders from Japan’s Web3 ecosystem pitched their innovations live, showcasing the next generation of decentralized applications and digital-asset infrastructure. **Presenting founders included:** - **Yusuke Hirota**, Founder & CEO – *Neuron X Inc.* - **Cyril Bizieau**, COO – *CREATANT* - **Yuma Tanimoto**, Co-Founder & CSO – *Xenea* - **Goki Kato**, CEO – *ANDLAW FZCO* - **Shuhei Mise**, CEO – *Aniark FZCO* - **Takumi Takahashi**, CEO – *Kyuzan* - **William Metcalfe**, Co-Founder – *Curvegrid* Their pitches highlighted Japan’s growing influence in blockchain, digital assets, and immersive tech — bridging traditional enterprise culture with the emerging global Web3 economy. --- ## **Beyond the Stage: Global Energy, Local Impact** From São Paulo to Seoul, Toronto to Tokyo, the Supernova finalists and Firehood founders reflect a world where innovation knows no borders. Each story captured in Dubai represents a bold step forward — tackling real problems, building global bridges, and redefining what’s possible in their industries. As UpNext Global continues its world tour, we’ll be rolling out our PopUp Interviews — featuring all the founders we met from both the Supernova Challenge and The Firehood Women in Tech Stage — across our social feeds at @upnext.worldwide on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. These stories are just the beginning. They’re the pulse of what’s next — and we can’t wait to share them with you. --- ## **What’s UpNext** Stay tuned for our *remote and on-site coverage* as we continue to uncover the world’s most promising startups. Follow us on [**@upnext.worldwide**](https://instagram.com/upnext.worldwide?ref=upnext.world) or subscribe at [**UpNext.world**](https://upnext.world/) for exclusive founder spotlights, partner stories, and behind-the-scenes coverage.