One of industry's most important competitions
2 Israeli firms reach TechCrunch final
Shaker, developer of Facebook pub application, and Farmigo, developer of agricultural initiative sharing application, among seven finalists in international startup competition. Will they recreate Soluto's success and bring home trophy?
The Israeli lucky streak is continuing at the prestigious TechCrunch Disrupt competition
as two Israeli companies, Farmigo and Shaker, make it to the finals among the seven contenders out of the 31 companies which made it into the competition.
Benzi Ronen and Yossi Pik's Farmigo deals with direct purchasing of produce from suppliers. In order to directly purchase produce, local initiatives have sprouted up around the world in which people form purchasing groups and purchase produce directly from growers.
The winners will be announced early Thursday.
Global Success
Assaf Gilad, Calcalist
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Ronan and Pik's startup aims to make such initiatives accessible, popular and user friendly. The company develops an online platform which enables surfers around the world to locate, join and share such initiatives.
In an interview to Calcalist before the finalists were announced, Ronen talked about the positive responses that poured in to the company: "The best part is that so many people visit to our booth. There is lots of enthusiasm over the company's vision and mission.
"Aside from the great time we're having here, the most important part is our business – taking the model and establishing collection points, leveraging the community. From this standpoint, it's already a success."
The second Israeli finalist is Shaker, which belongs to Ofer Rodenstein and Gad and Jonathan Maor. The company developed a Facebook application by which its developers hope to reinvent online chatting and social networking.
The application brings up a virtual pub with avatars of other online users. Above each avatar is the profile picture of that user. Users can walk around the pub and check out other conversations and even join in (conversations are textual at this point). In order to simulate the atmosphere in a pub, the application includes loud background music and uses can even buy each other drinks.
The competition, held by the prominent tech blog, is one of the most important in the industry due to the plethora of new and interesting startups that gain exposure through the event and the wide media coverage they receive. The grand prize is $50,000 but the benefit of winning lies mainly in the prestige and publicity.
In the first competition held in New York a year and a half ago, Israeli Solutocame in second. This year, three Israeli companies took part in the competition (and three more in which Israelis hold key positions), and this time as well two Israeli companies made it to the finals.
Click here to read this report in Hebrew
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