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The fourth batch of startups in Brinc MENA’s Iot Accelerator Programme has graduated.
The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, represented by the SME development department, participated in the graduation ceremony. The director of SMEs development at the Ministry, Shaikh Abdullah Mohammed Al Fadhel and the chief development officer and general manager of Brinc MENA, Yassin Abudaoud, were present at Brinc’s Demo Day which returned for the fourth cycle in partnership with Tamkeen, EDB, Batelco and Oqal, carrying the title of “IoT: Enabling digital transformation in the MENA region”.
Demo Day is a platform for meeting startup founders and networking with investors, corporate strategists, government partners and press. It provides participants with the opportunity of discovering the latest global innovations in IoT in order to explore the potential of cross pollination of ideas and build partnerships that put Bahrain on the frontier of digital modernisation and innovation.
The fourth portfolio of startups pitching on Demo Day offered IoT and connected hardware solutions with the potential to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges, using Bahrain as a launchpad to offer their products and services to the wider region and the world.
As a Hong Kong headquartered accelerator, Brinc’s Demo Day highlighted the relationship and cooperation between China and Bahrain, which enables the kingdom based IoT startups to take advantage of the connected hardware manufacturing capabilities in China.
This event was focused on highlighting the four verticals of investment that form Brinc’s investment thesis. The event also brought together elite local, regional and international investors for the five startups from the fall cohort accelerator programme to pitch their IoT solutions and products in pursuit of further funding.
Brinc’s five portfolio companies included:
k ANSER is the only web and mobile platform that allows managing costs, time and resources in real-time through the use of augmented reality and artificial intelligence in a practical and preventive way on site.
k Freepark is a smart parking solutions provider that produces locks that are controlled by a smartphone application. The smart parking locks can be used for private parking space sharing, booking, and remote authorisation.
k WASCO LAB is a hardware-enabled SaaS company that strives to understand the needs of their customers by optimising waste management through the use of sensors, analytics and a platform.
k Linkers IoT helps shop owners understand different store customer counts and uncovers a lot of information about the number of visitors and average time spent in the store.
It helps them manage their assets with the advanced sensing techniques that connect assets to the cloud easily. Additionally, they help business owners stay tuned and use IoT to monitor instant consumption for different utilities (energy, water or gas).
k Crowd Powered enables institutions to save money on electrical and fuel bills while maintaining power quality. Their SaaS and hardware-based solution creates onsite micro-grids that integrate existing assets and utilities with solar, wind and battery storage.
