Empath Inc, winner of Pitch Your Startup 2018;

The winner of the fourth edition of Pitch Your Startup, Empath Inc., was announced yesterday at the ICT Spring Gala Dinner; the company was chosen from among 15 other startups who were presenting their projects throughout the day, each with their own unique ideas and solutions.

Empath is an emotion artificial intelligence, which can identify emotion from the voice in real-time regardless of language. By analysing multiple physical properties of the voice, Empath detects four emotions which are joy, calm, anger and sorrow, in addition to an energy point.

Empath Inc. also received two seats in the collaboration space of Luxembourg City Incubator (LCI) as well as the Luxinnovation Innovation Service Package.

Marton Fülöp, COO of Docler Holding stated: “Innovation and diversity were the main themes of the 4th edition of Pitch Your Startup. The 15 companies participating this year all presented viable solutions and products that meet real market needs. Empath Inc. stood out as a unique startup with strong potential.”

Out of a total of 180 applications from 35 different countries, the jury chose 15 startups that met their strict criteria of innovation, creativity and potential growth. The prizes this year added up to an equivalent of €100,000 and Empath Inc. won €50,000 that was offered by Docler Holding.

The BIL Innovation award was granted to Sniffy, a multisensorial communication device that provides a 5D experience for users. Sniffy can synthesise a scent for any product and can create microstimulation and microdiffusion for retail stores. Also, Sniffy’s audio/visual/olfactory system is also able to record the reactions of those who perceive a fragrance and provide valuable data for product design teams.

Pierre-Olivier Rotheval, Head of Marketing and Innovation at Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL), said "The sense of smell is very powerful, yet untapped in today’s communication devices. It can bring back memories, produce an automatic chemical response in your body, and make you crave your favourite foods. Sniffy brings a tangible, innovative product that makes a difference."

With its interactive home-monitoring owl, Mu Design won the Best Pitch Award given by Gael Denis, partner at EY, as well as the Uncle Sam Award from Luxfactory.com

Five other startups also stole the spotlight:
• LHoFT offered three months of Hotdesking in its building and a year of membership to Neuroprofiler.
• Teliportme received a three-month acceleration programme from Nyuko.
• Silversquare will provide three three flex desks in their open space to Aveine, Digifood and Innosphere.

Pitch Your Startup is a competition dedicated to international startups active in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT). Initiated in 2014 by Docler Holding in collaboration with Luxinnovation, this event has established itself as a reference for the world's startups, thus contributing to the national project of building a Startup Nation.

David Foy (Luxinnovation) moderated the pitching session. The jury was made up of experts from the national ecosystem: Claudine Bettendroffer (Silversquare), Gael Denis (EY), Marton Fülöp (Docler Holding), Martin Guérin (Nyuko), Jean-Michel Ludwig (Luxinnovation), Pierre-Olivier Rotheval (BIL), Elodie Trojanowski (Luxfactory.com) and Nasir Zubairi (LHoFT).