Partnerships and Startups: Who to keep an eye on?
On the morning of March 10th, Austin awoke full of excitement for SXSW, but in another part of the States, in Silicon Valley, investors, VCs and the tech startup industry awoke to awful news: the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed after a bank run. Speakers at SXSW often addressed this world news shortly at the start of their sessions, earning a soft chuckle from the audience, and then just went on with their lives. But Douglas Rushkoff, named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, discussed the matter a little bit more and announced “the end of the billionaire mindset”. In the changing technological ecosystem where all the big companies are laying off workers, startups are fighting back against the billionaires who only see them as a product to be consumed. Instead, startups should be seen as worthy individual human beings that are worth investing in since they can drive the biggest changes at corporate companies. Let’s take a last deep dive into the startup world and find out what is happening at SXSW.
With official pitches, innovation awards and numerous tech talks, SXSW is a launch site for media and technology innovations.The biggest session for startups was called ‘Wartime Corporate Innovation’, a well chosen name for a media ecosystem that is rapidly changing. (Want to know more about this? Read Rewriting a burning media ecosystem now). The panel consisted of top accelerators, such as Intel, Sapphire Ventures, HearstLab and Oracle, and talked about the current (media)tech environment and how startups can enter corporate partnerships.
Enter partnership programs
The first thing they mentioned is that corporates are looking for immediate solutions that bring value, increasingly more so since they are all cutting budgets and laying people off. There is a shift in focusing on growth to growing with efficiency, which means bringing customer value. For startups, this implies getting in a ‘future forward’ mindset rather than pitching based on a strategic or tactical alignment with the corporate. It is no longer ‘we are doing what you are doing’ or ‘we’re selling something you might use in your process’. It is now important to convince corporates to invest in your product because this is what they should get into.
A second trend we see in the startup environment is a much stronger willingness from the corporate side to work together. Partnership programs, the US version of EU acceleration programs, are massively growing and the aspects of these are becoming broader as we speak. Startups are being more selective in their choice and picking their favourites out of the different options they have. They are looking for high quality opportunities where they can, for example, plug in to a larger sales force since this potentially extends their runway and drives more efficient growth. But to get startups or emerging companies in your accelerator program, you best align your open-call strategy to the company’s core strategy. By making sure that your strategy and accelerator teams work together, you gain credibility as an accelerator.
As a startup, it is also increasingly important to really understand the accelerator program you apply for. Make sure that you fully understand the challenges they are facing, how the organisation works and which gaps you as a startup are able to bridge. Next up is getting to the right people within the company. Make sure you know how the company and innovation departments are built and who the key influencers and decision makers are. An acceleration program, such as Intel Ignite, can help find these insiders that can increase the velocity of that particular tech to go to market. For Intel, the best approach to enter an organisation is to build relationships with the business unit that is actually making and selling the products.
The last step before getting accepted into an accelerator program, is applying to it. The general advice for startups is to create a one-page pitch deck, so their USP can be quickly screened. For corporates, the advice is to stop giving slow no’s and start providing a clear answer on collaboration as soon as possible. Time is the important asset of a startup and it might kill them if you slowly respond to them.
When giving the startup a no, also tell them the reason for that no so they understand and know what their status in the innovation world is. Both accelerators and startups should also keep in mind that they move at a different pace. But as long as the startup keeps making incremental progress in the program and keeps moving towards the different milestones set in their plan, there is no need to panic. As the accelerator, you should define these milestones as clear and concrete as possible with the startup, since it is critical that they always know what the next step in the accelerator process will be. The panel advises accelerators to create urgency: recognize the event calendar because events can often be used as a great forcing function to back out a timeline for the partnership. Corporates like showing things at events, so if you can showcase the startups pilot there, you also give them an incentive to really strive in their project.
Startups to keep in mind
Now that we’ve given you an update about partnership programs and the American tips and tricks, it’s time to take a look at all those startups that were present at South By.
The first startup that earns a spot in this article is Nomono, a 4 year old Norwegian startup which is part of the Media Cluster in Bergen (one of our very own Future Media Hubs members!). On a mission to simplify podcasting, they enable creators to focus more on the content itself, instead of technological practicalities. With the help of a cloud-connected, self-contained recording kit (the Nomono Sound Capsule), creators are able to record immersive audio in an easy way. The Capsule connects with the Nomono Cloud where creators can find their recordings, collaborate with a production team or enhance their dialogues with AI. Their technology and vision has blown the jury away and they won the 2023 SXSW Innovation Award in the category ‘Audio’. “The Nomono Sound Capsule and Nomono Cloud will usher in the next era of audio content and will thus revolutionise how podcasts are created and consumed”.
While we’re on the topic of audio, we have to talk about another promising startup called AudioShake. As a B2B startup and SaaS platform, their goal is to make audio more accessible and interactive and they do this by breaking down a song into its different stems, the building blocks of a song. With the help of AI, different components in a piece of audio, such as dialogue, vocals or instrumentals, can be recognized and isolated, even if the song was never recorded as a multi-track. With this post generative AI audio mixing, creators can use the different stems for new purposes, such as creating new instrumentals, samples, remixes or mashups. AudioShake is only 20 months old, but already widely adopted in the music industry for immersive mixes, sync licensing and fan engagement.
Next up is PentoPix, an AI assisted creator platform and a must-known startup for those of you working in film. Films take a long time to produce, and almost 70% of the time is spent in pre-production and a large part of those budgets are spent on script visualisation. With the help of PentoPix, creators are able to visualise their movie scripts in just a couple of minutes and go from a simple script to a storyboard and even a full 3D animated video. The different technologies used start from taking the script and translating text into interactions and actions, building scenes with characters and objects that are spatially correct and automating character animation process through Machine Learning. Overall, PentoPix has optimised the production process and empowers storytellers to produce content for a very low cost.
Last but definitely not least is Imvizar, a revolutionary startup in AR. Storytelling has been at the heart of society for centuries. Stories create communities, connect and inspire people and enable us to see through the eyes of others and Imvizar wants to take storytelling to the next level. They are on a mission to let stories come to live with the help of AR and reimagine places for an immersive and engaging experience. These location-based experiences are created for tourist attractions or artists (YouTube creators) and they distribute it to fans through the Imvizar app. Next to that, they have a global experience platform where users can find Imvizars content and even upload their own AR experiences. This year, they are also launching Stage Reality, which will enable anybody to create live-size, location based AR experiences without having a coding background.
SXSW Recap
With this final article, you are fully updated on the biggest news of South By. If there is one thing that we can definitely learn from the past few weeks and articles, it is that a lot of things happened. We’ve tried our best to give you the biggest and most important updates in the media world. We talked about AI, games and the metaverse, the changes in the ecosystem, how to bring our stories alive and today, we’ve talked about the newest technologies and startups.
We know that AI is here to stay and will be “a tool, just like the cell phone in your pocket”. But be aware of AISMOSIS and the new digital divide where people who don’t have access to AI (tools) will stay behind.
The second biggest takeaway is that “transparency is the new objectivity”, not only when it comes to (AI in) journalism, but also generally in every part of society. Media and tech companies have to take responsibility and be transparent in what they do. The era of an unknowing public is long overdue, and the consumer wants to know what is happening behind the doors of a company.
Next, immersive experiences, the metaverse and the gaming industry are the place to be. Just like AI, they will only become more important and present in our everyday life. “Games are the new schoolyards” and Gen Z feels more at home in the digital world than in the physical world. With the help of creativity, innovation and storytelling, you are able to bring your content alive and immerse the user completely. And with a content game that is being won by creators rather than media companies, it is increasingly important to bring the right content to your consumer. After all, audiences are more than happy to pay.
