We are one week away from Lisbon Investment Summit, the slightly unexpected startup conference that gathers the most daring innovators, corporate visionaries, and top-tier investors. We spoke with Daniela Seixas, CEO of TonicApp, and winner of last year’s competition, who will be joining Beta-i at #LIS again.
TonicApp, dedicated to the medical community, is an app that aggregates the most useful medical tools for doctors. It lets medical practitioners discuss clinical cases, check drug conversion tables and get informed on healthcare news – it even has a secure case discussion platform that connects doctors that can help each other in providing better care for patients.
Daniela, a medical doctor herself (neuroradiologist), felt the need to create a place for the community to convey and share. “It was a necessity I felt myself and all doctors as we see it. Today, doctors are overwhelmed with pressure from all sides – about costs, about time, and even legal situations in some markets like the United States. Besides that, the scientific knowledge is ever expanding and, nowadays, fragmented across the internet. So the idea was to create a go-to platform for all doctors that solves most of the problems they face daily.”
The startup has a connection with Beta-i from its early days – having participated in open-innovation programs like Techcare, backed by Novartis with whom TonicApp has partnered up -, so Lisbon Investment Summit made sense to them.
“We consider Lisbon Investment Summit to be one of the best events in entrepreneurship and investment in Portugal and Europe. At this time last year, we were starting our fundraising, and we specifically decided to start it at LIS, and we applied to pitch to have the exposure we needed. We’re closing the round now and even though we didn’t meet our investors at LIS, we definitely started the process there and communicated differently with each one, and it worked – we got the visibility we needed.”
The startup is not stopping anytime soon – they aim to be the ecosystem doctors need to thrive in all aspects of their profession, giving them the tools and information they need to keep thriving and providing the best care they can give to their patients.
“Tonic App has a lot of resources for doctors – some of them are clinical and some are not. This is our bet, we want to help doctors in their professional life, be it helping them diagnose and treat their patients or other areas.”
To create this, TonicApp is partnering up with other players and entities in a collaborative environment, to progress faster in a fast-paced innovative space.
“Building on an ecosystem idea, we want to work with all players in the ecosystem that have valuable resources for doctors, so we create partnerships with multinationals, like Randstad, or Medtronic or Novartis, but also with public entities, scientific organizations, and other startups like us, like Eventtia and SerFarma. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to develop software ourselves when it already exists – we work as a channel for doctors.”
TonicApp will be at this year’s edition of Lisbon Investment Summit, and Daniela will be speaking at one of the panels at Google Stage – at the Book Launch: “Ara the Star Engineer”. The book tells the story of a young girl who loves numbers and uses her smarts to solve a big problem, by creating an algorithm and encountering real-life women tech trailblazers of diverse backgrounds. It aims to inspire young girls to pursue STEM careers and bring gender equality to the table in the sector.
As a doctor and female founder, Daniela is no stranger to the quest, bringing their unique perspective as a woman, doctor and entrepreneur: “I didn’t feel discrimination much as a female founder. Actually, even though entrepreneurship is a male-dominated field, much more than medicine – which nowadays has a lot more women than men – it’s a much more equitable environment for gender. Founding my own company and becoming its CEO, depended solely on me and my work during this time. In medicine, reaching a leadership position would not depend on me or my accomplishments, but on the established institutions.”
The Portuguese startup and Lisbon Challenge alumnus, 360imprimir, just closed a round of $20.4M in investment.
At Beta-i, we are proud to see their success, as they were one of the first startups that joined one of the earliest editions of our acceleration program – Lisbon Challenge. Like Pedro Rocha Vieira, Beta-i’s founder and CEO, put it:
When we decided to launch Lisbon Challenge, the idea was to empower a new generation of entrepreneurs and companies, in order to give these actors the ideal tools to compete in the global digital market. 360imprimir was one of the first startups that went through this process, and it is with great pride that we have noted its success story ever since. Naturally, the fact that they have now raised an investment of €18 million is due, in the first place, to their great management, vision and execution. But I’d like to believe that part of this success also came from the training Lisbon Challenge gave them, of which Uniplaces, Eggy, Attentive, Knok, Impraise, Sparkl or Eat Tasty are also good examples. I hope that this round will open new horizons for them, but I believe that it will also allow them to contribute actively to the ecosystem, fueling a kind of virtuous cycle that Lisbon Challenge helped to start.
Sérgio Vieira, CEO and co-founder, also praised Beta-i for the work done in the portuguese entrepreneurial ecosystem, highlighting the role that Lisbon Challenge played: “For us, as an early stage startup LC gave us the opportunity to see other groups with different realities and different solutions to problems that were ours too. Moreover, the mentoring and pitch sessions played an important role in self-evaluation and communication positioning.”
“Since LC we have observed closely the role of Beta-i in the Portuguese ecosystem and praised their effort to keep pushing the startup scene to the next level – this also happened with 360imprimir.”
Created in 2013, 360imprimir is an e-commerce platform focused on the clients’ (SME’s and independent professionals) do-it-yourself method and delivery of quality and low-cost of printed communications. Operating on a fabless model, the company differentiates through technology: it has an intelligent aggregation software, that ensures the best prices in the market for their clients.
With a business based on technology – from the platform and its many mechanisms to the technology made available to production and logistic partners -, the company will continue to invest in technology and R&D.
In rapid development context like ours, we have to be one step (or two!) ahead of the challenges, so that we may be enablers of the market. 360imprimir is a tech and innovative company, so we’re always updated on the most recent trends in Performance, Scalability, Automation, Artificial Intelligence or Augmented Reality. It’s our DNA and what makes us unique. – Hugo Neto, Chief Technology Officer at 360imprimir
This investment will also give 360imprimir the chance to extend their product range with 20.000 new products and enter 17 new markets.
The company hopes their path will be an inspiration for other portuguese businesses to follow:
“360imprimir is the proof that every company can achieve success if the idea is different and adds value to customer experience. So yes, we believe that our path inspires other entrepreneurs to develop great and innovative ideas.” added the CEO.
José Salgado, CO-founder and Chief Growth Officer at 360imprimir, will also be at Lisbon Investment Summit to speak on a panel that is of interest to all startups following in their footsteps – Scaling Up: Tips and Tricks to Go Global. Get your tickets to LIS here.
These energy startups are all alumni from open-innovation programs powered by Beta-i. We’re proud to see their achievement, as we were of the collaborations and projects they worked on while in the programs. They were distinguished in the categories of Intelligent Grids, Innovative Mobility and Energy Efficiency.
Free Electrons Alumni
ADAPTRICITY AG
Category: Intelligent Grids
Country: Switzerland
Adaptricity offers data driven grid analytics tools and services that enable distribution system operators to better understand grid behaviour, leading to smarter grid planning and asset management. The highly automated, intuitive system allows for better investment decisions requiring less engineering time.
Chakratec has developed a special energy storage device – a kinetic battery with unlimited charge cycles, 100% DoD, instant reaction that is sustainable. They aim to speed up battery charging through a unique floating flywheels suspended in mid-air by magnetic levitation technology.
envelio provides the software as a service solution Intelligent Grid Platform (IGP) to make grid operators ready for the future. By digitising and automating essential grid planning and operation processes, the IGP is a key component for the implementation of smart grids and the integration of distributed generation.
Equota’s services cover both the energy supply and the demand side, including energy efficiency optimization, operation & maintenance monitoring, carbon emission management, energy planning, electricity trading services, micro-grid services and other technology solutions in the industrial chain.
Description: Hygge Power combines smart sensors, tier-1 lithium ion and AI to create the next-gen storage that people want in their homes/offices. Real-time data is collected and transmitted to an encrypted repository to integrate energy partners & Hygge’s own web-based dashboard.
OneWatt, focuses on predictive maintenance for industrial motors. They use their Embedded Acoustic Recognition Sensor (EARS), machine learning, and frequency analysis to detect and predict motor faults before they occur.
Relectrify is an Australian start-up enabling uniquely capable, affordable and sustainable battery storage. They have developed advanced battery control solutions that give used batteries, including from EVs, a second life as energy storage in solar homes, businesses and the power grid.
WePower is the next generation green energy procurement and trading platform. Their platform is a one-stop-shop solution that provides companies with tools to help in understanding electricity consumption patterns, finding a best fit renewable electricity producer, contracting with them digitally and then monitoring generators.
Odit-e develops software for supervision and decision support, dedicated to distribution system operators. Odit-e builds an empirical model of low voltage electrical networks from smart meter data without using physical characteristics.
Enerbrain aims to revolutionise the market of non-residential Building Energy Management Systems thanks to its groundbreaking IoT innovation. Their solution make inefficient nonresidential buildings into smarter and more sustainable ones by using innovative IoT sensors, actuators and learning algorithms.
