With just two weeks to go until the 8^th BizSpark European Summit, I thought I’d give you a sneak preview of the fifteen start-ups who will be pitching to our panels of investors and other VIP judges on June 7^th in London. 

Post by Ruud de Jonge, Director Developer & Platform Evangelism of Microsoft in the Netherlands

It’s kind of a cliché to say that choosing just fifteen was hard, but believe me, it was. Year-on-year, the calibre of  the start-ups who apply to the event just continues to rise.  So while Europe may be going through a period of economical turmoil, that doesn’t seem to be stopping entrepreneurs having great ideas.  Of course, making sure that they have the support they need to survive is a whole other matter.

Our final fifteen represent a wide geography, from Finland to Greece, from Russia to Israel and across all kinds of markets, including games, healthcare, retail and a whole host of productivity tools.  Mobile apps and cloud solutions are well-represented too.  So, in alphabetical order, a drum-roll please for:

1. 6Wunderkinder (Germany) – cross platform task and project management made easy – across personal and business life
2. Autitouch (Netherlands) – using touch technology to improve the speed, ease and accuracy of autism diagnosis
3. Commerce Guys (France) – harnessing the power of Drupal content management to create advanced e-commerce solutions
4. Entertrainer (Finland) – a smartphone app that measures ball speeds and records results – a great sports training tool
5. Fitting Reality (Russia) – a virtual fitting room that finds the clothes that fit and suits you – and which are available
6. Foresight (Israel) – guaranteed network business continuity even when faced with cyber attacks
7. Jampot (Ireland) – build your own app on any platform, without any code or development experience
8. MiMedication (Belgium) – makes it easy for patients with respiratory problems to ‘self manage’ their symptoms and healthcare
9. Mobilebits (Germany) – easy delivery of mobile games across multiple platforms
10. Paperlit (Italy) – helps publishers to make content available on mobiles and tablets – low entry cost and scalability
11. Parking Defenders (Greece) – smartphone app that makes it easy (and even fun) to share parking spaces
12. Place Challenge (Poland) – combing phone apps & real-life games to create a new world of adventure
13. Red Badger (UK) - Agile thinking leads to Birdsong – sweet music to the ears of Twitter users
14. The Oblong (UK) - Simplifies the complexities of mapping and matching data, bringing sophisticated data management tools within the reach of any organisation
15. XBrainSoft (France) - Siri-like voice-activated smartphone digital assistant – learns about your preferences & local area