iCloud News: Daily Crunch - Highlights from Disrupt Berlin 2019

Friday, December 13, 2019 • By Darrell Etherington

Disrupt Berlin 2019 recap

Another year, another Disrupt Berlin in the history books. From Startup Battlefield to high-profile guests and a packed Startup Alley, this year’s event was a resounding success. Here are some highlights from the show and the stage.

Watch the presentation of the Startup Battlefield Berlin 2019 winner

Scaled Robotics took the win at Startup Battlefield, convincing the judges that its development of robotic hardware and software that can quickly and easily produce hyper-accurate 3D maps of construction sites, and even identify emerging structural or safety issues on the scale of centimeters, is a potential game-changer for the construction industry.

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Atomico says the provenance of funding money is important in Europe

A lot of the funding going to European companies isn’t coming from European sources, and TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos had a great conversation with four of European VC firm Atomico’s top partners to discuss what that means about the state of VC in Europe, and about how that affects what companies build, and for what markets.

GetYourGuide is increasingly an experiential content company

Guided travel tour startup GetYourGuide is building out more of its ‘Originals’ product, which develops unique one- and multi-day tours in-house. Like the ‘originals’ you’ve probably heard about in the streaming media industry, this is effectively a move towards owning more of the supply chain in an industry with growing competition – Airbnb’s ‘Experiences’ are essentially a challenge to GetYourGuide’s core business.

MUBI lands a Sundance selection for its original co-production

Operating a video streaming company in 2019 is a very different affair when compared to starting one up in 2007 when MUBI was first founded. But founder and CEO Efe Cakarel told us exactly why his company has been able to weather the many changes in media streaming over the years, and build a business that is more sound from a balance sheet perspective than even Netflix.

Watch the on-demand food space for more consolidation

UberEeats and Glovo joined TechCrunch’s Natasha Lomas on stage to talk about the highly capitalized and intensely contested food delivery space. Glove founder Sacha Michaud said that we should expect more consolidation in the market as things shake out – and there’s been plenty of that already over the past half-decade as the market emerged.

MindAffect uses brain power to direct robots

This startup, which nabbed the coveted Battlefield Wildcar slot, demonstrated a way to control a connected device using an iPad and a non-invasive wearable headband. It’s a lot more manageable and accessible than Elon Musk’s brain surgery robot, but it’s still quite early and seems like the founders are in search of an application that will turn it into a business, beyond its initial planned use of helping ‘locked in’ patients who are aware and able to think but unable to move anything beyond their eyes.

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Here’s a bonus item for you: We’re launching a new weekly newsletter focused on the space industry, which is quickly picking up steam as a target for investment and new startups. It’s called Max Q and I’ll be writing it every week, recapping the biggest news as well as some stuff to watch out for. Check out the version we’ve been previewing on the web here, and sign up to receive it weekly starting December 15 here.