01 Jun GSIC and Challenge Andorra Research + Innovation, Andorra Business announce the winners of the second edition of Andorra Sports Startup Competition

• More than 50 startups from 19 countries have applied to participate in Andorra Sports Startup Challenge

• 1 winner and 2 special mentions have been selected out of the 11 finalists, who had the opportunity to pitch their solutions in front of a jury composed by sports industry experts on May 26

• The winner will get the possibility to run a pilot project with Andorra stakeholders, participation in an industry event together with Andorra Research & Innovation and Andorra Business, accommodation, and meals + tourist visit for 2 people for 5 days in Andorra and 1-year free membership to the GSIC powered by Microsoft

Andorra Research & Innovation, Andorra Business and the Global Sports Innovation Center powered by Microsoft (GSIC), with the support of SPSG Consulting, have joined forces to identify the most disruptive solutions and the latest technologies worldwide through a startup competition in the following areas:

• Improvement of safety and accessibility for cyclists’ routes.
• Improvement of sustainability and social impact in sports events organized in the country.
• Improvement of fan and consumer engagement and experience with NFTs, fan tokens and metaverse for sports events organized in the country (before, during and after the event).
• Improvement of educational methods through gamification platforms.
• Compilation, visualization, and analysis of data in order to create a 360º profile of the users and tourists visiting Andorra.

As a result, 50 startups from 19 different countries submitted their candidacy for this competition aimed for entrepreneurs who can contribute with their technological innovation improve the mentioned areas.

After a thorough screening process, GSIC and Andorra experts made a selection of top-11 startups that come from 7 different countries (France, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, Andorra and Ukraine) and offer a wide range of solutions in different fields, with a strong focus on Youth activation, insights and education programs for governments, Artificial Intelligence and Extended Realities solutions, technology solution for sports fans to motivate their favorite teams or athletes, healthy habits and others.

These startups had the opportunity to pitch their solutions to the industry’s most relevant leaders during a special online event on May 26 and the jury, composed by leading professionals from across the global sports industry, decided the 1 winner and 2 special mentions of the competition:

• EVIX (Spain) – Winner

EVIX is a company focused on mobility: their mission is to promote and defend sustainable, healthy and, above all, safe mobility. Evix reduces accidents through a process of training and citizen awareness, as well as they are reducing injuries with a cervical airbag system that protects the neck of their users.

• CityLegends (Netherlands) – Special mention

We’re an urban sports & culture agency and social platform for youthful urban athletes. Where social media, gaming, data, and urban come together. Besides youth, we also connect 30+ EU cities, brands and governments to this hard-to-reach community with our agency.

With urban experts, data-driven dashboards and tools, we get more youth moving, unite and give them a stronger voice to create vibrant cities for the free. Cities and governments that are smarter, cost-efficient, and above with more active youth.

• FanPrime (France) – Special mention

SaaS white label loyalty solution for organisations with fan communities: attract and reward fans on ALL touchpoints thanks to API connections with main platforms (social, streaming, eshop). Mileage programs for fan loyalty!

“The selection process wasn’t easy due to the high level of all the applicants, but eventually we achieved our goal of detecting solutions that will allow Andorran government ad sports entities to engage with the customers, know their preferences and add value to Andorra stakeholders.”, says Iris Córdoba, General Manager at GSIC.

The winner will get the possibility to run a pilot project with Andorra stakeholders, participation in an industry event together with Andorra Business, accommodation, and meals + tourist visit for 2 people for 5 days in Andorra, 1-year free membership to the GSIC powered by Microsoft and 1-year free membership to the Andorra Cluster. Additionally, the winner and the two startups with special mentions will receive: Special mention in the Andorra Sport Entrepreneurship & Investment Guideline that will be published by GSIC in 2022, 1-hour mentoring session with a member of the jury and onsite award reception during the Andorra Sports Innovation Summit.

Andorra Research + Innovation

Andorra Research + Innovation is the agency in charge of developing and promoting R&D&I in Andorra in strategic sectors such as Mountain and Sports, among others.

More information: Andorra Recerca + Innovació (ari.ad)

About Andorra Business

Andorra Business is Andorra’s economic promotion and development agency. Promoting key sectors for the diversification of the economy, attracting and accompanying foreign and local investment, supporting Andorran companies to become more competitive, and facilitating the landing of new companies in the country, are some of its priorities.

More information: Andorra Business – Invest in Andorra

GSIC

Global Sports Innovation Center powered by Microsoft (GSIC) is a business cluster powered by Microsoft Sport Team that gathers all kind of sports entities (clubs, federation, associations), institutions, tech-companies (from start-ups to enterprises), research organizations, investors and key figures of sport industry to improve its value chain. To do so we focus our activities and services on 6 main points: entrepreneurship, networking, applied research, showcase, Microsoft Partners Solutions and digital transformation advisory services. More than 450 companies from 40 different countries have already received support from the GSIC through different activities, as well as from their ambassadors and network of professionals of the sports industry.

More information at: http://sport-gsic.com/