New businesses unearthed at start-up event

AN initiative to support Sheffield start-up businesses has unearthed seven new technology ventures and promoted the two most promising to a global competition seeking to identify the world’s most innovative start-ups.
 
Developers, designers, marketers, product managers and start-up enthusiasts came together for Startup Weekend, a University of Sheffield hosted event designed to bring business ideas to life.

AirStock, a venture conceived to provide broadcasters with an affordable source of production quality aerial video footage, was named the winner of the event and will now compete with other ventures created at Startup Weekend events around the world to win funding and business support from Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

Giles Moore, part of the AirStock team, said: “Our start-up has come a long way in a matter of hours. We came to Sheffield Startup Weekend with an idea and left with a core team and basic viable product. We were able to refine our concept with experienced people from Sheffield’s technology sector and are really excited about pitching it to potential partners and investors connected through the global Startup Weekend movement.”

Samantha Deakin, founder of Sheffield Startup Weekend, added: “Startup Weekend brings together designers, coders and hustlers to form teams and take ideas from concept to launch in just 54 hours. There is huge educational value in creating, sharing and crash testing ideas, and – with a third of start-ups created at these events going strong three months later – we hope to have unearthed gems that could add significantly to Sheffield’s growing technology cluster.”

Sara Pates, enterprise business manager at the University of Sheffield, said: “Business plans rarely survive first contact with customers, especially in the technology space. Start-ups need to try things, experiment and quickly see if their hunches work. Events like Sheffield Startup Weekend help to stimulate sustainable start-up activity by connecting entrepreneurs with co-founders, complementary skills and the opportunity to learn by creating.”

The team that created AirStock over Startup Weekend comprised VuAir founder Andre Ferreria, sales and marketing manager Giles Moore, marketing professional Rob Barr, software engineer Manu Matute and  three students from the University of Sheffield: Jack Ross, Cyrus Sahirad and Dan Cunnington.

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