The Big App Fund Winners Announced: Finalists Benefit from Crowdfunded Investment

UKADEMICS, YOOVI and Briefly Named Winners in Worth Capital Sponsored Big App Fund.

The contest to find the next big thing in Apps has announced the winners of a competition that saw over 400 submissions from 27 different countries.  The Big App Fund, created by Worth Capital, has released the names of the competition that had final presentations last week at  Facebook UK HQ.  Each “Appreneur” will receive a portion of the £350,000 that was raised via investment crowdfunding platform Seedrs.  Investors in the fund numbered 345. Winners will also receive mentoring, marketing and legal services over the next two years.

The announced winners are:

First Place:  UKADEMICS – Portugal based, this company is described as the “Booking.com” of college degrees.  The app is the “fastest way to search & apply to thousands of universities around the world”

Runner Up:  YOOVI – Based in the UK, YOOVI is described as “a unique platform for immersive interactive entertainment – movies where the audience interact with real world objects and characters and become the star of the movie”.

Runner Up: Briefly – Another UK firm, this company aims to “disrupt the lucrative freelancing market by connecting employers with local student networks in real-time”.

The top 50 entries participated in a pitch day event at Facebook that engaged a “panel of App experts” including Adam Harrison, Facebook Business Marketing Executive, Ted Nash, the first teenager in the world to achieve 1 million app downloads in the App Store and George Berkowski, the author of “How To Build A Billion Dollar App”.  Following this round the list was narrowed down to the top 10 most promising mobile app and app developers in Europe.

This is Worth Capital’s second competition.  Previously Worth’s Retail Foundation Fund launched a similar initiative targeting e-commerce/retail that once again raised funding on Seedrs.  The crowdfunding offer raised £300,000 in four days an amount that easily topped the initial goal of raising £200,000. Worth Capital states they aim to find, fund and mentor over 700 high growth businesses in various sectors over the next seven years.

Paul Ephremsen, Co-Founder of Worth Capital was quoted on the event;

“The talent we saw in the judging room was exceptional and it was a very challenging task choosing just three winners. Worth Capital are all about discovering young entrepreneurs across various sectors and mentoring them to shape and launch their businesses to achieve great things. It’s clear that we’ve unearthed some bright and promising entreprenuers in the UKADEMICS, YOOVi and Briefly teams and we’re excited about what the future holds for them.

“Partnering our unique business model with Seedrs allows us to raise necessary funding for these start-ups but also gives the crowd reassurance that we’re selecting the very best businesses to invest in”.

The Big App Fund winner, Vako Imnaishvili, Co-Founder of UKADEMICS shared his perspective;

“The Education industry is in desperate need for tech disruption. More than 5 million students go to study abroad each year and they have no proper tech solution that will guide them through. This is why we built UKADEMICS – an online platform and app where students can search and apply to thousands of universities abroad, where students can connect with each other and embark on a study abroad journey together.”

His co-founder Andre Rosendo added:

“Thank you to all the investors for recognizing UKADEMICS, the first international search and application platform built for revolutionizing student mobility. Our first version is already running for UK Colleges and Universities, and in 2015 we can look to the USA and even China as a destination. We see great things ahead and have a fantastic team to achieve it.”

Worth Capital has partnered with App Annie, the source of mobile app market data, who provided reports on the top 10 for the judging process and will also be giving the three finalists free analytic reports.