134 start-ups from Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the Ukraine participated in the final of the StartUp Europe Awards, sometimes called the “Eurovision for start-ups”.
The initiative, which is supported by the European Commission and the Finnova Foundation, handed out the awards in the presence of the European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel. “The start-ups are motors for innovation, dynamism, growth, jobs and technological advances. Supporting them is in interest of our economies and our citizens who benefit from their stimulating energy,” she stated.
18 award categories
The awards given to the winners of 18 different categories, including notably water, climate, e-health, smart cities, cybersecurity, fintech, space, gastronomy, tourism and fashion. Evvos won the agritech category, which targeted innovative solutions in the rural and agricultural field such as biotechnologies producing biomaterials from food and agricultural waste, farm-to-consumer distribution, e-grocers or food nutrition transparency, for example.
Data for precision agriculture
Evvos has designed and developed OneSense Agriculture, a compact, cost-effective, battery-powered wireless data acquisition device that helps farmers use digital technologies to monitor and optimise their production processes. Clients can receive data regarding soil moisture, rain quantities and weather forecasts to better organise irrigation and save water. Information about wind speed can help them determine the best moment to spread fertilisers on the fields, an operation that becomes inefficient when the wind is blowing too strongly.
The young start-up, which was created in 2015, develops its own hardware and firmware as well as its cloud integration services platform. It currently processes millions of sensor messages transmitted over the Sigfox Low-Power Wide-Area Network. After processing, sensor data is sent to the cloud platform, and clients can then use the company’s API and relay services to create their own applications. OneSense Agriculture is cost-effective and allows connecting multiple sensors to one single device. The energy consumption is very low, and batteries can potentially last for several years.
Fit 4 Start graduate
Evvos successfully graduated from one of the first editions of Fit 4 Start, Luxinnovation’s acceleration programme for high-potential start-ups. The company will now be able to benefit from the visibility provided by the 25 media partners of StartUp Europe Awards from all over Europe. “I am honoured to represent Luxembourg at the StartUp Europe Awards, grateful to all the people who voted for Evvos, and proud that our team and technology are making a difference,” said CEO Georgi Taskov.