The ten best startups for the book industry: CONTENTshift accelerator enters the next round

The jury has made its selection: Ten remarkable startups will take part in the Börsenverein Group CONTENTshift accelerator 2022. A total of 39 startups from three continents applied for this year’s round of the sponsorship programme, including entrepreneurs from Denmark, India, Canada and the UK. The top 10 selection shows how digital tools can make our lives more pleasant and joyful - and how digital applications can be made easier for us to use.

The nominated startups (in alphabetical order):

• ACTitude offers easy-to-understand, online psychological courses based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), providing skills that can be immediately applied.
• Enna simplifies the use of digital applications, such as video calls or digital photo albums, with an easy-to-use device that consists of a docking station and contact cards.
• Guidable is a platform where users can tell stories, create audio tours and monetise them by making them available to the community.
• Heimsafari offers treasure hunts for children - combining analogue hiding places with app-based puzzles and adventures.
• Immer.App is designed to encourage us, also in digital form, to read more, for longer and more enjoyably by optimising books for mobile phones or tablets according to the user’s behaviour.
• Kompreno translates editorial contributions from all over Europe into the user's own language and makes reading recommendations according to the user's interests.
• Librileo aims to spark a love of reading in primary school children with its reading club - via regularly sent book boxes, monthly online reading lessons and a media library full of storytelling videos.
• QuizCo converts existing documents, such as exam papers, into high-quality learning materials such as quizzes, cloze tests and flashcards at the touch of a button.
• Storyverse enhances printed books through multimedia content such as augmented reality, videos, images, animations and 3D viewers.
• Vendery creates an even greater connection between shoppers and products sold online, with its multi-senses shopping platform.

All ten startups will present their business ideas at a pitch event in Frankfurt on 28 June, where the jury will then select five of them. In the following months, the entrepreneurs from the selected startups will have access to a top-class network of investors as well as start-up and industry experts from the book and media industry. They will receive coaching and participate in a co-creation workshop to review their business models and explore current challenges and cooperation opportunities. The jury will select the "Startup of the Year" at the Frankfurt Book Fair on 20 October, which will be awarded 10,000 euros in funding.

The accelerator programme is sponsored by companies from the book and media industry, which send members to the CONTENTshift jury. This year's jury includes: Detlef Büttner and Leif Göritz (Lehmanns Media/Thalia Bookstore), Olaf Carstens (Cornelsen Publishing House), Stephan Dietrich (Junfermann Publishing House), Nina Hugendubel and Per Dalheimer (Hugendubel Bookstore), Stefanie Penck (TeNeues Publishing House), Wolfgang Pichler (MANZ Publishing House and Bookstore), Ronald Schild (MVB), Peter Kraus vom Cleff (Börsenverein) as well as Deepa Gautam-Nigge (SAP Next-Gen Innovation Network) as a partner of the programme from outside the industry.

 

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Twitter: @ShiftingContent

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About the Börsenverein Group

The Börsenvereinsgruppe (Group of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association) represents the interests of Germany's book industry and provides its members with advisory and practical services. The group comprises the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels e. V. (German Publishers and Booksellers Association) and its business subsidiaries, which include Frankfurter Buchmesse MVB, Mediacampus Frankfurt as well as the Holding Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels Beteiligungsgesellschaft. The Börsenvereinsgruppe supports the book industry and media sector by providing professional services that include advocacy, the organisation of cultural projects, tradeshows, training programmes and publishing and technology services.