152nd Roundtable Recap: December 11 – IBM SmartCamp Barcelona

For this week’s roundtable, we worked with Marco Laucelli, who manages IBM’s SmartCamp program in Barcelona. Their recently concluded SmartCamp event had over 90 applicants, and five finalists. In today’s event, three of these five finalists were the presenters.

Quadrigram
First up, Ayman Moghnieh pitched Quadrigram, a data visualization technology that could have applications in many different domains. We focused on the segmentation and positioning decisions ahead of the company. For example, while segments like data journalists and bloggers may be willing users of the product, those segments won’t translate into paying users. On the other hand, segments like IT users in network management or network security or vendors who offer management tools to them could have compelling use cases, as well as the budgets to pay. In fact, an OEM based go-to-market strategy could be both effective and affordable.

Catchoom
Next, David Marimon pitched Catchoom, an augmented reality technology that he thinks has applications in in-game apps, as well as in enhancing other augmented reality platforms. Catchoom, in fact, is currently being licensed by a set of AR platform vendors. Their SaaS product is being used by digital media agencies that focus on building AR applications for large brands. My hunch is that these agencies will become the primary early adopter segment for the business.

supertruper
Then Andrea Carissimo pitched supertruper, a comparison shopping app for the smartphone through which consumers can shop for the best-priced supermarket products. The app has had 600,000 downloads, and the company is currently in negotiation with super markets to do deals such that they can receive commissions for the products they sell through the app. Andrea is toying with the idea of going to other markets in Europe, as well as Latin America. I discouraged him on that because his app has presence on 600,000 devices, which is a level of reach against which he can now negotiate with Spanish retailers. But when it comes to France, Germany or Argentina, it would take a lot of time to get that kind of presence.

You can listen to the recording of today’s roundtable here.

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