Six Canadian companies have been selected as finalists in the sixth annual SXSW Accelerator competition. More than 500 companies applied and 48 were selected to move forward as finalists to compete for the grand prize in their respective categories.
Canada came on strong in the Wearable Technologies category with three of the eleven finalists including:
• Bionym (Toronto) – the makers of the heartbeat authentication bracelet Nymi
• Mighty Cast (Montreal) – the team behind the social gaming charm bracelet Nex Band
• Kiwi Wearables (Toronto) – the creators of a sensor-based platform using the Move
Vancouver’s Plantiga (Health Technologies Category) along with Synbiota (Innovative World Technologies) and PPL Connect (Social Technologies Category) both from Montreal also make up the forty-eight in the competition.
Finalists will pitch on stage in Texas March 8th and 9th where three from each category will be selected for their final chance to impress the judges.
Canada is fast becoming an epicenter for wearables and so it’s great to see a strong representation at SXSW this year.
“The level of innovative ideas that were submitted made it very challenging to pick the top companies for each category,” said SXSW. “It is an honour to invite these finalist to be part of SXSW 2014 and we congratulate them for their forward thinking ideas.”