Announcing the finalists of The Next Web Paypal X Startup Rally 2010

The Next Web Conference is in two weeks and over a thousand attendees from all over the world that share a passion for the mobile and Internet scene will attend. For 3 days, and right before the famous Dutch national holiday Queensday, Amsterdam is the place to be for people and businesses that shape the future of the web.

Two months ago we got Paypal X on board as the official sponsor of The Next Web Paypal X Startup Rally and off we went. We’ve reviewed 245 startup submissions, we’ve looked at 73 one minute video pitches and finally we selected 45 companies for the interview round. Last week, Zee and I have sat through back to back interviews with each of the semi finalists. The quality of the competing startups has never been this high (this is the fifth year we’ve run the startup rally) and the final selection was difficult.

“We are excited by the list of great finalists, look forward to meeting them in person and helping make their innovations financially successful” Amina Belghiti, EU Platform & New Ventures at PayPal

During the conference 25 companies will get the chance to show their company on the main stage to a worldwide audience consisting of the Jury of Experts, industry journalists, VC’s (amongst others our VC partners Fidelity Growth Partners and Acton Capital), bloggers, potential users, potential exit partners and the thousands of people that watch the on demand videos afterwards. You can imagine that this is an important moment for the selected startups.

In the previous editions we’ve had many great startups that presented at The Next Web Startup Rally, like Netvibes, Zyb, Plazes, Netlog, Widsets, eBuddy, Wakoopa, Mendeley, Huddle, CoTweet, Yunoo and last years winner My Name is E.

All finalists will launch a new service or announce new a major update at The Next Web Conference. There is room for 2 more startups on stage. The attendees of The Next Web Conference will select one startup per day from the other startups that are present with a small booth in the Startup Arena.

I can’t begin to explain how much I’m looking forward to the conference, it’s going to rock!

So with pride, I present the first 23 finalists of The Next Web Paypal X Startup Rally (in no particular order):

Tribe of Noise
Pitch: A free worldwide music community connecting artists to multi billion dollar industries in need for Ready to Share Music.
Tag: Music
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

Inbox2
Pitch: Inbox2 is an email application brings your email & social network account messages, documents & contacts, calendar in one convenient place.
Tag: Communication
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

Fashiolista
Pitch: Think fashion meets twitter, with a stylish twist. Imagine an army of fashionistas searching every corner of the web.. for your inspiration
Tag: e-commerce, fashion
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

MailSuite
Pitch: Unified access to all messages, any time, any location, any device. Mobile compression saves time & $$, time management saves your sanity.
Tag: Communication
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

Pipio
Pitch: The easiest way to start, share, and organize conversations.
Tag: Communication
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

Distimo
Pitch: Distimo provides app store analytics; insight in the fragmented mobile app store market for developers, handset manufacturers and carriers.
Tag: mobile, statistics
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

Twittercounter
Pitch: The number one statistic app on top of Twitter
Tag: Statistics, communication
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

Ecwid
Pitch: Ecwid adds online store to any web site in less than five minutes.
Tag: e-commerce
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

DoubleDutch
Pitch: Build your own geolocation check-in app.
Tag: Location, mobile
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

English Attack!
Pitch: English Attack! is the first 100% entertainment-based method of learning English.
Tag: e-learning, entertainment
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Fits.me
Pitch: Fits.me is a virtual fitting room for online clothing retail. Solving the single biggest problem, it increases sales dramatically.
Tag: e-commerce, fashion
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

NextWidgets
Pitch: Transactional banners for webpages, Facebook pages and mobile apps. First ever viral shopping platform for Facebook. Alternative to AdSense.
Tag: e-commerce
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

Feest.je
Pitch: Find where your friends are, find hot places and gives the word serendipity a new meaning.
Tag: Location, mobile
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

22tracks
Pitch: 22tracks provides a quick overview of the latest music, promotes new artists and lets you discover new genres. No registration, no hassle.
Tag: Music
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

Sogeo Company
Pitch: Sogeo enables businesses to build location aware communities around their brands, products and services both on mobile and web.
Tag: Location, mobile
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Peecho
Pitch: Peecho provides cloud printing as a service. Merchants can create their own application to sell personalized products through our platform.
Tag: e-commerce, printing
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

PressDoc
Pitch: PressDoc offers dynamic and interactive online press releases for companies, organizations and individuals.
Tag: PR2.0, Social Media release
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

next2news
Pitch: Advertising platform to put ads to news related content (in Dutch only)
Tag: advertising
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

Buildor
Pitch: Buildor’s mission is to facilitate the manipulation of HTML through the browser, bringing full design and editing control of the web to the cloud.
Tag: web design
Remark: Launching new stuff at TNW Conference

SubMate
Pitch: SubMate is social commuting: discover the familiar stranger you see everyday in and around your subway commutes!
Tag: Location, mobile
Remark: Launching at TNW Conference

Rapportive
Pitch: We all need to stay connected with increasingly many people. It shouldn’t be this hard. Rapportive helps by giving you the context you need.
Tag: Communication
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

Shutl
Pitch: Shutl lets retailers offer consumers immediate/convenient delivery of online purchases. Consumers shop online & get in 90min or within 1 hr time slot of their choice.
Tag: transportation, e-commerce
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

Brainient
Pitch: We help video publishers make more money with their video content by attaching affiliate links to products in their videos.
Tag: Video advertising
Remark: Announcing new stuff at TNW Conference

The startups are looking for partnerships, investment, media and PR opportunities. See you in Amsterdam! Grab the last tickets

“The Next Web startup rally gave use quite the amount of benefits in relation to media coverage, user base and eventually finances. Winning the competition doesn’t mean you’re done, but gives you a firm push to achieve your goals faster and come out as a stronger company. We hold a special place in out startup hearts for The Next Web.” Renato Valdes, My Name is E, Winner Startup Rally 2009

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