Monday, 26^th March, 2018 marks the official graduation day of Speed@BDD Batch V startups. The Demo Day took place at the Four Seasons Hotel Beirut gathering more than 250 figures comprised of investors, experts, and media representatives. During this occasion, Speed CEO, Sami Abou Saab announced its latest collaboration with Techstars, the renowned worldwide startup accelerator. “I am very proud to announce today how we are taking Speed@BDD to the next level! We will be working with multiple Techstars programs, a first of its kind collaboration in Lebanon, to provide Lebanese startups and the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem with new and exciting opportunities. In practical terms, Techstars MDs will share their best practices and open their networks to the Speed@BDD management team through an in-person exchange with their accelerators around the world,” said Abou Saab. On that note, Jag Singh, MD of Metro Accelerator- Techstars was invited as a guest speaker to talk about his experience and his view about the Lebanese Ecosystem.  Singh foresees a great potential within the Lebanese ecosystem and expressing a great appetite to some Lebanese startups, “I will personally invest in a couple of startups I met during my stay here in Beirut.” Following the fireside chat, 7 ambitious startups pitched to the crowd.

• Actachef: an online platform where users can order their favorite healthy meal and get it delivered to their doorsteps in the form of a box. The box includes fresh, washed, and pre-portioned ingredients with a recipe that can be easily followed and prepared in less than 35 minutes.
• Cabbis: a cloud-based service offered to traditional taxi companies on a subscription model. It allows for a smooth transition from their current model to an Uber-like model and therefore, scales their business.
• CraveHome: an online platform that allows users to buy fresh homemade meals made by a network of home cooks, professionals or amateurs, who are certified by CraveHome’s food safety program.
• Drapp: an online platform that facilitates billable medical consultations between doctors and their own patients via chatbot technology. The DrappBOT integrates seamlessly with currently used messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger, responding to both patients & doctors’ needs.
• Spike: a mobile assistant that helps diabetics better manage their diabetes. Spike monitors the patient’s daily behavior and jumps in with reminders and tips when needed about insulin, food, activity, etc… It also stores the patient’s data to be analyzed and/or shared with doctors and caregivers.
• Tapklik: is a real-time advertising technology that helps businesses in the Middle East reach their target audience online through better targeting, access to local high-quality inventory, and proprietary machine learning algorithms to predict the right price to pay for clicks and impressions.
• Teens Who Code: enables schools in the MENA region to easily teach computer science via an adaptive gamified e-learning platform. The graduates are employable competent software developers at just 18 years old.

Following the pitches, Spike was announced as the lucky winner receiving the Seed Boost cheque of 50,000$ an initiative funded by Elias Houayek, Mouhamad Rabah, Cedar Mundi Venture, Middle East Venture Partners and Phoenician funds. Speed has now opened the registration for its sixth batch. Click here to register!