HMD
The startup HMD with their headquarter in Espoo, Finland, owns the Nokia brand for mobile phones. With this classic trusted brand license, they are likely to release both vintage mobile phones, like the banana phone, and new Android OS smartphones on the market.
Keep your eyes open for their high-end flagship model Nokia 8 Sirocco with a curved all-glass design. Will Nokia be back to teach Apple and Samsung a lesson? Expect to hear more from them in the future.
Canva
Hailing from the sunny Sydney, Australia, Canva offers a freemium graphic design software solution that runs in your browser. The startup herewith created an interesting solution to create designs and layouts that can be used in social media and elsewhere.
Even whole teams can work on Canva together in a shared environment, to make sure all the graphics they create are consistent and compliant with their branding guidelines. For instance, we use them to prepare our YouTube video thumbnails.
Discord
Discord is a place where gamers are setting up chat rooms and sub-groups to talk and collaborate. The app supports text, VoIP, and even video conferencing. Based on a CNET report, as of May 2018, there are 130 million unique users of this solution. This means that the number of active users had tripled in comparison to the previous year.
The software is available for download on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, and can also run in browsers. We are likely to see more integration and more cooperations with large industry partners in the near future. Of course, nothing stops Discord Inc. from moving into non-gaming sectors as well.
Revolut
Labeled as a digital banking alternative, Revolut wants to offer financial services to a modern user group in a hyper-connected era. They offer a lot of free services to their users but there are also premium user and business plans for more options.
They want to increase simplicity around pre-paid debit cards, currency exchange, cryptocurrency transactions just as much as peer-to-peer payments and all that comes bundled in an elegant app. We expect to see more of this FinTech disruptor in the near future.
Intercom
I am almost certain that you have used Intercom a couple of times already by now without even noticing it. Have you ever been to a website and there was a chatbox popping up in the corner? Whether this leads to a chatbot AI or an actual person, in many cases this kind of technology is being offered by Intercom. This helps tremendously to make sure the website visitor gets what he or she is after while they are still on the website, may it be sales or support.
If there is currently nobody from the team supporting the chatbox, for instance during night time, the users can just leave their email address and will get an answer later on. This helps companies to keep the potential buyers attracted and allows them to get back to them later, even if they missed the live-interaction. This is not the future but how it should be on every website, here and now.
[td_smart_list_end]Not sure what a startup really is? Make sure to also check out the article “When Does a Company Stop Being a Startup?“. If you’re interested in the VC aspect of the startup business, you could also have a look at our post “What Does a Venture Capitalist Do?“
Photo credit: The feature image has been provided by Intercom and is part of their press kit. All other images, photos, and screenshots are owned by the respective companies they have been placed next to.
Editorial notice: This list is not a ranking and not a recommendation for investments.
