Speed dating between startups and news agencies: 'to be continued'

For the second time MediaMatters organized a speed dating event with startups and scale-ups during the conference of MINDS International, a collaboration of 24 news agencies. The event took place in Lisbon. 9 tech companies from 9 countries presented themselves in a short 2-minute pitch to the more than 80 representatives of the news agencies. There were about 70 'speed dates' of 10 minutes, which in many cases will lead to follow-up talks.

The reactions afterwards were positive. Tony Gillies, editor-in-chief of the Australian news agency AAP: "This speed dating is a great concept. The services of those companies present add genuine value to the news agencies taking part. I am positive that productive discussions will follow.” The tech companies were also very pleased with the result. For them, it was a unique opportunity to get to know so many news agencies.

Noteworthy was the presence was Vizrt. This originally Norwegian company is mainly active in the broadcast sector and supplies AR applications. Vizrt already employs more than 600 people and has long since ceased to be a startup or scale-up company. Despite Vizrt's reputation in broadcast, the company was new to most press agencies. But they certainly saw applications for Vizrt's services. So here too, 'to be continued'.

Participating in the previous edition of the MINDS speed dating, has done the Finnish EzyInsights a lot of good. That company was now present as a sponsor of the conference. EzyInsights started with only the ANP as a customer, but now has contracts with 10 press agencies.

MediaMatters also presented its new service, the Challenge, at the MINDS conference. The aim is to find a solution to the specific challenges of media companies in the international tech community. This concept also caught on with the press agencies. In the near future, the possibility of formulating a common problem definition for such a challenge will be explored.

The list of tech companies participating in the speed dating event in Lisbon can be found here. This event was made possible with the support of our partner Next Media Accelerator.