Australian-based green energy start-up Power Ledger has won the 2018 Xtreme Tech Challenge (XTC) hosted by Sir Richard Branson at his private paradise resort of Necker Island.
As reported earlier this year, Power Ledger were invited to present their project and compete against two other innovative tech companies – healthcare platform and baby monitoring system Owlet Baby Care and smart action, AI-powered camera system, Revl.
IDEAS THAT CHANGE THE WORLD
The Xtreme Tech Challenge is billed as the world’s largest start-up competition and the XTC website states that “We are hunting for people and ideas that can literally change the world!”
Alongside Branson on the judging panel were Koichi Narasaki, Chief Digital Officer at Sompo, and the CEO of Bitfury, Valery Vavilov.
Certain criteria were evaluated for each of the finalists including team, product, market, application & participation as well as financing. Financing was judged not on capital already secured but on whether the judges themselves would reap “returns should judges invest their own capital.”
Power Ledger published its own reaction to the news and said that “Winning this competition provides us with unprecedented access to key investors, high profile serial entrepreneurs, and innovators and mentors who can help us scale.”
Although they did not make the finals on Necker Island, companies such as Abra which provides a global digital cash payment network for smartphones; and Airswap, a decentralised Ethereum token trading platform, also featured in the XTC Top Ten Companies for 2018.
