Lions Innovation Startup Program Participants Announced

Lions Innovation, the two-day specialist event taking place from 19-20 June during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, announces new startup participants, partners, and mentors involved in this year's startup programmes. The five emerging companies chosen to join this year’s R/GA Startup Academy, are also unveiled.  

 

Now in its third year, Lions Innovation has launched a programme that welcomes the world’s leading startups to connect with the Cannes Lions community of global brand owners, media owners and agency experts who attend the Festival. The new Discovery Zone is a unique offering, curating meetings and connections between startup founders, advertisers, brands, media owners and tech executives. For Cannes Lions attendees, it’s an opportunity to meet a curated group of emerging tech companies, exploring the creative application of new technologies such as voice tech, bots, AI, IoT, AR, mixed realities and more marketing technology innovations. For startups, it’s an opportunity to come face to face with the thousands of potential future revenue partners and advisers. 

 

THE DISCOVERY ZONE

In 2017, the Lions Innovation Discovery Zone will bridge the worlds of creative communications and early-stage technologies, providing a dedicated space for global startups to network, gain advice and forge new relationships. More than 60 startups from 17 countries have been selected to participate. The programme will feature mentorship sessions and roundtable discussions with industry luminaries Y&R Global CEO David Sable and former Kiip CEO Brian Wong and a “dream date,” a one-to-one bespoke introduction with a senior industry executive. Dream dates include meetings with global agency CEOs, global CMOs, VCs and other industry luminaries.

 

Three mentors-in-residence will be onsite to help curate and create introductions between Cannes Lions attendees and Discovery Zone startup participants. The mentors, who are Cannes Lions veterans that traverse the startup, brand communications and investment ecosystem, are announced as: 

 

Nicole Yershon, Founder of LabForHire, former Head of Ogilvy Labs

Justin Cooke, Partner at Northzone Ventures

JC Oliver, Chief Creative Officer at Unlockd, former CCO of Microsoft

 

Cooper Harris, founder of Klickly and a former participant in the Startup Academy, will moderate the Discovery Stage at Lions Innovation. Harris added, “In our first year’s involvement with the Lions Innovation startup programme, we left the event with over 300 new business leads and solidified a relationship with an ad holding company executive to advise the company regularly. Since then, the programme has evolved to provide us with more opportunities to connect with leaders in the advertising and marketing world that we would never be able to meet otherwise.” 

 

Rodney Williams, founder of audio data transmission startup LISNR, a participant in the Lions Innovation event for several years shared, “I started my career as a brand marketer at P&G, experiencing first-hand the challenges of connecting and communicating with consumers. Lions Innovation has provided us with an opportunity to build LISNR’s own brand and solidify relationships with brand marketers that support our product innovation.”

 

THE R/GA STARTUP ACADEMY IS BACK

 

Now in its third year, Cannes Lions partners with innovation agency R/GA on the Startup Academy. The marketing bootcamp matches startups with industry experts to sharpen their brand identity, focus on business plans and help them to resonate with global brands and marketing leaders. This year’s Startup Academy includes the eight companies participating in the R/GA Marketing Tech Venture Studio With IPG And Snap Inc. and five companies selected by Cannes Lions, who are announced as:

PaidTrends (Nigeria) a marketplace for buying social ads like online ads

Plattar (Australia) a cloud-based platform that allows users to create, manage, and distribute augmented reality content.

Lobster (Russia) marketplace for photo and video content

Facenote (Chile) - A.I. powered customer recognition & retention

 

Rob Dembitz, Global Head of Innovation for Cannes Lions, explained “This year’s selected companies in the Discovery Zone and Startup Academy represent a world-class mix of innovative applications of technology that can provide solutions to problems faced by the diverse industries represented at the Festival. The Discovery Zone startup programme is unlike anything else in the market, by providing networking and mentoring opportunities for the converging worlds of tech, marketing and advertising it will help to forge lasting, fruitful connections.” 

 

Lions Innovation 2017 is supported by Alibaba Group, one of China’s largest e-commerce companies, who are present at Cannes Lions for the first time.

For further information on the startup programme and to find out how to take part, see: