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“Our unique selling point is our axes in the skulls of our enemies.” Photo credit: NejroN / 123RF.

Vikings and startups have a lot in common. Vikings raided and pillaged coastal populations for around 300 years and startups… wait, let’s start this over. Vikings and startups are characterized by their mettle and fighting spirit. Also, they both include many bearded men in their headcount I guess?

That, plus its Nordic heritage inspired NHST Media Group to set up Vikingcubator, an acceleration program in Singapore. Working together with Singapore-based investor Cocoon Capital, the Norwegian media firm held a pitching competition, out of which one winning startup emerged. It will receive mentoring, investment, and resources from the company in a 120-day program.

Not many specifics about the program are nailed down at the moment, but NHST wants to get a feel of media-related startups it could help grow and potentially add to its international business.

“We felt that there was a real window of opportunity in funding media related startups here since there are only a few other incubators focusing on this sector,” says Leonard Opitz Stornes, managing director of NHST Asia.

See: Two renowned angel investors set up $7m venture capital firm

Here are the startups we thought were the most interesting, in the order they pitched. Scroll down to the bottom for the winner.

Vision Strategy Storytelling

VSS is a video production startup that wants to use data to create bespoke content for brands. It claims to do “ecosystem auditing” to find the best possible audience for a particular brand and then create content that’s tailored to that audience. It’s currently working with Procter & Gamble and is already generating revenue.

Emmfer

Emmfer uses artificial intelligence to provide analytics insights for video, which is useful for advertising and publishing. The system can produce vision heatmaps, time spent on videos, and other data that content publishers can benefit from.

Lifestak

Lifestak is an app for organizing your schedule into clearly defined chunks of time. The startup was initially envisioned as a consumer-facing product but has also found traction with enterprises.

Anymap

Anymap is a social discovery app in the vein of Yelp and FourSquare, which distinguishes itself by showing you curated web content instead of unreliable and muddled user reviews. The app uses your position on the map to search for relevant blog posts by its community about the spots you can visit.

Burmese Hearts

Burmese Hearts is an edtech startup based in Myanmar. It’s an online course marketplace that offers a range of classes from software development to language courses. It also organized an edtech conference in Yangon and works with Singapore universities to refer students from Myanmar.

AIChat

AIChat is a chatbots-as-a-service startup. It helps users build their own chatbot for commercial businesses. The platform works with Facebook Messenger and includes full support from the startup to get things going.

And the winner was…

Emmfer was the startup that impressed the judges enough to grant it entry into NHST’s acceleration program.

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