Two winners in Dream Big Nexer Innovation Race

At today’s award ceremony at Nexer Summit, the winners of Nexer’s innovation competition Dream Big were announced. When all was said and done, two winners were crowned – Bumpy and Vaquita Technologies – who get to share the prize of 1 million SEK.

The 2022 edition of Dream Big was extremely tight. Nearly 180 entrepreneurs applied, 8 were nominated in the first selection, and 4 finalists were invited to pitch their business ideas to the Dream Big Jury.

“We had a hard time deciding the winner because all finalists had such great business ideas. And in the end, we came to the decision that there was a tie between Bumpy and Vaquita Technologies. In our opinion, their business ideas have the biggest potential, and they also had required business acumen and passion for realising their vision”, says Lars Kry, CEO of Nexer Group and chairman of the Dream Big jury.

Both winners presented solutions within sustainability, which coincidently was the theme for Nexer Summit. Bumpy’s solution focuses on social sustainability, and Vaquita Technologies’ solution on environmental sustainability:

Bumpy has created a virtual support clinic for anyone navigating infertility. The platform offers access to fertility experts, help in finding fertility clinics, a knowledge base and a support community. The innovation improves people’s well-being and quality of life – important aspects of social sustainability.

Vaquita Technologies has developed a turn-key solution for remote and real-time monitoring of water quality parameters. The solution allows AI applications and tools that enable customers to do trend analysis and forecasting with an accuracy that was not available before.

“I’m very happy and grateful. This shows that our efforts are noted and that we can escalate our impact much faster. This win will give us a real push forward towards our goals”, says Nour Akel, COO and co-founder at Vaquita Technologies.

“I’m amazed, shocked and excited. We have a lot of features that we want to develop, and this win will help us in our product development. We are a female-founded team, and we know that funding is harder for female entrepreneurs, so this money really helps us”, says Andrea Olsson, CMO and co-founder at Bumpy.

The two winners share the prize of 1 million SEK, which means they receive 500 000 SEK each.

Motivation of the jury

Bumpy
With great passion and commitment, the winning team has presented a clear vision and strategy for what they want to achieve. The solution will both create life and contribute to increased quality of life and is the result of smart collaborations, entrepreneurship, and grit.

Vaquita Technologies
The winning team has developed an impressive technical solution that provides important sustainability benefits on a global scale. The solution is highly innovative, relevant to many different target groups and addresses an urgent need for clean water everywhere.

The other two finalists were HP-appen, who develops an interactive and gamified learning platform, and Nocoli, who develops a real-time sensor for detecting bacteria in water.

“We are very impressed by all finalists and are confident that they will be of great importance in their respective areas in the future”, says Beatrice Silow, Communications and Culture Manager at Nexer Group.

The jury
As always, the Dream Big Jury was 100% gender equal, 50/50 women and men, and consisted of experts with extensive experience in entrepreneurship and digitalisation. This year, the jury members were:

• Lars Kry, CEO of Nexer and board member of several organisations
• Malin Frithiofsson, CEO of Women In Tech Venture Studio
• Johan Magnusson, Professor of Information Systems at the University of Gothenburg and director of SCDI
• Linda Woxneborn, CEO of Xenit
• Arby Leonian, COO of Thermaiscan and winner of Dream Big 2021
• Nora Bavey, General Partner at Unconventional Ventures
• Tomas Frimmel, CEO of Microsoft Sweden
• Minna Dahlberg, Head of Marketing and Communication, Coop Butiker och Stormarknader AB

About Dream Big Nexer Innovation Race
Dream Big is a global and equal innovation competition. It’s aimed at entrepreneurs who dream of creating a new service or product in digitalisation and tech. The aim is to strengthen entrepreneurs and promising business ideas, as well as addressing the inequality in the business world where only a small proportion of the capital goes to female entrepreneurs.

Read more about Dream Big: https://nexergroup.com/dreambi…

For more information, please contact:
Beatrice Silow, Head of Communications and Culture, Nexer Group
+46 703 791506
beatrice.silow@nexergroup.com