Finnish Startups THELMA and Virtual Location Scouting Reach Startup Challenge Finals

Two Finnish startups, THELMA and Virtual Location Scouting, have advanced to the finals of the Startup Challenge. THELMA is a project that detects the unauthorized use of public figures’ images, voices, and likenesses. Virtual Location Scouting allows film crews to assess shooting locations remotely.

They are joined in the European contingent by several other innovative companies. Germany is represented by Graphrs, a production operating system that combines scheduling, staffing, and equipment management, alongside the United Kingdom's SuperScout, which focuses on location management. Belgium's TheGreenShot completes that part of the field with a platform designed to measure and report production metrics.

Other finalists include Spain's Dymensium, which uses 4D Gaussian Splatting to create high-fidelity digital doubles and immersive environments, and Volum, a developer of real-time volumetric capture and telepresence systems. The remaining finalists are the HAMO Real-Time Animation System, intoreality.tv with a player combining conventional video with virtual reality feeds, and Pixentinel, an AI tool used to identify and troubleshoot failures in live streaming.