Digital Science awards catalyst grants

Holtzbrink's Digital Science division, a technology incubator, has chosen three early stage tech initiatives, Etalia, Simiary and Writefull, to receive its annual catalyst grants.

The three ventures will each receive an award of "up to $25,000."

Etalia, based in San Francisco, is a scholarly communications platform offering recommendations based on a unique fingerprint generated from a researcher's reference library. Founded by a medical physicist, Etalia "empowers personalised literature searches and scholarly dialogues." Simiary, founded by two University of Auckland researchers, is a software company that improves content discovery by offering intelligent search and analysis software. Meanwhile Writefull – based in Amsterdam - is an app that helps researchers and academics improve their writing, by checking text against databases of correct language and offering feedback and corrections.
     
Steve Scott, director of portfolio development at Digital Science, said: "This year's decision has been our toughest yet, with a field of over 40 entries to consider from across the globe. However, our three winners each offered something unique and conveyed real vision so that in the end we arrived at a unanimous vote." He added: "Each of the winners reflects the Digital Science goal of giving the international research community better tools to help them in their important work."

Previous awards of the Digital Science catalyst grants have included TetraScience, Penelope and Nutonian.