The EDGE AI FOUNDATION London 2026 event brought incredible energy and infrastructure-level innovation to the stage. Reflecting a rapidly growing ecosystem, attendance at this year’s gathering was up by approximately 30% compared to our previous event in Milan. Among the major highlights was the highly anticipated Startup Pitch Competition, which brought together 10 high-potential deeptech, robotics, and edge AI startups to pitch live to investors, enterprise leaders, and industry experts.
The finalist teams received rigorous evaluation from a stellar panel of jury members who scored each company based on problem clarity, customer fit, business model, technical merit, and pitch delivery. The judging committee included:
- Tom Davis – General Manager of Microsoft for Startups
- Léo Fernandes – Associate at Supernova Invest
- Didem Un Ates – Founder & CEO of LotusAI
- Roberta Franchi – Investor at Honda Xcelerator Ventures
- Russell Haggar – Silicon Catalyst UK
The Finalists Lineup：
Ten remarkable companies demonstrated the shift from cloud-derived concepts to real-world edge AI deployments:
- Expanso – Platform for intelligent, global data pipelines shifting processing left
- MountAIn – End-to-end infrastructure stack for hardware-aware optimization and distributed agent orchestration
- RHAI Systems – Predictable execution and compressed-model efficiency AI accelerator
- ASYGN – Developers of the ultra-low-energy ColibryNPU AI chip
- ForestHub – 100% local AI-agents infrastructure on embedded devices
- Embedl – Tooling and pre-optimized Gen AI models for edge deployment
- Ambient Scientific – High-performance, ultra-low-power AI processors
- Nellow – Driving physical AI hardware revolutions
- Advanced Microtesting – Modular, highly parallel mixed-signal test platforms
- AIRS ML – Edge Processing Systems running unsupervised on-device AI
And the Winner Is..
A huge congratulations to Expanso, led by David Aronchick, for taking home the first-place prize!
As the pitch competition winner, Expanso walks away with a massive prize package valued at $200,000 designed to accelerate their growth and commercial deployment. The package includes:
- $150,000 in Azure cloud credits generously sponsored by Microsoft for Startups.
- 1-year Edge AI Foundation membership, including $5,000 worth of certification credits.
- $7,000 in media promotion credits sponsored by IpXCHANGE.
- Executive mentorship from top ecosystem technical, business, and legal operators.
Thank you to all of our finalists, judges, and corporate sponsors for making this live judging event a phenomenal success.
