PepsiCo has finally selected the winners of its PepsiCo10 program in Europe, which was rolled out in early summer as a follow-up to the U.S. version of the initiative launched last year. On October 4, the food and drinks giant, which is committed to driving innovation in everything it does, announced the 10 technological start-up companies, which were chosen from over 130 submissions from all across Europe.

Photo: The PepsiCo10 program logo

The emerging technology-focused businesses received an opportunity to collaborate with the most successful brands in the company’s portfolio including Walkers and Pepsi, to activate pilot marketing programs, just like the winners of the inaugural year did (for instance, Table Top Media and Tongal continued their partnership with PepsiCo, going beyond their pilot projects). The company also announced that it might be going to launch PepsiCo10 in Asia or Latin America to seek out and collaborate with the most promising emerging tech companies in the region (the details of the new round of the PepsiCo10 program will be announced later).

This year’s PepsiCo10 start-ups are small companies from the U.K. (eight winners), France (one) and the Netherlands (one)—they focus on social commerce and mobile technologies, the areas which seem to offer the most favorable conditions for marketers in the nearest future. The winners, which will receive the support and mentorship of Highland Capital Partners, OMD, Mashable and Wired while partnering with PepsiCo’s brands, include SoDash Ltd (UK), “a social media monitoring tool which uses Artificial Intelligence to help companies manage their brand reputations, whilst also monitoring consumer insight and responses to their brand activity” and TvTak Ltd (France), “a mobile app, which lets users access additional content about a TV show or commercial they’re watching by pointing their smartphone or tablet at the TV for one second.” Read the press release to learn more about each of the start-ups.

“Last year we identified the best upcoming tech start-ups from the USA, some of whom have been so impressive that we have continued working with them beyond the completion of their pilot projects. This year’s standard of entry has been phenomenal and we faced a tough task selecting the final 10. Having now found promising technologies both in Europe and the United States, we will continue with our global quest to engage the best digital talent. I believe the next step for PepsiCo10 will be to tap the potential of Latin America or Asia,” commented Bonin Bough, Global Director of Digital and Social Media.