Ten startups developing technologies ranging from artificial intelligence and energy management to hospitality, recruitment and environmental monitoring will showcase their businesses at Plug and Play Cyprus’ first acceleration programme expo in Limassol on November 11.

The ten companies selected for the inaugural cohort have spent the past three months working with the Cyprus team of the global innovation platform and its international network, developing their business models, addressing commercial challenges and preparing to expand their operations.

The event, taking place at ETKO in Limassol, will mark the completion of Plug and Play Cyprus’ first acceleration programme, with the founders presenting their progress and plans to policymakers, corporate representatives, investors and other members of the technology ecosystem.

The companies participating in the programme are Qubehub.ai, EleniAI, Neura Energy, Fewton, Modelroom, EMBIO Diagnostics, Blend, Cleedee, Digital Fox and Sprouty.

Their activities reflect the range of sectors attracting entrepreneurial interest in Cyprus, with solutions targeting property, energy efficiency, gaming, environmental monitoring, hospitality operations, payments and early childhood development.

Qubehub.ai has developed an artificial intelligence-powered business-to-business sales platform combining a sales copilot, multi-channel customer relationship management system and white-label agent portal.

Its technology is designed for property developers and large construction companies, helping them coordinate sales processes, automate payments to agents and manage international property buyers across different markets.

EleniAI is also targeting the property sector, with an autonomous conversational artificial intelligence agent designed to help real estate agencies recover potential business from inactive leads.

The platform uses proprietary large language models tailored to the property industry to reactivate, screen and nurture prospective customers, with the aim of increasing revenue opportunities while reducing operating costs.

Energy is another prominent area of the cohort, with Neura Energy developing a software-as-a-service platform for managing energy demand in commercial buildings and hotels.

Its system analyses buildings’ thermal mass and weather data to adjust cooling requirements dynamically, with the company claiming it can reduce commercial electricity costs by up to 19 per cent without requiring capital expenditure.

Fewton is similarly focused on helping businesses in the hospitality sector identify and reduce energy waste.

Its artificial intelligence-powered platform targets hotels, resorts and restaurants, connecting remotely to smart meter and building management data to provide real-time insights and practical recommendations.

The company says its solution can help reduce energy consumption and operating costs without capital expenditure, site visits or operational disruption.

Modelroom, meanwhile, is targeting the digital advertising and mobile gaming industries through a generative artificial intelligence media platform designed for performance marketing teams and mobile game publishers.

Its technology produces and tests narrative video advertisements at scale, while reallocating advertising budgets according to predictive return-on-investment models.

EMBIO Diagnostics is developing an environmental monitoring platform combining custom internet-of-things hardware sensors with cloud-based analytics.

Its system provides businesses with real-time information about indoor air quality, building safety and resource efficiency across their properties.

Workforce management is the focus of Blend, a mobile-first platform designed for frontline employees in restaurants, hospitality businesses and retail companies.

It aims to replace fragmented internal messaging with structured shift-swapping tools and systems for collecting information at individual shift level, helping businesses manage their teams more efficiently.

Cleedee is targeting recruitment challenges in the hospitality industry through an artificial intelligence-powered hiring platform designed for hotels, restaurants and smaller and medium-sized hospitality businesses.

Its system covers the recruitment process from job advertisements and candidate sourcing to screening, matching, interviews and job offers.

The company uses sector-specific recruitment processes, hospitality skills data and explainable artificial intelligence to improve the match between candidates and vacancies while reducing hiring times.

Digital Fox is developing a payments platform intended to move in-person transactions away from traditional card machines and onto customers’ mobile phones.

Through its QR-code-based checkout system, restaurant customers can view and pay their bills, split payments and complete transactions directly from their devices.

The platform brings together payment processing, restaurant point-of-sale order information and customer identity in a single system, effectively applying the convenience of online shopping to physical establishments.

Sprouty completes the ten-company cohort with an artificial intelligence-powered parenting assistant and child development application aimed at families with children up to two years old.

The platform uses information provided by individual families to generate personalised insights into child development, explain behavioural patterns and provide practical guidance on developmental milestones.

Alongside the ten companies in the acceleration programme, the expo will also feature a special presentation by Autonomics, a Cyprus-based startup developing artificial intelligence-powered cleaning automation.

The company is targeting labour shortages in the facilities management sector through a platform that allows robots from different manufacturers, designed for different environments and tasks, to operate together as a single fleet.

Its founder, Pavel Butov, will take part in the event alongside representatives of ASBIS, Kinisis Ventures and the Research and Innovation Foundation.

The November 11 expo follows the launch of Plug and Play Cyprus’ activities on the island in April 2026 and the announcement of its first ten participating startups in August.

The event will run from 5pm to 10.30pm, with the main expo programme scheduled for 5pm to 8pm, followed by networking until 10.30pm.

It is being organised in cooperation with the Research and Innovation Foundation and the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, with corporate partners including Tototheo Global, ASBIS, ECOMMBX and Mastercard.

The programme is also expected to provide opportunities for founders to connect with investors, established businesses and members of Plug and Play’s international network.

In an interview with the Cyprus Mail published last month, Plug and Play Cyprus director Filippos Kyprianou said the island had the potential to become a regional innovation hub, but stressed that turning this ambition into internationally successful businesses would require startups to look beyond the domestic market.

Kyprianou discussed how the global innovation platform connects founders with more than 600 corporations across over 60 locations, providing access to international commercial networks and potential customers.

He also highlighted the importance of stronger partnerships between startups and established companies, as well as easier access to international investors and markets.

The expo is intended to showcase the progress made by the first cohort while providing a platform for the participating founders to present their technologies and ambitions to a wider business audience.

For Cyprus, the development of startups capable of expanding beyond the domestic market remains an important part of efforts to strengthen the country’s technology ecosystem and attract international investment.