New Dutch startup and ECE community member Whever has been selected to compete in the competition of the LAUNCH startup festival held in San Francisco from 2-4 March. The Rotterdam and ECE Campus based startup traveled to San Francisco to attend the event and was selected out of 100+ startups showing their product at the festival to pitch on the Main Stage.

Whever solves the problem of people arriving late at a meeting, by informing everyone when it’s time to leave, how to get to the meeting, and how late all the others will be there. To motivate participants to be on time, Whever even allows you to select a penalty for being late or a reward for being on time. Finally, Whever makes it easier to select the ideal location for the kind of meeting you are planning, offering location based suggestions.

Co-founders Tamara Rigoni, Bob van Kan and Mireille Bobbert have been working on Whever since August 2014. The three got together during a project at the Erasmus University where they won the competition of Next Generation Business Applications with the concept of Whever and decided to continue developing it. Lead developer Lukas Batteau joined the team last December and has helped build the company’s innovative technology.

Whever is currently in closed beta. Testing is taking place in San Francisco, Amsterdam and Rotterdam for the next month. The team will fully release the iOS version in April 2015, while the Android release is planned for June 2015.

A selected number of popular bars, restaurants and hotels are participating in the test phase as premium locations. Users can select a premium location, that is certified by Whever, when they search for a place to meet. It’s a win-win situation for users and premium locations. Users get more detailed info on the meeting place, which allows them to more easily make it there, while restaurants benefit from new customers. Major locations such as Le Pain Quotidien, the Conservatorium Hotel, the Dudok Group and Vlaamsch Broodhuys have already signed up.

LAUNCH is one of the world’s biggest startup festivals and well-known companies such as Dropbox, Yammer and Hipmunk have launched at LAUNCH in previous years.

You can watch the Whever presentation at the LAUNCH festival here. If you are now feeling the itch to get started with your own startup, sign up for the ECE Get Started programme!