Put Your Social Media On Hold

by Startacus Admin
Hold - the innovative mobile app that helps students focus in school and gives them the opportunity to get rewardsThese days, it’s rare to see anyone under 40 not glued to their phones. Whether we’re retweeting puppy videos, checking emails, or reading the news, a good portion of the day is, for a lot of people, taken up the little rectangle of knowledge. While it is a great benefit to be able to sit on the train home and write that important email you left a little too late, the online world always being at our fingertips, urging us to just take a little break to check what’s trending - because it might have changed in the last 10 minutes - is equally detrimental.
School, college, and university students sit in class on their phones and can spend more time on them than they do studying. But what better to combat the adverse effects of technology than technology?
Hold is a Norwegian EdTech startup looking to improve students’ focus and thereby the quality of their education.
The Hold app is simple: when in school hours, start the app and put your phone down! For every 20 minutes that you aren’t using the phone, you earn points. These points can then be redeemed with participating businesses for food, drink, cinema tickets, and Amazon gift vouchers.
Although we admit it is a little sad that we need incentives in order to put our phones aside for just a little while, the fact is we have a compulsion to check our phones every few minutes, and that’s before even mentioning all-new addictions that have arisen from technology. So an app like Hold can do some real good. And, according to the startup, 40% of Norwegian higher education students think so too, with over 130,000 users across Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.
After raising £800,000 in seed funding, the startup has relocated to London and has launched in the UK, where it has a greater opportunity to work with big brands, reach a larger student population, and work with experts in the field of addiction and social media. If we can get free food for not using our phones, we’re tempted to go back to school.
Coursematch - making uni course searching a tinder-styled affair
Synap - the app to help you study
Subscribe to our newsletter
If you would like to receive our startup themed newsletter, full of the latest startup opportunities, events, news, stories, tips and advice, then sign up here.
Carbon marketplace experts JustCarbon urge businesses to consider carbon credits to offset carbon emissions now or to bank them while market prices are low.

The UK’s fastest-growing plant-based meat brand, THIS™ set to launch Seedrs campaign to support further innovation, bold marketing and international expansion.

New mentorship programme aims to enable Hootsuite employees to shed light on their lived and sector experience and support BYP Network members’ career development.

CropSafe, a platform revolutionizing the future of farming, announce that they have raised over $3M in seed funding and have opened U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles.

Voicy, the online content platform for discovering, creating and sharing sound-clips and sound-effects secures investment to support team expansion and global growth.

Career Masterclass has launched a new website to showcase its offerings, as a strategic partner for businesses wanting to bolster D&I policies.

NI Startup? Fancy showcasing your startup at this year's Digital DNA event? We've got up to 10 spaces for NI startups to do just that. Here's the details!

Germany's leading digital solar platform, Zolar secures major investment to support roll out of new digital energy products.

Metro Bank seeks startups and scaleups with a focus on customer experience, community banking, optimisation of systems & data and sustainability for its second innovation lab.

Need a little extra motivation to get your daily step count up? Treekly will help you do your bit for the climate crisis with every step you take...
Published on: 5th March 2018
If you would like to enable commenting via your Startacus account, please enable Disqus functionality in your Account Settings.







- Voicy lands €1.2 million pre-Seed from Global Founders Capital to build the GIPHY for sound 20th May 2022 Voicy, the online content platform for discovering, creating and sharing sound-clips and sound-effects secures investment to support team expansion and global growth.
- Zolar Lands €100 Million Series C On The Back Of Surging Demand For Affordable Green Energy 19th May 2022 Germany's leading digital solar platform, Zolar secures major investment to support roll out of new digital energy products.
- Metro Bank opens call for participants for second Magic Makers programme 17th May 2022 Metro Bank seeks startups and scaleups with a focus on customer experience, community banking, optimisation of systems & data and sustainability for its second innovation lab.
- Storyblok Raises $47M Series B to Make Headless Content Management the New Standard 17th May 2022 Storyblok secures major investment to further accelerate product innovation and growth into the US and Europe.