EuraTechnologies organized its first European Bootcamp during the International Cybersecurity Forum in Lille Grand Palais, Lille, France, from the 25^th to the 27^th of January.

Over the 3 days, 7 startups specialized in Cybersecurity were given an intensive training for an affluent development of their activities. Construction of a business plan, sales strategy, pitch training and meetings with investors are some examples of activities organized by Digital Accerator, EuraTechnologies and the European project, Twist Digital.

Day 1 was all about the Cybersecurity market and pitch coaching. There were startups from several different cities in Europe, including Roma, Warsaw, and London in attendance. After a networking breakfast, the global public presentation expert, Ideas on Stage, opened the workshop by explaining to entrepreneurs how to best pitch in front of investors. Then, each entrepreneur had individual meetings with the experts, allowing them to foster their presentations. The workshop was essential because a good pitch brings a good investment. Over lunch, all entrepreneurs were able to visit the international forum. Many conferences and business meetings were organized, and they had an opportunity to meet potential clients. Thus, a consultant of a leading consultancy group, Solucom, came to animate the second workshop. The purpose of the visit was to give a Panorama of the Cybersecurity Market in France, a topic at the core of the Bootcamp and a great opportunity for the startups that want to set up in France. Later in the day they dedicated their time to marketing. Henri, an expert from Concise, came from London to animate a workshop that dealt with the Marketing of Cybersecurity. EuraTechnologies organized a cocktail party at the center of the exhibit hall, a great place and moment for entrepreneurs to be at the core of a networking event with 800 decision makers! And that’s not all; another networking session was coordinated at the Prefecture of the city in order to give the start-ups, the greatest opportunities to meet potential clients, partners and decision makers.

The second day was D-Day, when important decision makers came to Lille with the goal of meeting entrepreneurs. Chad Fulgham, the Chief Strategy Officer of Tanium and ex CIO of the FBI, the American startup that rose 120 million dollars came to give a master class about how to raise money. That was a deciding moment for the selected entrepreneurs and some opportunity for them to meet Chad Fulgham. The most important part of the Bootcamp were the Pitch Sessions, where 10 investors came to meet the startups. Each entrepreneur had seven minutes to present their business and convince the Venture Capitals to invest in them. Every presentation was followed by a questions/answers session. After a cocktail party organized to allow VC´s and entrepreneurs to speak, there was another marketing session aimed at working on their Go-to Marketing Strategy. The day wrapped up perfectly in a traditional restaurant, where three mentors who participated in the Pitch Session were present. This gave the startups a chance to speak, network, and share their experience so far.

The third and final day consisted of a workshop that focused on sales strategies with intensive training by a sales expert. The purpose was to teach clients the root of an economical model.   EuraTechnologies later made a visit to show startups how it works and to show all the possibilities and opportunities they can get by setting up there. Last but not least, the startups had the opportunity to meet individually for more than one hour the three mentors that participated in the Bootcamp, Pierre Calais, Chad Fulgham and Joseph Graceffa.

The first European Bootcamp and the European project Twist Digital proved to be a success. According to the satisfaction survey, the event was extremely useful for the startups and received the rate of 4.43/5 by the participants!

Here is the list of start-ups that participated to the event:

Utocat, a company specialized in Bitcoins. http://utocat.com/ SecludIT, a company that helps Businesses, Managed Services Providers, Integrators and their customers, with risk management for their data, servers and networks. http://secludit.com/ Inkantor, that offers prompt, safe and cheap exchange of currencies online. https://www.inkantor.pl Solidshield, which provides all the means to measure and cap computational overhead in order to confer the highest security level under constrained execution speed and resources. http://www.solidshield.com/ Unfraud, that gives an anti-fraud system for e-business. https://www.unfraud.com/ Codified Security, that secures your mobile apps. https://codifiedsecurity.com/ UWsoftware, your partner for your web projects. http://uwsoftware.be/ Orway, an Italian IT company