Créme de la créme of European startups are heading to Prague in April to clash for the European Champ title
On April 10, 2019, at the Prague Congress Centre, the first ever European Continental Finals of the global competition Startup World Cup 2019 will be held as a part of the Startup World Cup & Summit (SWCSummit). The winner is about to win $ 500,000 USD investment prize and the title of the European Startup Champion. They will also gain entry to the global Grand Finale, which is to be held in Silicon Valley in May. Apart from the competition, the event will welcome keynote speakers from all over the world, including Apple’s first CMO, John Rizzo, the ex-VP of Instagram and CEO of Strava, James Quarles, the bestselling author and founder of Electronic Arts, Dave Evans, Avast CEO, Vince Steckler, and the billionaire Karel Janeček. Along with them the organisers expect dozens of angel investors, founders, and innovators from all around Europe. They will all be ready to network, provide guidance to fresh entrepreneurs, and look for new business opportunities.
Hundreds of up-and-coming startups are confirmed to attend SWCSummit, one of the most important events in the startup world in the Central Europe region this year. The goal is to find the European champion, create a talent network, draw the public’s attention to small businesses’ added value, and, most importantly, boost the European startup scene’s confidence. “Europe used to be an unshakeable cradle of innovation. Nowadays, despite Europe’s huge potential to retain its position, we feel momentum is shifting away. With this in mind, we see SWCSummit as an opportunity to spark new connections, investments, and ideas that can help Europe reclaim its reputation of the global innovation epicenter,” says Vít Šubert, the startup incubator UP21 CEO and the event’s co-founder.
“There’s an opportunity for everyone at SWCSummit – not only startups vying for the title and $ 500,000 USD investment prize. The event will be divided into special zones dedicated to startups, innovators from the corporate world, investors, and the general public. All attendees will be brought together through Myia, a networking and matchmaking smartphone app,” explains Václav Pavlečka, the CEO of Air Ventures and the second co-founder of the event.
The startup event of the year
For the first time, Prague is going to witness the best startup projects in Europe, the winners of 13 regional finals of the Startup World Cup. The finalists will compete to win $ 500,000 USD investment prize, the title of the European Startup Champion, and participation at the global finals held in San Francisco. Europe is the first continent to hold its own finals of this startup competition.
In the scope of SWCSummit, the regional finals of Visegrád Group takes place. 265 confirmed startups will compete to become the winning startup of the V4 Regional Finals, who will gain entry to European Continental Finals as well as entry to the global grand finale taking place in Silicon Valley in May.
Learn more about the Startup World Cup & Summit
The Startup World Cup & Summit (SWCSummit) is a unique marriage between the two most significant startup summits to emerge over the last few years. The Startup World Cup is a global startup summit and competition organized by the Silicon Valley venture capital fund Fenox. It was created to support innovations worldwide, interconnect subjects within the startup ecosystem, open doors for talented entrepreneurs, and identify 20 of the best startup projects on the market today. Regional winners will compete at the grand finale in Silicon Valley for $1 million and other cool prizes. SWCSummit is organized by the investment fund Air Ventures and the startup incubator UP21. Dating back to 2012, the summit has attracted speakers from leading global corporations and startups, including TechCrunch editors, Startupbootcamp chiefs, Silicon Valley investors and representatives from companies like Tesla, SpaceX, Hyperloop Transport Technologies and Kiwi.com. The summit has also headlined corporate leaders like Andre Wehner from Škoda Auto and Tomáš Budník from O2. Learn more at www.swcsummit.com.
UP21 is an incubator and investor, providing startups with four crucial elements to help them succeed — financial support, specialized mentoring, personal development, and key industry skills. For each startup, UP21 creates a personalized navigation plan and leads innovators on their path to success in the spirit of its motto: “Investment is not enough. Ask for a great co-pilot.” Learn more at www.UP21.com.
Air Ventures supports rising tech startups. The fund invests in dynamic technology companies with the focus mostly on the Central European region, brings unique know-how to marketing strategy-building, and allows startups to reach audiences and attract customers efficiently. Learn more at www.airvcs.com
MY-GATEWAY EMBRACES THE NEW YEAR WITH A GOLDEN TICKET TO STARTUP OLÉ.
What did you write in your New Year’s resolutions list?
Did you wish for happiness, travelling to a Western European country, attending startup events, meeting new investors..? If this is the case, I’m thrilled to announce that Startup Olé is looking for 15 CEE startups to join the event! Yes, you read it well: 15 startups!
MY-GATEWAY will help detect those Central and Eastern European startups that will benefit the most from attending the Spanish event, making sure startups are well aware of the opportunities they can be catered for. The target of our contest are startups based either in Romania, Czech Republic and Slovenia.
Those startups will need to really convince and tell us why they think Startup Olé can help them out boost their business growth, and, of course, send us a pitch deck. Attending Startup Olé can be a truly enriching experience… as you long as you prepare well for it! By using the Startup Olé app, you can gain access to investors, corporates, mentors and set up meetings with our fellow attendees.
To make sure you stand out as you deserve, you’ll be provided with a whole stand to show your product and sell it to your target, so do come prepared with merchandising and flyers that can help you achieve your objectives! And…did I already say that travel and accommodation costs are included for one representative of your team? We really don’t want the distance, and its costs, to be a problem. That’s why travel and subsistence expenses are entirely covered by us.
Last but not least, some of the startups which will go through our selection process will also gain the possibility to join the PITCHING competition.
What do YOU need to do?
In order to be eligible for this contest you’ll have to do the following:
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send your pitch deck to
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in the body of the email, tell us:
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why you’d like us to attend,
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what your expectations are,
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your vertical,
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contact details of the person who would be attending the event (name, surname, email, telephone);
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and also:
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on social media, share/retweet a message in which you saw the open call promoted (in your email, we’d like to see the link to your publication or a screenshot)
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and follow and/or like MY-GATEWAY social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram)
Deadline for applications: 4th of February 2019
What is Startup Olé?
Startup Olé 2019 will take place in Salamanca (Spain) from 26-29 of March and it will gather +30.000 attendees from 120 countries; +850 startups, scaleups and spin-offs; +500 speakers; +250 corporates and investors with an investment portfolio of over €50k M. Our fifth edition will be the biggest so far and we are working hard to make this an event that you will never forget, so do not wait any longer and join the family!
What is MY-GATEWAY?
MY-GATEWAY is an initiative of Startup Europe that aims to strengthen the capacities of high-tech start-ups and innovative SMEs in the CEE region to become better connected, gain higher market exposure, and have improved, streamlined access to funding opportunities and talents.
SocialChallenges.eu is looking for entrepreneurs!
We are at a turning point of the call for solutions to the first cohort of social challenges now open online on www.socialchallenges.eu
Launched in December 2016, the Social Challenges Innovation Platform is the brand-new initiative funded by DG GROW and EASME dedicated to Social Innovation. It has been designed to exploit the untapped social innovation potential of European SMEs in addressing complex micro and macro societal challenges affecting European citizens.
30 challenges have been collected across Europe and given visibility on our platform, and we are now looking for entrepreneurial solutions able to meet these needs.
- #Entrepreneurs
- #Startups
- #SMEs
We are looking for you! Apply now!
There is time till the 21st December to propose a solution online and enter the evaluation process that will result in the selection of the most promising and feasible solutions that will receive 30.000€ to develop over a 6-month period a Minimum Viable Product, in collaboration with the challenge owner and local stakeholders.
France, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, UK, Bulgaria, Romania, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Spain – check out the places active on the map!
Health, aging population, environment, food, education, employment, youth, social inclusion, smart cities, mobility, refugees and migration – filter your search by theme and apply for those challenges you think your solution could answer to.
In any case we recommend you to have a look to all the challenges now online; themes are not exhaustive as many challenges address different themes at once, and the geographical scope doesn’t impede entrepreneurs from other countries and regions to apply.
That’s why we have prepared a booklet briefly presenting each challenge. Check it out!
Once you spot the challenge you want to apply for, create your profile and start preparing your pitch. Here is a step by step video-guide showing you how to navigate the platform and upload your pitch (proposal).
SocialChallenges.eu aims to help those with a social challenge to reach out a wide range of potential solution providers, and at the same time to provide European entrepreneurs with a scaling up platform helping you grow your business and your social and environmental impact.
Don’t forget to check our Twitter account and Facebook page: new highlights every day!
StartupOnStage – Training Bootcamp in Rome for Lifescience startups
Startup on Stage, an event organized by a Startup Europe project, Twist and Meet in Italy 4 life Science, took place in Salone delle Fontane, a monumental building placed in the EUR area, in the south of the Italian Capital. Startup on Stage consisted in a bootcamp on medical device, e-health and pharma startups spread across two days.
The bootcamp started on the 25th October afternoon with a very interesting workshop on Marketing Trends and sales strategy for medical devices, run by Roberto Ascione, CEO of Healthware International.
Once this workshop was over another one on ‘How to pitch’ started. This very short but intense session on the key steps of pitching led by Mario Caria, Sofimatic partners, and Salvatore Mayorana from the Italian Institute of Technology, resulted in being extremely useful as it was the starting point for startups who needed some polishing in their pitching skills, something which is often overlooked.
Following this quick workshop the selected startups spent the whole afternoon with different mentors who carefully listened to their pitch and gave top-notch feedback!
In case you’re wondering, here’s the list of mentors:
- Roberto Ascione, Healthware International
- Simone Demelas, Startup Weekend
- Francesco De Seta, Medtronics
- Salvatore Majorana, Italian Institute of Technology
- Nicola Mattina, Digital Magics
After the feedback, most startups were interviewed by the Startup Europe press office to see their thoughts on the mentoring offered and we were happy to hear that, although most of the times they were asked to scrap their current pitch and basically redo it, their opinions were all very positive! They figured out new ways of presenting their idea and business model that would surely help them get some extra points in the eyes of the investors the following day.
The following day, Wednesday morning, 26th October, startups had another chance to present their freshly revised pitch in front of Michela Michilli, head of the Twist project, and the other mentors. After listening to the latest version of the pitch, this is what mentors said:
“The improvement was increadible! from being very scientific or descriptive, they all managed to get one step closer to the perfect pitch!”
The meeting with the investors on Wednesday afternoon was just around the corner, and after a quick lunch with some more networking, Gian Paolo Manzella, councilor at the Parliament of the Lazio Region, moderated the pitch session in front of investors.
Hopefully we’ll soon update you with some good news! We’re sure some ideas raised great interest.
Find out more on the Twist Project and its bootcamp for startups in the science sector!
Check out this video of the different startups who took part in the bootcamp!