• Vestbee puts together an extensive team of partners to reward the most promising startups from a wide range of industries
• Partners have prepared exciting prizes of up to EUR 1M of investment, but all applicants will be rewarded
• The applications are due until November 24th, winners will be announced on December 9th

Vestbee has yet to announce the Finalists and Masters of their AI Challenge in partnership with AWS, but the platform already announces another challenge. European Startup Challenge welcomes an even wider range of startups to compete for various impressive prizes, the top prize being an investment of EUR 1M from Huawei.

Eligibility

The Challenge targets seed, pre-series A, and series A startups from all over Europe across a wide range of niches and industries:

• Business & ICT
• SaaS
• AI, Analytics & Big Data
• Fintech & Insurtech
• Smart Cities & Home
• Industry 4.0 & Proptech
• Planet & Sustainability
• Healthcare & Wellbeing

Companies are welcome to apply here before November 24th. This is when the applications close, and the jury begin the selection. They will announce top 10 applicants on December 7th, and we will know the final winners on December 9th. Investors and corporates who are interested in investment opportunities are also welcome to get in touch.

Prizes

For this challenge, Vestbee gathered a huge list of partners who will provide an impressive list of prizes:

• The mentioned Huawei will grant up to EUR 1M of investment to select participants
• Vestbee’s devout partners from AWS will provide USD 25K worth of AWS credits to Top 10 companies and USD 10K worth to every participant!
• Hubspot will award a 90% discount on their services to a whole Top 100 select teams
• Zendesk Startups will offer 1-on-1 onboarding for Top 10 participants 6 months of free services to all participants
• Microsoft will welcome select teams to partake in their Microsoft for Startups program
• Stripe will grant EUR 30K worth of credits to Top 10 companies and EUR 15K of credits to all participants
• Beautiful.ai will welcome the winner to use their services for free for 6 months, and all other participants for 3 months
• Winner will get an Annual Business Plan from TrustMate, three runners-up get a 6-months plan for free, and all other participants will enjoy 3 free months
• Similarly, Brand24 will offer an annual plan to the lucky winner, 3 months to two runners-up, and one month to all other participants
• Top 3 companies will receive 500,000 free email verifications from Bouncer, 100,000 of those for Top 10 companies, and 25,000 + 20% off for the rest of participants
• Avisto Eastern Europe will grant 120 hours of free IT work to the winner, 40 hours for Top 10 companies, and 10 hours for every participant
• MamStartup will cover the winner on their website, and the rest of participants will enjoy a 35% discount
• Finally, ITKeyMedia will cover Top 3 startups on our website

Additionally, the applicants compete for special mentions in five additional categories: CEE Startup, Newcomer, Scaleup, Impact Startup, and Female Founder.

Jury and Partners

Given the sheer number of the Challenge partners, the list of jury who will use their industry knowledge to define the winners, is also extensive. To name only a few:

• Ewa Chronowska and Marcin Laczynski, Partners at Next Road Ventures
• Michał Bajda and Szymon Kwiatkowski, Business Creation Managers at EIT InnoEnergy Central Europe
• Gregory Leschenko, Chief Investment Director at Huawei
• Alexander Pak, Investment Director at TMT Investments
• Michał Rokosz, Partner at Inovo Venture Partners
• Helmuts Lejnieks, Chairman of the Board at Latvian Business Angels Network
• Daniel Tomov, Founding Partner at Eleven Ventures
• And many more.

The full list of the jury and partners is available here.

Find Out More

For more information, startup entrepreneurs and investors are welcome to visit the Challenge’s page, follow Vestbee’s LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to stay up to date, and – of course, hurry to apply before November 24th. In case you doubt your pitching abilities, you still have time to read Vestbee’s free Perfect Pitch Guide.