• Vestbee holds an online pitching session for the finalist startups of its CEE Startup Challenge 2023 in Zoom
• The three winners out of 10 finalists will be announced
• The event will be complemented by VC talks wrapping up 2023 and discussing 2024 prospects

On December 7th, Vestbee, CEE’s leading platform for connecting startups with investors, concludes the 2023 edition of its famous CEE Startup Challenge. Startups and scaleups from a wide roster of verticals competed for exciting prizes and the attention of the region’s most sought-after investors.

Finally, Vestbee will announce the winners who will get valuable prizes from AWS, HubSpot, Mixpanel, Zendesk, and other partners.

Aside from originating from Central or Eastern Europe, startups and scaleups have to be Pre-Seed through Series A-stage or higher. This time, the focus falls on the following verticals:

• AI / ML
• Consumer Technology
• Cybersecurity
• Defense and Govtech
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Environmental and Sustainable Solutions
• Fintech & Insurtech
• Food and Agriculture
• Healthcare & Wellbeing
• Mobility, Industry 4.0 & Manufacturing
• SaaS & Marketplaces
• If you are not sure whether your startup or scaleup fits into any of these categories, you are still welcome to apply.

The jury announced the finalists on November 30th. The 10 select startup representatives will pitch live before the jury of VCs on December 7th.

Prizes

As usual, Vestbee put together an impressive set of partners for the challenge. They all contribute to a huge selections of prizes, including:

• up to USD 10K AWS Credits for all participants from AWS
• 500,000 email verifications for Top 3, 100,000 for Top 10, and 25,000 + 20% off for all participants from Bouncer
• one-year premium access for the winner, 6 free months for Top 3, and one free month + 10% off for all applicants from Brand24
• Fast track to Vestbee’s CEE VC Summit for selected startups
• 12 free months of basic plan or 90% off for premium plan for selected teams from customer.io
• Up to 90% off for Top 100 eligible startups from Hubspot
• free media coverage for Top 3 from ITKeyMedia
• Free media coverage for the winner and 35% off for all participants from MamStartup
• USD 50K on the Mixpanel Growth Plan for all applicants from Mixpanel
• 6 months of free Notion towards a Plus Plan, including unlimited AI for all applicants from Notion
• up to EUR 100K infrastructure credits for all applicants, participation in OVHcloud Startup Program and marketing + technical support from OVHcloud
• EUR 15K for all participants from Stripe
• free year of Business Plan for the winner, 6 free months for Top 10, and 3 free months for all applicants from TrustMate
• 1-on-1 onboarding for TOP 10 and 6 months free for all participants from Zendesk

Jury and Agenda

The whole event will take two hours, and the agenda goes as follows;

• 14:00 CET – TOP 10 Pitching of startups selected in the CEE Startup Challenge
• 15:20 CET – Panel discussion. Embracing the Unknown: Preparing for 2024
• 15:55 CET – Announcement of the Winners

The panelists discussing 2024 prospects in CEE’s VC/startup life will include:

• Ewa Chronowska, CEO at Vestbee and General Partner at Next Road Ventures
• Marcin Hejka, General Partner at OTB Ventures
• Bakhrom Ibragimov, CE Region Partner at Molten Ventures
• Merve Zabci, Managing Partner at Metis Ventures

More Details

For more information, please check out the event’s LinkedIn page.

To get your official calendar invitation, please register here.