• Vestbee once again partners with an extensive list of top-tier partners to reward the most aspiring startups and scaleups across various verticals in CEE
• Partners have prepared valuable and exciting prizes, including free credits, pleasant discounts, and press coverage. All participants will be rewarded
• Applications are accepted until November 17th, winners will be announced on November 30th

Vestbee, CEE’s go-to platform for matching startups with investors, announces 2023 edition of its famous CEE Startup Challenge. Startups and scaleups from a wide roster of verticals are invited to compete for exciting prizes and the attention of the region’s most sought-after investors. Winners will get valuable prizes from AWS, HubSpot, Mixpanel, Zendesk, and other partners, but runners-up also won’t go empty-handed.

Eligibility

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
• Defence 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.

Startups are to apply here before November 17th. The jury will take their time and announce the finalists on November 30th. They will be welcome to pitch before the 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

The esteemed judges of this year’s CEE Startup Challenge will include:

• Ewa Chronowska and Marcin Laczynski, Partners at Next Road Ventures
• Artur Banach, Managing Partner at Movens Capital
• Łukasz Skarka and Szymon Kwiatkowski, Business Creation Managers at EIT InnoEnergy Central Europe
• Dr Ryan Qian Gong, Chief Investment Director EMEA at Huawei
• Adam Hashchyshyn, Principal at Roosh Ventures
• Marcin Hejka, General Partner at OTB Ventures
• Paweł Maj, Partner at Warsaw Equity Group
• Roman Nováček, Partner at Presto Ventures
• Maximilian Schausberger, Managing Director at Elevator Ventures
• Marcin Kurek, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Market One Capital
• Michał Rokosz, Partner at Inovo Venture Partners
• Krzysztof Tokarski, Managing Director at PKO VC
• Bartek Knichnicki, Managing Partner at SATUS Starter VC
• Andrej Petrus, Investment Manager at ZAKA VC
• Robert Reich, Investment Manager at Lighthouse Ventures
• And more recognized names from the VC space. YThe complete list of the jury and partners can be found here.

More Details

For more information, please see the Challenge’s page and follow Vestbee’s LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Before applying, please take a few moments and take a look at Vestbee’s free Perfect Pitch Guide.