Eligent Accelerator hosted an online pitching session on the 28th of May where early stage startups from the UK and Europe pitched their businesses to a panel of serial investors.
Event was broadcasted live.
Official partners of the event: INPUT Program and Evedo.
The panel of judges included Stepan Galaev, Investment Director at Galaev & Co whose firm manages angel portfolios for Dragons Den’s investors, amongst others.Liliana Caimacan, Associate Professor of Marketing, Innovations and Design Thinking at Hult International Business School, Board Member and Mentor at Hult Founders Lab will opened the event.
The Eligent Club was founded by Entrepreneur in Residence of Brunel University London, Slava Baranovskiy to create an international startup community of tech entrepreneurs to bridge academic knowledge and practical application, from concept to international markets.This pitching event provided a unique opportunity to get recent tech industry insights, practical knowledge from top experts and professionals in the field of digital tech and ability to network with like-minded entrepreneurs and find exceptional talents to work with.
Eligent Accelerator mentors and ambassadors joined the event.
Type of projects: SaaS, Deep Tech, Fintech, Marketplaces.
Link to live broadcast on Youtube: https://eligent.club/may28live
Judging panel:
Stepan Galaev - Investment Director at Dragons' Den, NED at Growthdeck
Liliana Caimacan, Associate Professor of Marketing, Innovations and Design Thinking at Hult International Business School, Board Member and Mentor at Hult Founders Lab, Head of Global Innovation at Tata Consumer Products
Con Gornell - Former Executive Vice President of Marketing, EMEA, Warner Bros. Pictures, and Angel Investor/ Board Advisor.
Ilya Velder - Partner at Basinghall Partners
Gaynor Matthews - Business Consultant & Investor at Sway Solutions Ltd
Matt Black - Investor & Board of Advisors at Ticketpass, Investor at WebPartners, CEO at Keystage Ventures, Business Growth Specialist
Karen Levy - Co-Founder AIKA, DSLcollection
Marco Lamas - Senior Professor at Polytechnic Institute of Porto
Presented startups:
1. PAYSME - fintech - UK
2. Playsic - musictech - Hungary
3. CAVALL - e-commerce - UK
4. ESAL - fintech - UK/UAE
5. Dronestream - Deeptech - UK
6. WOHMEN - marketplace, wellbeing - Spain
7. Coinrule - fintech - UK
According to voting of jury and audience, Dronestream was selected as the best pitch on the day, Cavall and ESAL took second place.Marco Poliafico, mentor of Eligent Accelerator: “Bridging the gap between entrepreneurs (fund seekers) and investors (fund providers) is one of the pains of any young start up ecosystem! This excellent event successfully addressed this pain and brought together a wide range of players of the startup community of Eligent Club, including investors, entrepreneurs and mentors!”
Adele Botha: “I was inspired by the insightful Pitch day event hosted by eligent club, it was humbling to engage and listen to the wealth of knowledgeable and insightful mentors, judges and partners. The courage and enthusiasm showed by all the startups were admirable. The one key takeaway for all the attendees was that as we enter this "new normal" the paradigm shift will be about solving real-world problems, innovation through collaboration, customer focused solution design and having a growth mindset to adapt and pivot as we see our business environment transform. Curiosty, boldness and creativity will guide the business leaders of the future.”
Gabriele Musella, co-founder of Coinrule: “The Eligent pitch day is one of most organised and professional online event I have seen in 2020; the quality of the presentation is high as well as the effective mentorship provided by the several experts on the panel."
Macarena Urchipia Giudice, founder of WOHMEN: ”The Eligent Club pitch day was such a unique event! It was amazing to have the opportunity to pitch in front of so many investors and connect with different CEO's from all over the world.
I am glad I was part of it and I am very grateful to everyone who made it possible!”
Harry Howe, co-founder & CEO Dronestream: “It was great not only to win the pitch competition, but the exposure to investors and advisors was a superb boost into some bold new thinking. It also added increased confidence that investors are very much open for business during the COVID crisis.”
Notes to editors:
About the Eligent Club:
Eligent Club is an entrepreneurial community of startup founders (from seed to series A stage startups) and tech entrepreneurs aiming to help each other to succeed in their businesses across international markets.
Eligent Club runs offline and online activities and events in London and all across Europe such as workshops, breakfasts with tech entrepreneurs, pitch days, networking events, mentorship sessions, podcasts with industry experts and more.
More than 2000 tech entrepreneurs came through activities of Eligent Club.
We have 100+ startups in our community.
About the Eligent Accelerator:
Eligent Accelerator is an online 6-month programme for early-stage scalable digital tech startups from all across Europe. Programme is aimed to help startups (from seed to series A) to establish a sustainable track record of company performance via targets and KPIs covering all startup activities and bring startup to the next level (product development & launch, business development & investment round, international expansion and partnerships).
Eligent Accelerator has two cohorts of startups twice a year. Programme runs online classes, mentorship sessions, networking and investment pitch days.