The InnovX–BCR‘s trip to Vienna was very intense and full of emotions. In just three days, we created memories that will last a lifetime!
The first day, namely on 19th of October, consisted of George Labs and Erste Group that hosted us in Erste Campus in Vienna, InnovX – BCR pitching with a fresh group of 30 innovators that wishes to scale more and more and help their ideas grow bigger.
The 60-seconds Elevator Pitch day started with the keynote speech with Sergiu Cristian Manea and Isabella Frey and continued with the 10 innovators that did a great job pitching their clever ideas in front of the jury: Christa Maier, Alexander Kickinger, Dejan Donev, Christine Bachler in such a short time and we congratulate them for that: Qpick, QuickLegal Plant an App, EmailTree.ai, Verio ID, Finqware, Prime Dash, GuidefAI, Synaptiq.io, IRIS Solutions. All of this was moderated by Anca Luca, the evening ending with a great session of networking and a good time for all of us.
Of course, this day couldn’t end with a great chance to network and talk with like-minded people, a VIP party taking place right in the center Vienna! At Wolves Summit, the innovators that pitched on the 20th of October are: Cristian Talle – Verio ID., Bogdan Litescu – Plant an App, Casius Morea – EmailTree.ai, Cosmin Cosma – Finqware, Iulia Caizer – QuickLegal, Catalin Rus – Prime Dash.
Among the pitches of our innovators, on 20th there were approached subjects such as
“Smart City Challenges and Concerns”, “The State of Climate Tech Investments in CEE” or “How to run an international business? Regulatory, marketing and legal aspects.”
Johannes Blaschke, Principal at Calm/Storm Ventures, Dr. Andreas Nemeth, Managing Partner at UNIQA Ventures, Enikő Deák, Deputy Investment Director – Scaleups at Hiventures and Alena Hloba, Head of Partnerships at Wolves Summit approched the first subject mentioned above with grace while debating about what a smart city looks like and we observed that it can have a slightly subjective approach at times.
References were made mainly to the city of Vienna and how it changed in the past 30 years, being well-known that the quality of life in Vienna is better than other countries. It was debated the concept of modernization and digitalization of the city, the apps that are being used by the people who want to get somewhere, apps like Google Maps, but specialized in the city of Vienna (wien.at live app) and how challenging it can be to introduce smart technology in core day to day activities.
Another short overview would be linked to “The State of Climate Tech Investments in CEE”. There has been investigated the state of climate tech in CEE to shine a light on the startups which can contribute to decarbonisation goals. José Miguel Salazar 沙米格 Manager, CEE ESG Hub at PwC Central and Eastern Europe, Alicja Hlibowicka, Relationship Manager at EIF, Zosia Wanat, Senior Correspondent at Sifted, Niklas Benesch, Head of Startups & Network at Austrian Angel Investors Association and Ewelina Łukasik-Morawska, Manager, Regional ESG Hub at PwC Central and Eastern Europe at PwC were the panelists that approached this topic, stating right from the beginning that the next generation of climate tech startups have the potential to help bending the emissions curve, that CEE climate tech startups are different than the western climate tech, western VC starting to specialize more on climate tech than in central and eastern Europe. Though, there is a bright side on this aspect, as it has been mentioned that this domain is starting to be more and more appealing to the startups and also the investors. We found out about what the climate tech ecosystem is like in our region, which startups are ahead of the curve in developing technology for the sustainable future of CEE, what do investors need to know and how important it is for an investor to be interested in The State of Climate Tech Investments in CEE right now.
The night came with another event of networking combined with a little bit of dance and music, all of the participants being invited and having a good time while meeting new people with same interests in investing and innovating! On 21st of October, we came back to Wolves Summit for another day full of pitches, networking and interesting panels that were definitely worth attending. Today there pitched Zoran Nasteski – Qpick, Paul Muntean – GuidefAI and Mihai Cata – Synaptiq.io.
Affirming the fact that this day was full of beautiful events, we managed to meet one of our dearest friends, Cristina Dragu, Director Foreign Direct Investment CEN at British Embassy in Bucharest! It was a pleasure to have her in public, attending our pitches and panels, as well as Cristina Mitu, the consul of the Romanian embassy.
When it comes to panels again, InnovX-BCR also held a panel on the Main Stage at Wolves Summit in Vienna, talking about InvestorsAlliance.EU new trends in cross-border investments. The importance of education was instantly highlighted, as well as how relevant it is to make the investors (both GPs and LPs) be more aware of the great opportunities in the European tech ecosystem!
We found out about the magnitude of the co-investments, the significance of embracing change, while being presented to us that almost 90% of the investments are only made by the investors in their own country or region, fact that actually prevents capital expansion in EU.
The panelists in question are Thomas Kolarik, Chief Operations Officer at BCR , Virginia E. Vegas , Managing Director Startup Norway, Elemér Eszter, Managing Partner at Impact Ventures, Sonia-Denisa Fedorovici, Head of Legal & GP at ROCA X and Daniel Dumitrescu, PhD., CIO at InnovX Investors Alliance. This day was also full of prizes, as some of our innovators won some meaningful rewards! Synaptiq.io won the Special Prize from AI Startup Incubator, while QuickLegal won the second place and Finqware the fourth. Out of 799 participating startups, 10 of them are the ones that participated in the InnovX-BCR program.
For the curious minds, here are the prizes that the participants could win were the following:
- Wolves Summit Cooperation Partner, Vienna Business Agency will award the selected startup taking part in Wolves Summit a spot in the Vienna Startup Package, which is an intensive, 4-week program to help understand the Austrian market and build strong connections. The program covers travel & accommodation expenses and includes individual coaching.
- Moreover, one startup selected by the AI Startup Incubator team will be granted an investment board committee meeting with a chance to get up to €250k EUR funding.
- Thanks to Edworking, 3 startups will be granted 750, 500 and 250€ in freelancers’ work.
- Partnerway, surprise all the startups with their discounts on services and products from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Miro, Asana and Zendesk to all startups participating in Wolves Summit.
- HubSpot gives a package for 5 best startups joining the Wolves Summit event! Perks include access to various crm, sales, marketing, ops tools.
- IN2VIEW offers a 100% discount for the first month’s subscription or 50% on hiring them as an outsourced research agency to all startups participating in Wolves Summit.
- Five selected pre-seed participants from The Startup Presentations will be given the opportunity to obtain a fast-track to join Demium’s late-incubation program with a chance to get €150k euros initial investment, and a follow-up of up to €500k euros. On top of that, here are some overall numbers of the Wolves Summit Vienna: there were 1136 attendees, 3932 scheduled 1:1 meetings, 799 selected startup representatives, 2172 – startup applications, 307 – Investors and Business representatives.
To summarise, it was a successful international conference for InnovX, and also for many of the startups from our program, some of them even creating new partnerships at Wolves Summit, such as QuickLegal that partnered up with Verio.ID, and also Finqware that partnered up with Price. Looking forward to many more events like these in the future with more new startups that are willing to join us for an educative program full of oportunities. We are thanking Wolves Summit, George Labs and Erste Bank for hosting us these wonderful days in Vienna!