TechChill has come to a close, awarding startups over 600,000 EUR in prizes after the conclusion of the Founders Battle. The main prize winner was Deep Space Energy, who received 10,000 EUR no-strings-attached by eazyBI. Spotwise, the Latvia-based AI co-pilot for radio sales and analytics teams, received 200K EUR investment by Outlast Fund as well as 100K EUR investment by BADideas.fund. Helm X, the AI-powered industrial safety helmet with automatic data capture, were the recipients of a 150K investment from the Buildit 5G Fund, while Ybil, a logistics digitalization platform based in Tallinn, received 150K EUR investment from the Latvian Business Angels Network.
The jury was made up of Andris K. Bērziņš, Partner at Change Ventures, Kadi-Ingrid Lilles, Partner at Iron Wolf Capital, Linda Voeras, Karma Ventures’ Investment Manager, Magda Lukaszewicz, Partner at Inventure, and Artis Bisers, Vendep Capital’s Investment Manager.
“It was a positively contrarian decision, just because of the size of the ambition that the founder is tackling. I think that though they are in a very difficult space, literally space tech, we understood that though the traction can be difficult and take a long while to mature and materialize, for this stage, they are certainly showing impressive traction with a very strong team and a lot of potential. Overall I think the jury members are very excited to see what’s next for the company.” – Kadi-Ingrid Lilles, Partner at Iron Wolf Capital
The first-place winner, in addition to the 10,000 EUR cash prize, also received 5,000 EUR in legal and tax advice from Sorainen, a Draper University scholarship worth $12,000, and a 1,000 EUR gift card from Carguru.
The Founders Battle, TechChill’s annual pitch competition, was open to startups from the Baltic, Nordic, and CEE regions that are less than three years old and have raised less than 700,000 EUR in funding. Over 300 startups applied, and 20 semi-finalists were selected to pitch on stage at TechChill. After day 1, four finalists for the main prize were announced. Those were Latvian startups Deep Space Energy, Helm X, and Spotwise, and Finnish Wield VR. However, prizes issued by other organizations could be awarded to any of the Founders’ battle semi-finalists.
Other prizes awarded to TechChill Founders Battle winners include:
- 5,000 EUR cash prize Estonian Business Hub – Thistle
- 100 hours of workspace access at the SEB office – Tapilio
- 6,000 EUR Pipedrive Services by eXpanby – Ybil
- $2,000 cash prize from Google Cloud – all four finalists, Deep Space Energy, Helm X, Spotwise, and Wield VR
The TechChill event was attended by over 2000 participants, 300+ startups, and 250+ investors from more than 40 countries.
“This year’s TechChill Founder Battle finalists were four very strong startups from different verticals. We had over 300 applicants from the Baltics, Nordics, and the CEE region, dividing a prize pool of over 600,000 euro. This shows us that after 15 years, TechChill is still fulfilling its mission – supporting founders. It’s a place where startups meet their future investors and as a result, create successful companies,” said Annija Mežgaile, CEO of TechChill.
TechChill Riga is the annual flagship event of TechChill, held for the 15th year in a row. TechChill has most recently held satellite events in Ukraine, and previously in Italy. For the first time, the Baltic Startup Policy Forum was held in parallel to the event, where policy leaders from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania came together to discuss startup-enabling public policies. The event was joined by European Commissioner for Startups, Research, and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva.
