How to Web - Spotlight 2021 Pitch Day - How to Web

REGISTER FOR PITCH DAY 2021

Spotlight 2021

ALPHA AR FROM ESTONIA
IS THE BIG WINNER OF #SPOTLIGHT2021

See the Spotlight 2021 Pitch Day recording!

REGISTER FOR PITCH DAY, NOV 24

SPOTLIGHT 2021

BOOM! JOIN PITCH DAY

Spotlight is the East European leading program that brings together in a competition like no other

the most promising early-stage tech startups on accelerate growth
top investors (Sequoia, Accel, Y Combinator and other over 50 venture investors)
experienced high-growth founders (Payhawk, Typing DNA, Salesflare)
top experts (UiPath, Product Led Institute, Startup Core Strengths)

Spotlight’s Pitch Day is the program’s final day, where ten finalist teams from Eastern Europe give all they’ve got in a live pitch battle for €350K.

Join LIVE in the epic Startup Battle of the most promising Eastern Europe teams.

StartUp Spotlight

DISCOVER & MEET

THE NEXT UNICORNS

Spotlight’s Pitch Day brings you the most promising tech startups of Eastern Europe in one place

Are you an Investor?
You’re in the right place to scout for your next investment

Are you a Founder?
Feel welcome to look for partners, get inspired by fellow founders, or just show your support.

Are you a Company rep?
You’re in the right place to see what is the new wave of tech initiatives looking like.

Are you …just curious?
You’re in the right place to understand the East European potential and, why not, see the next baby unicorns emerge from their shell.

SPOTLIGHT PITCH DAY

ONLINE AGENDA
FOR NOV 24

Three hours of intense competition for €350K - with the finalist 10 tech tech startups of Spotlight 2021. May the best startup win!
Book your seat to see them all!

Choose Your Time Zone: GMT CET EET

16:30

Official Welcome

16:40

Pitch #1
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #1 Pitch

16:50

Pitch #2
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #2 Pitch

17:00

Pitch #3
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #3 Pitch

17:10

Pitch #4
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #4 Pitch

17:20

Pitch #5
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #5 Pitch

17:30

Pitch #6
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #6 Pitch

17:40

Pitch #7
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #7 Pitch

17:50

Pitch #8
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #8 Pitch

18:00

Pitch #9
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #9 Pitch

18:10

Pitch #10
(5min pitch + 5min Q&A)

Startup Finalist #10 Pitch

18:20

Not if, but where in Eastern Europe is the next UiPath?

With:
Ondrej Bartos (Credo Ventures)
Sergiu Negut (FintechOS)

Moderated by:
Irina Obushtarova (The Recursive)

Closing Panel

19:00

With:
Dan Oros (Google)
Rene Schob (KPMG)
Laura Stefan (Mastercard)
Horia Velicu (BRD Groupe Societe Generale)

Key Partners Afterword

19:10

Awards Ceremony

Meet the startups

Load More

See all
Mentors & Investors

of the program

Andreea
Pipernea

CEO
@ NN Private Pensions Fund

Seasoned Senior Executive and Certified Independent Director with 20+ years of experience in banking, asset management and insurance within European and global institutions. Passionate about business strategy and committed to support the growth and development of Romanian entrepreneurial companies.

Alin Vlad Badilita

Startup Programs Manager @ Microsoft Romania

A startup growth enthusiast with a passion for innovative technologies, marketing and developing business opportunities for small companies with big ideas.

Lavinia Neagoe

Senior Engineering Manager @ Fitbit

Senior Engineering Manager & Bucharest Technology Site Lead at Fitbit, with 15 years of experience in leading global engineering teams

Michal
Bas

Principal
@ Venture Friends

"He's responsible for navigating the fund's activity in the CEE region. Previously at TDJ Pitango Ventures (Polish-Israeli VC fund) and PFR Ventures (CEE's largest Fund-of-Funds, operating in the VC space)."

Manuel
Heilmann

Chief Commercial Officer
@ IPXO

"He's passionate about helping startups to grow, sharing his experience from successes and failures he had at $0 to $400M tech companies in Europe and in the US. He works with founders of several seed-funded and Series A startups, helping them to create a scalable revenue engine."

Sebastian
Maraloiu

Growth Marketing Manager
@ Questo

He's investing his time in creating & growing innovative tech startups using clever Marketing & Product Management.in

Georgia
Diaconescu

Product Marketing Manager
@ Meta

Product Marketing specialist with over 10 years experience & extensive background in value proposition development & product adoption. Passionate about supercharging start-ups in their growth journey & all things metaverse.

Catalin
Dediu

Vice President of Analyst Relations
@ FintechOS

Seasoned in consultancy, analytics, operations, strategy, through FintechOS, Catalin Dediu brings to the banking system the possibility of smarter, profitable products and personalized experiences.

Natasha
Lytton

Head of Brand, Marketing & Portfolio Support
@ Seedcamp

Talk to her all about startup brands, storytelling, marketing and network building.

Daria
Gherghelas

Investment Analyst
@ Speedinvest

Engineer turned investor. Looking for pre-seed and seed stage companies with a focus on health and all things CEE.

Julien Coustaury

Managing Partner
@ Fil Rouge

20 years of experience in manufacturing and services, much of it at the CEO level.

Jure
Mikuž

Managing Partner
@ South Central Ventures

VC fund manager with broad experience in deal structuring, business modelling and helping Start-ups to grow their businesses.

Alexandru
Popescu

Managing Partner
@ Cleverage VC

Highly experienced professional and investor, specialised in growth, M&A, marketing, operations, sales.

Vlad
Sarca

Partner
@ Sparking Capital

Serial entrepreneur and investor. Made 2 exits from his previous businesses. Expanded one of his businesses in over 10 European countries and the Middle East.

Jamahl
McMurran

VC Partnerships
@ Uncapped

Mentor for early stage startups, expertise in HR, webflow, cryptocurrency.

Pedro
Oliveira

Co-Founder & CEO
@ Talent Protocol

Developer, researcher, manager and founder of several tech startups, focused on HR, community, social tokens

Martin
SFP Bryant

Founder
@ Big Revolution

Consultant, podcast producer and host, speaker, writer, educator in the fields of technology and media

Andy
Budd

Founder
@ Clearleft

Design leader, international conference speaker, agency founder and coach.

Ramli
John

Managing Director
@ Product-Led Institute

Growth Marketing Today podcast host and expert helping SaaS companies with growth and user onboarding

Adrian
Erimescu

Co-Founder & Angel Investor @ Growceanu

Tech entrepreneur with 20+ years experience in developing business systems. Co-founder Imobiliare.ro, Growceanu Angel Investing and Faber.community.

Iulian
Circiumaru

Managing Partner
@ V7 Capital

Experienced strategy consultant in CEE; serial startup cofounder, including one exit and non-profit projects

Vlad
Panait

Founder & Managing Partner
@ Sparking Capital

20+ years marketing experience & trade marketing international experience, now managing full VC cycle.

Cristian
Negrutiu

Partner
@ Sparking Capital

Entrepreneur, Investor, Mentor and Consultant, Associate Professor at Bucharest University of Economic Studies

Alex
George

Principal @ Point Nine Capital

American South to Berkeley to France to Serbia sniffing out great (people with) ideas in software and networks.

Marcel
Animucki

Investment Manager
@ BValue

Investment manager looking for early stage start-ups from CEE and CIS region, especially B2B SaaS and marketplaces

Marcin
Hejka

Co-Founder & General Partner
@ OTB Ventures

Experienced Investor with a demonstrated history of working in the venture capital and private equity industry.

Apostolos
Apostolakis

Co-Founder & Partner
@ Venture Friends

Tech entrepreneur and investor, focused on B2C, marketplace, Fintech and proptech startups.

Krzysztof
Przybylak

Investment Associate @ Inovo Venture Partners

Investor at Inovo Venture Partners, backing early-stage, post-traction startups that can grow 100x

Kirsten
Connell

Investor FIrst Cheque Fund
@ Octopus Ventures

Accelerator director, VC, angel investor in Tessian, Immersive Labs, Senseon, DynaRisk, Cybersmart, Zamna, RiskLedger, eCora

Ricardo
Sequerra Amram

Partner
@ Point Nine Capital

Partner at Point Nine Capital, ex-early-stage investor at Seedcamp and Cherry Ventures.

Francesca
(Check) Warner

Partner
@ Ada Ventures

Early-stage funding for overlooked founders & markets

Rick
Hao

Partner
@ Speedinvest

Leading and managing the early stage deep tech / frontier tech investments at Speedinvest

Nicolas
Dessaigne

Visiting Partner
@ Y Combinator, ex-Algolia

Co-founder of unicorn Algolia and a visiting partner at Y Combinator (YC)

Gyula
Feher

General Partner
@ Oktogon Ventures

Backing high growth technology startups from Central and Eastern Europe

Kaan
Eren

Investment Manager
@ 500 Startups Istanbul

Investor at 500 startups Istanbul, early-stage VC under the broader 500 startups network.

Andrei
Roth

Commercial Projects Director
@ UiPath

Leading cross-department, cross-geographical strategic projects and business development for product innovation departments.

Dave
Haynes

Director of Developer Ecosystem & Vive X, EMEA
@ HTC Vive

Dave has extensive startup experience as operator, founder and investor, focused on XR (extended reality)

Nopadon
Wongpakdee

Co-Founder
@ Startup Core Strenghts

Digital marketer with 20+ years of experience, ex-Citi Ventures EIR, 500startups growth hacker

Gabriel
Diaconescu

Senior Manager
@ BearingPoint Romania

Focusing on digital innovation in various industries, combining his business knowledge with his technology expertise.

Bernat
Nacsa

Principal
@ Day One Capital

Their fund is operational since 2018 with a capitalization of EUR 27M and still raising. Bernat is working on sourcing new deals, performing due diligence, and supporting portfolio company performance.

Daniel
Tomov

Founding Partner
@ Eleven Ventures

A pioneer in the venture capital in Bulgaria, cofounded in 2000 the first local seed fund.

Alexandra
Marcu (Badea)

VP Marketing
@ 2Checkout
(now Verifone)

She has over 15 years of Expertise in Marketing for Software Business (Commerce, Online Payments, Subscription Billing, SaaS/Cloud Services) and driving cross-functional teams.

Mihai
Buda

Manager
@ Mastercard

Experienced finance professional with background in consultancy.

Laura
Stefan

Director, Commercial and Nontraditional Business Development
@ Mastercard

She's a finance professional with more than 10 years of experience in the banking sector. She also works closely with lean practices and processes.

Anca
Albu

CEO
@ Swiss ICT Investors Club

Diverse professional background in business development, strategy, operations, and marketing.

Jacek
Łubiński

Principal @ Market One Capital

VC investment professional with computer science background. Focused on Marketplaces (SaaS based) and B2B Software.

Elina
Halatcheva

Managing Partner
@ BrightCap Ventures

Strong experience in finance, VC and PE in fintech, femtech, real estate. Co-founder of a B2B procurement start-up.

Mircea
Vadan

Managing Partner
@ Transylvania Angels Network

He's driven to help tech startups. Support programs expert with a focus on early-stage tech products, customer development and product-market fit.

Max
Gurvits

Partner
@ Vitosha Venture Partners

Investor in early-stage scalable startups. Previous experience as entrepreneur in the legal field and investment banker.

Aaron
Krall

Growth Specialist
@ SaaS Accelerator

Helping SaaS companies to achieve scalable, predictive growth and to look for proven systems and frameworks they can implement into their business to increase revenue and build a scalable SaaS.

Dimitris
Kalavros-Gousiou

General Partner
@ Velocity Partners

Investor with entrepreneurial background and a passion at the intersection of tech, culture and new media. He also serves as Co-Founder and General Partner at Velocity.Partners, a pre-seed and seed Venture Capital Fund active in Greece and SEE.

Cosmin
Ochisor

Partner
@ GapMinder Venture Partners

Investor and adviser in early-stage technology companies. Recently invested in some of the newest high-growth tech startups from CEE - Deepstash, Soleadify, Machinations, Frisbo, Innoship.

Irina
Haivas

Partner
@ Atomico

High-growth investor in Europe's best companies from series A and beyond.

Martyn
Davies

Product Manager
@ Orbit

Product and community strategist with multi-year experience in developer advocacy / evangelism, community management, and developer education.

Kamil
Mieczakowski

Principal
@ Notion Capital

Investor and adviser in technology companies. Sound educational background in ML and data science.

Andrei
Dudoiu

Co-Founder & CEO
@ SeedBlink

Founded the first equity crowdfunding platform in the region which helped 12 innovative startups to get total funding rounds of more than EUR 3.5 mil. Over 20 years of banking experience.

Andrei
Brasoveanu

Partner
@ Accel

Early stage investor, interested in enterprise software, developer-oriented software, open-source, security, financial services.

Adrian
Gheara

Angel investor
@ Typing DNA

Investor and adviser in early-stage technology companies, currently helping TypingDNA on their mission to make online authentication effortless with typing based biometrics.

Dragos
Nicolaescu

Founder
@ Visionary Business Consultants

Angel investor and consultant for startups with over 25 years of experience in business and management.

Mihai
Guran

Founder, Managing Partner
@ ATNNOVATE

Vice-President of TechAngels Romania. Founder, mentor to startups and angel investor.

Dan
Calugareanu

Partner
@ Early Game Ventures

Investor and adviser in early-stage technology companies, skilled in Negotiation, Business Planning, E-commerce, Business Development, and Entrepreneurship.

René
Schöb

Partner, Head of Tax & Legal
@ KPMG Romania

Head of Tax & Legal at KPMG Romania and coordinator of the KPMG Romania Startup Grow Pad Program.

Jeroen Corthout

Co-Founder
@ SalesFlare

Founder, B2B sales and product expert.

Marius
Istrate

Growth strategist & angel investor
@ 3VC

Investor, Growth Adviser, UiPath Alumnus, Venture Partner at 3VC

Radu
Georgescu

Founding Partner
@ Gecad Ventures

Serial entrepreneur in the software and eCommerce space. Successful exits such as ePayment business by Naspers, Avangate by Francisco Partners and Vectorwatch technology by Fitbit.

CHRIS
MASSEY

Product Manager
@ The Access Group

Product management and team alignment expert with a background in content, marketing, & communities.

Daniel
Rizea

Director Software Engineering @ Fitbit

Managing 5 teams with 70+ engineers that deliver next generation of features and platforms for the Fitbit ecosystem.

Marton Medveczky

Investment Director
@ Flashpoint

VC investor focused on SaaS, central and eastern Europe and Israel, later stage tech companies.

Alexandru
Bogdan

CEO
@ ROCA X

CEO at ROCA X, Strategist, Investor, Growth Marketer, Experience Designer

Rumen
Iliev

Partner
@ LAUNCHub Ventures

South East Europe seed stage investor, passionate about entrepreneurship, technology investments and social impact.

Malin
Stefanescu

President
@ TechAngels

Early stage business angel, investments including Symphopay, SmartDreamers and TypingDNA.

Cristian
Munteanu

Founder & Managing Partner
@ Early Game Ventures

VC with a background as a tech entrepreneur in Romania and the US (Seattle and Silicon Valley).

Dan
Mihaescu

Founding Partner
@ GapMinder Venture Partners

Investor and adviser in early-stage technology companies. Recently invested in some of the newest high-growth tech startups from CEE - FintechOS, TypingDNA, DruidAI, Cartloop.

Bogdan Lucaciu

CTO
@ Adore me

Expert in organisation design, team performance and engagement, open source, building disruptive products

Monica
Obogeanu

Startup Programs Manager
@ Orange

Manager of the Orange Fab Romania program, facilitating collaborations between innovative startups and Orange.

Carmen
Sebe

CEO
@ SeedBlink

Executive with extensive operational, general management, new products and markets, business partnerships, transition planning and execution, organizational development, product development.

Teodor Blidarus

CEO and Co-Founder
@ FintechOS

Growing FintechOS at hyperspeed to serve Fortune500 companies around the world

Jon
Bradford

Partner
@ Dynamo Ventures

Investor in supply chain and mobility companies. Serial entrepreneur that pioneered the startup acceleration space in Europe and set grounds for Techstars London.

Irina
Scarlat

Chief Growth Officer
@ Bitpanda

Full-stack product marketer and experienced project manager, previously leading the marketing efforts of Uber in Romania. Entrepreneur at heart.

Raul
Popa

Co-Founder & CEO
@ TypingDNA

Techstars Alumnus (NYC '18), AI / ML expert building a revolutionary technology called “typing biometrics”. It is currently used in Cyber Security for 2-factor and multi-factor authentication, fraud prevention, and risk-based authentication.

Dan
Toma

Co-Founder
@ OUTCOME

Innovation and lean startup expert with entrepreneurial background. Worked with companies such as Deutsche Telekom, Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover, Bayer, John Deere or Allianz.

Luciana
Lixandru

Partner
@ Sequoia

Partner at Sequoia Capital investing in seed / Series A companies and beyond in Europe.

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The program

Schedule

Application

Aug 17 - Sep 19

Selection

Sep 20 - Sep 23

Program

Oct 4 - Nov 21

Pitch Day semi-finals

Nov 22&23

Pitch Day + Awards

Nov 24

Application

Aug 17 - Sep 19

Selection

Sep 20 - Sep 23

Program

Oct 4 - Nov 21

Pitching semi-finals

Nov 22&23

Private Pitch Day

Nov 24

StartUp Spotlight

WHOM IS IT FOR?

Spotlight is open to early-stage technology startups from Eastern Europe, which are less than 5 years old and up to 1M EUR in financing.

The program helps startups that:
want to raise a seed / pre-seed round in the near future
want to improve the way they work on their product and growth strategy
want to connect with founder and experts who have significant experience in the same market / with the same clients

Your startup application will score points based on your teams’ experience, vision, product traction and market opportunity.

TESTIMONIALS

FROM PROGRAM ALUMNI

raul popa

RAUL POPA

Co-Founder & CEO
@ TYPINGDNA

“Spotlight was a great opportunity to interact with other entrepreneurs and with seasoned professionals who could provide guidance for growing our company. We incorporated many of the things we learned through Spotlight experience into our business. It brought us an extraordinary opportunity.”

Valentin Radu

VALENTIN RADU

Founder & CEO
@ OMNICONVERT

“The How to Web team has put together a great concept where not only are startups brought into contact with investors, but the guidance from mentors and networking helped us understand better the SaaS game that we are in and also gave us more knowledge about how to tackle the channel market fit phase that Omniconvert encountered.”

georgios gatos

GEORGIOS GATOS

Co-Founder
@ INCREDIBLUE

“We had the chance to meet awesome people, some of which later become our investors and got featured in some of the biggest tech outlets in the world. Highly positive experience, great business outcome!”

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

With the support of

INVESTMENT PARTNERS

BROADCASTED BY

X

We’re looking for early-stage tech startups from Eastern Europe, no older than 5 years and that haven’t raised more than €1mln to date.

Spotlight is industry agnostic.

Spotlight timeline:

Aug 17 – Sep 19 Startups can apply for Spotlight 2021

Sep 20 – Sep 23 All applicants are reviewed and evaluated

Sep 24 – Sep 27 Top 40 startups are invited to Spotlight 2021 and need to confirm their participation

!!! Startups that do not confirm in due time are disqualified from the program, and startups on the waiting list are summoned instead !!!

Oct 4 – Nov 21 All 40 startups benefit from 1:1 meetings and group Q&As according to the program’s schedule.

Nov 23 All 40 startups enter semi-finals

Nov 24 Top 10 startups resulting from semi-finals pitch in the final

Nov 24 One of the startups is awarded the investment deal, in the form of a convertible note.

The investment prize is syndicated by business angel groups and venture capital funds to be announced in September.

Across all evaluation phases, the evaluation criteria are: Market Size, Team Experience, Product Value & Traction