Most founders’ dream when pitching at events is to convince the investors in the room to fund them. But most events are designed for getting feedback rather than investment. An exception is European Venture Summit – an event packed with 120 international investors (business angels, VCs and Corporate VCs) ready to invest in the 128 pre-selected startups from all over Europe.
European Venture Summit took place in Berlin last week, as the final yearly competition organized by Europe Unlimited. ”Ich bin ein unternehmer” was said with enthusiasm in the opening speech by William Stevens, the Founder and CEO of Europe Unlimited, who wants to help the European startups develop and “break down walls” between industries and between business creators and investors.
The Berlin Senat was present as well at the event, being proud to welcome international venture capital investors to its vibrant local startup community. Investments can help startups better compete, but money is just one side of the solution.
The other side is to actually have high-quality startups. And here the event did not fail again – it brought startups from from ICT, CleanTech and Life Sciences that were pre-selected in the previous regional events, ensuring that investors will meet mostly high-quality startups .
The two-days event was a big startup competition with several parallel sessions of pitching in front of investors that focused on the pure content of the business, and less on the show.
A few panels spiced up the atmosphere, showcasing the challenges investors have – like having plenty of money, but lacking quality businesses to invest in. The trend seems to be that VCs go more and more for early stage. The reason is that they get to know the founders better early on, and if everything goes right, they will support them at later stages as well. Hence, less risk. And speaking about risk, the investor camp seems to be divided in two: those who take more risk and those who avoid risk. The advice is to do your research when approaching investors – did they invest in your-level-of-risk companies?
During breaks, the rooms with half top founders, half investors (now that is a great game-changing ratio) were vibrating of deals and advice.
The 10 winners of the European Venture Contest were offered access to Europe Unlimited’s close network of investors for the upcoming year.
Now this is a place were you might want to take your startup next year. Follow Europe Unlimited for information on their regional events where you can apply.
