European Commission invites 12 startups to meet role models

The European Commission will reward some of Europe's best start-ups in this year's Tech all stars competition, giving 12 finalists the chance to pitch their ideas to entrepreneurs and investors.

The winner will be announced by Neelie Kroes, Commissioner for the Digital Agenda at the Tech all stars event in London on 10 and 11 June.

"Part of businesses success is making the right connections and the European Commission can help open doors,” Kroes said. “Finalists will get connected to EU funding sources, successful entrepreneurs and other influential people."

The winners will pitch their ideas to the likes of Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, Chad Hurley, co-founder and former CEO of YouTube and Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype.

The competition, now in its third year – is open to start-ups registered in the EU, which are less than three years old and have raised less than €1 million. Applications are open until 22 May 2014.

Criteria for success will include the quality of the founding team, progress to date, and the size of the market and opportunity.

Previous winners

The most recent winner, Trustev, an Irish company founded in 2012, offers the digital equivalent of finger printing, based on subtle differences between users’ computing preferences  – the browsers they have downloaded, or the fonts they use, for example.

Trustev pulls all this data together and sells it on to customers such as law enforcement bodies that use it to trace online fraudsters and advertisers who it to build profiles of consumers’ interests and habits.

The other previous winner of the competition, Cognicor, founded in Barcelona, markets software to help call centres with complaint handling and arbitrating disputes.
 
To apply for the competition, visit here