On October 4th and 5th, Spotlight, a startup matchmaking program and competition focused on Eastern Europe, will showcase more than 40 promising tech startups to an audience of 2,500 attendees at the How to Web Conference. Participating founders will benefit from the insights of global industry experts, elevate their visibility by presenting their innovations on the How to Web stage, and vie for the region’s most substantial investment prize of €880,000.
The competition prize is syndicated by renowned investment funds in Europe: Credo Ventures, SMOK Ventures, Fiedler Capital, Startup Wise Guys, Underline Ventures, Fortech Investments, Seedblink, and angel investors like Iulian Cîrciumaru.
The startup selection process
The startup selection process for the Spotlight program was highly competitive, with over 300 startups from the region applying to be part of this year’s Spotlight program and competition.
The startups were evaluated based on three key criteria: market size, team experience, and product value and traction by a specialized jury, featuring industry leaders from notable venture capital firms and tech companies. This jury lineup included Ondrej Bartos from Credo Ventures; Borys Musielak from SMOK Ventures; Robert Hegedues from Fiedler Capital; Bogdan Iordache from Underline Ventures; Valentin Filip from Fortech Investments; Andrei Dudoiu from SeedBlink; Dag Ainsoo from Startup Wise Guys; and a select group of high-profile executives and angel investors such as Iulian Cîrciumaru, Silvia Carasel of Google Romania, Cristian Pațachia of Orange România, and Mihaela Pascu from BRD – Groupe Société Générale.
Participating startups
The 40 selected startups for the Spotlight program and competition, are developing products in various industries such as e-commerce, healthcare, SaaS, edTech, mobility, gaming, and artificial intelligence. Among them, we can find:
Cortexhub.ai – Collabwriting – SpeechifAI – Gyfted – writeGPT – Youni – Salesforge – MACHINERIC – RepsMate – Rayscape… To discover the full list of participating startups, visit the How to Web website.
These startups will compete for the grand prize and benefit from multiple opportunities, including exposure in the dedicated startup pavilion, mentoring sessions with global experts, and meetings with some of the most renowned investors.
Startups who applied but were not confirmed for Spotlight will benefit from 60% discounted tickets to the entire How to Web 2023 event directly by registering on the dedicated page. Thus, they will enter the deal flow process with investors such as Staffan Helgesson, General Partner at Creandum and investor in some of the most renowned companies such as Bolt or Spotify; Allen Taylor, Managing Partner at Endeavor Catalyst; Ondrej Bartos, General Partner at Credo Ventures; Dan Lupu, Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital; Irina Haivas, Partner at Atomico and many others.
In addition to direct access to renowned investors, they will also benefit from two days of networking and discovering best practices from founders and global experts who developed Basecamp, HBO Max, Paddle, or Calendly.
About the Spotlight Program and Competition
Spotlight is part of the How to Web Conference, taking place within the event. During the two days of the event, on October 4th and 5th, participating startups will engage in one-on-one meetings with mentors and investors, present their products to the audience on the startup stage, and on the final day of the event, six finalists will compete for the grand investment prize on the main stage of the conference in front of over 2,500 participants. The competition winner will be determined by the jury during the event and announced at the final moment of the How to Web 2023 Conference.
The last 200 tickets for the How to Web conference can be purchased here.
The How to Web 2023 Conference, which hosts Spotlight, is built in partnership with Orange Romania, BRD – Groupe Société Générale, Underline Ventures, and Google for Startups, with the support of Bitdefender, HubSpot for Startups, European Innovation Council, Endeavor Romania, Vienna Business Agency, WIT Angels Club, LAUNCHub Ventures, Growceanu and Inovo VC.
