CESA Grand Finale in Bucharest: Druid, Start-up of the Year

Newsroom Business, Start Up

Over 500 entrepreneurs and professionals from Romania and CEE attended, on November 21st, Central European Startup Awards Grand Finale – Ecosystem Summit & Awards Ceremony, organized by Impact Hub Bucharest. During the ceremony, the winners of the regional competition of CEE tech startups were announced. Druid and Techcelerator will represent Romania in the global stage of the competition, in 2020.

The first part of the Awards day was dedicated to a series of panels, workshops and reverse pitching session to which were present local and international guests. The main theme was scaling and the discussions approached subjects such are the importance of validation, access to financing, success story about scaling and exit. Among the present speakers were Drew Calin (Greenhouse), Istvan Kovacs (Raiffeisen Bank International AG), Mihai Rotaru (TechAngels), Monica Obogeanu (Orange), Stefan Urioc (Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands), Roger Blott (Fil Rouge Capital).

Central European Startup Awards is a competition dedicated to start-ups from various industries, as long as the services or products are based on innovative technologies. The awards were given based on the public vote and on the evaluation of a jury formed of professionals with experience in tech, innovation or entrepreneurship from Poland, US, Israel, Germany, Romania, Hungary, UK, Italy and Switzerland

The winners in the 17 categories of the competitions are:

  • Startup of the Year – Druid SA (Romania)
  • Best Accelerator or Incubator Program – Techcelerator (Romania)
  • Digital Nomad / Freedompreneur of the Year – Petra Fuerst (Austria)
  • Female Role Model of the Year – Tanja Sternbauer (Austria)
  • Best Social Impact Startup – I Rise Mechanics (Bulgaria)
  • Best IoT Startup – Neuron Soundware (Czech Republic)
  • Founder of the Year – Ivan Jelusic (Croatia)
  • Best Coworking Space – Impact Hub Czech Republic (Czech Republic)
  • Best Fintech Startup – Spendee (Czech Republic)
  • Best Health Tech Startup – SignAll (Hungary)
  • Best Newcomer – TrustChain (Hungary)
  • Best Smart City Solution – Parkl (Hungary)
  • Best AI/ Machine Learning Startup – Emplocity Sp. z o.o. (Poland)
  • Best Software Development Partner – Geckodynamics (Poland)
  • Investor of the Year – Launchhub (Bulgaria)
  • Best Blockchain Startup – Bethereum (Slovakia)
  • People’s Choice – Develiot (Bulgaria)