EIT Food Pre-Incubation Bootcamp: Venturelab Boosts 21 European Foodtech Entrepreneurs
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Lausanne welcomed 21 startups and entrepreneurs in foodtech from 12 European countries for five days of Venturelab training, workshops and pitching, with four startups winning the pitch competition for the next stage in San Francisco.
The Global Food Venture Programme (GFVP) pre-Incubation Bootcamp from EIT Food, Europe’s leading food innovation initiative, works to make the food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted by consumers. The partnership with Venturelab and the EPFL’s Integrative Food and Nutrition Center offers European-based foodtech startups five intensive days business training.
The 21 early-stage entrepreneurs learned how to validate their startup ideas and gain the essential skills needed to create a viable business. The bootcamp also offered a great opportunity to network with peers, industry experts and potential business partners.
Training covered customer value, industry partnerships, market penetration, as well as fundraising and financial strategies. Inspired by pitches from Fooddetective and SwissDecode, two leading Swiss foodtech startups, the participants competed on the Thursday evening pitchfest in 1-minute and in a 5-minute pitching competition on Friday, in front of the jury of the organizer's experts.
Ines Kutzli from the University of Hohenheim in Food Science won the audience pitchfest at the EPFL Innovation Park Reception Hall. Her project “Fruchtstück”, with Inna Zhuravlova, is developing a pioneering, banana-based alternative to extruded grain-based breakfast cereals, produced from surplus ripe bananas to reduce waste.
Aditya Nayak of CanEdiT, Catarina Chemetova Olivera of FiberGlob, Zuzana Sediva of Fubble and Ines Kutzli of Fruchstück won the final day’s jury pitch, with experts Christian Schwaab from the EPFL, Jordi Montserrat from Venturelab, Lukxmi Balathasan from EIT Food, and Carmen Bauer from the Technical University of Munich selecting their business ideas as winners to participate at the next stage of EIT Food in San Francisco later this year, along with 10 to 15 other of these startups that will be elected next week.
