Startup Champions Seed Night 2018 a smashing hit
For its 7th edition, the flagship event attracted more than 300 visitors. 19 world-class startups showcased their projects at the startups exhibition and competed for the best pitch. Aspivix, a medtech startup, won the public and the jury vote for the best startup pitch.
May 2nd started like any other day of spring: partially sunny, windy and unclear as to what the temperature will be. Yet it entrepreneurship was in the air as the day began with kicking off the Venture Leaders Life Sciences program. The team members gathered on EPFL campus for a special meeting with the objective of getting ready for Boston. (Discover their profiles here). After an intense Q&A session about the trip, the team headed to the Rolex Learning Center to start preparing their booth for the exhibition of the Startup Champions Seed Night. They were later joined by several EPFL early stage startups coming to showcase their projects. As soon as the door opened, fellow entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs and scientists showed up eager to converse and engage with the founders at their booths. Anxiety on behalf of the future pitchers gave way to excitement and lot of business cards were exchanged.#entrepreneurship is in the air. Founders eager to showcase their projects and visitors all ears. The #startup exhibition @EPFL is rocking its start. #Champsnight pic.twitter.com/rhzGn5Wd5U
— Venturelab (@venturelab_ch) May 2, 2018
The pitch competition
Key note speaker @danielyanisse, @checkr co-founder & CEO, #Venturelab & EPFL alumnus shares his insights on why @EPFL alumni make great founders "EPFL is a great preparation for #entrepreneurs. Its engineers are among the best in the world with a world-class spirit". pic.twitter.com/ZwH0PVXYXL
— Venturelab (@venturelab_ch) May 2, 2018
Daniel Yanisse, Checkr CEO and co-founder, came all the way from San Francisco to introduce the pitch competition with a special talk. The company offering record check solution to employer for their recruitments, recently rose $100 million in Series C funding. As an EPFL (MT’12) and Venturelab alumnus, Daniel Yanisse shared his insights on entrepreneurship and why EPFL alumni make great founders.
Energized by the audience, the world-class startups pitched one after the other for next hour. Each of the pitcher were given only few minutes to expose their projects and convince the audience of the uniqueness of their startups. The public voted for their favorites and 6 finalists were chosen. To select the winner, they were asked a finale question about why should anyone invest in their startups.
First series of pitch from @swissmotiontech followed by @HaYaTherapx, @ecocook and @CDRLifeBiotech Time is running out on our startups. Great #MEDTECH #food #biotech projects and only a few minutes to pitch! pic.twitter.com/06DawGGKNs
— Venturelab (@venturelab_ch) May 2, 2018
As the finalists reflect upon what answer to give, the evening awarded Prix Musy to Agnès Petit, Mobbot founder, for her work on 3D printing technologies to build concrete structures. The award encourages woman entrepreneurship in the fields of science and technology with a CHF 50,000 prize money.
The winners of public vote gather on stage to discover the secret question about #funding. In the meantime we award Prix Musy to the #womanentrepreneur Agnes Petit from Mobbot (3Dprinting for concrete) #Champsnight pic.twitter.com/iOVIIJj8Ug
— Venturelab (@venturelab_ch) May 2, 2018
After gathering some strength, the finalists gave one final pitch. Mathieu Horras form Aspivix won the Startup Champions Seed Night competition with his revolutionary gynecological devices. A big round of applause concluded the competition, as the visitors merged towards the apero portion of evening to celebrate.
And the winner of #Champsnight is... Mathieu Horras from @Aspivix1. Congratulations???? Time for celebration and for apero !! pic.twitter.com/Vqyt99iZQf
— Venturelab (@venturelab_ch) May 2, 2018
