When Two Cohorts Collide: Behind the Scenes at EF EUR10 Demo Day
On 27th September 2018, we held our first multi-site Demo Day, bringing teams together from our tenth London cohort and our first Berlin Cohort.
At EF, we exist to make founding a technology company the top career choice for the world’s most talented and ambitious people.
And because talent is globally distributed, our mission is a global one.
At the beginning of the year we announced we were starting a program in Berlin…and just eight months later, the teams from our BE1 cohort were pitching to some of the world’s top investors.
In March, we announced our fourth international location, EF Hong Kong, and our inaugural cohort there will be pitching at our Asia Demo Day in January 2019.
And in July, we announced the launch of EF Paris, which kicks off today. The founders starting in PA1 will pitch at our next Europe Demo Day in 2019 along with Founders from our LD11 and BE2 cohorts, creating our first Demo Day to feature founders from three locations.
All this means expansion at EF has really taken off in 2018…and we still have some announcements to make on that front before the end of the year, so watch this space…
Overall, the EUR10 Demo Day was another huge step towards fulfilling our global mission — and we were delighted with the quality of companies from our first multi-site cohort.
Here’s a look behind the scenes at some of the best moments from the day.
(For full access to all the pitches click here)
The Calm Before The Storm
The morning of Demo Day, the EF Team and cohort arrive bright and early for a final practice session before investors come in for the afternoon event.
The main auditorium always has an eerie calm about it — and the sense of anticipation is palpable as our founders prepare to show their companies to the world for the very first time.
Welcome to Our World
We had over 400 of the world’s top investors attend EUR10 Demo Day, all eager to see the latest batch of globally ambitious deep tech companies from our London and Berlin cohorts.
Many of the people in the room flew into London specifically to attend our Demo Day from all over Europe and the US…and they were warmly received by the EF team on their arrival at King’s Place.
(Top — Sagar Gupta, Form Associate Berlin & Pan Demetriou, Head of F&O; Bottom Right — Zefi Hennessy Holland, Berlin GM & Michael Orland, EF VP)
The Low Down on Expansion
EF Co-Founder Matt Clifford opens EF EUR10 Demo Day before handing over to Head of Expansion Anne-Marie Droste to walk the audience through the company’s remarkable growth this year, which has seen EF add three new locations to its portfolio — Berlin, Hong Kong and Paris.
After Anne Marie wraps up, EF Co-Founder Alice Bentinck, our MC for the day, gets ready to introduce the first company, Nodes & Links.
(Top — Anne Marie Droste, EF Head of Expansion; Left to Right — EF Co-Founders Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck)
First Pitch Flow
Opening the show is no easy feat…but Greg Lawton of Nodes & Links did a phenomenal job, pulling off a well-executed pitch complete with plenty of dramatic pauses that left the crowd on the edge of their seats.
And his company, which is taming the complexity of modern projects, didn’t sound too bad either — even if we do say so ourselves.
London Calling
It’s been great to see the progress the LD10 Founders have made in the last few months up close and Demo Day was the culmination of all their hard work, with all of them nailing their pitches.
This time around we had another set of exceptional companies disrupting a range of industries from finance to construction and personal health to property — and all of them, in true EF style, were global in their ambition.
(Top — Sam Watts, CodeREG; Left to Right — Brittany Harris, QFlow; Laura Douglas, MyLevels; Bottom — Hana Janebdar, Juno Bio)
Berlin Balling
We didn’t even have a Berlin program at the start of this year, but just eight months later, an entire cohort had gone through the EF process at our office in Factory Berlin producing eight exceptional teams.
From Simulation as a Service for self driving cars, to personalised crypto portfolios and a unique training platform for world class software engineers, the first Berlin cohort certainly didn’t flatter to deceive.
(From top left to bottom right — Ramakrishna Nanjundaiah, Phantasma Labs; Neel Popat, Donut; Jord van den Hooff, Magic Sandbox; Robin Röhm, Janus Genomics; Rose Haft, Lumenora)
The EF Team, sitting on the front row of the auditorium, looked on keenly, rooting for the teams they’d seen form in just 6 months before their very eyes.
Meanwhile, investors watched each pitch closely, noting their favourites to approach later on during the networking part of the day.
Let Me Break This Down For You
Despite the fact that 23 companies had gone before him, Circuit Mind Co-Founder Tomide Adesanmi had the audience in the palm of his hand throughout the final pitch of the day.
Circuit Mind uses AI to completely automate the design of electronic circuits, and if his ability to supercharge an audience is anything to go by, Tomide should do just fine in his upcoming investor meetings.
Time to Crack On
Our founders are under no illusions about what it takes to build a successful business.
While Demo Day is an important date in the calendar, which represents the culmination of months of hard work, our companies need to rally themselves to go straight into fundraising.
So straight after the last pitch, our founders headed to their stands and had the chance to chat with some of the investors they’d impressed earlier that afternoon.
(From top to bottom right —Christos Ellinas, Nodes & Links; Helene Guillaume, Wild AI; Majed Chaaraoui, Insurami; Mikkel Dengsøe, Data Hygge)
Here’s to EF EUR10!
24 remarkable companies, 47 remarkable founders, 2 remarkable cohorts — pitching in the same location for the first time in EF history.
We’ll always look back at EUR 10 Demo Day with fondness and are looking forward to seeing what these amazing companies from LD10 and BE1 produce in the future.
