Lilium Jet Takes Home €100,000 as Grand Prize Winner of Hello Tomorrow Challenge
Hello Tomorrow Global Summit concluded last Friday evening with a clear winner from the Challenge grand finale: Lilium Jet, a German startup that is developing an all-electric personal aircraft that could reach a velocity of 400 km per hour. The winner gets to take home €100,000, while the nine finalists each takes home €15,000.
“I met a lot of brilliant minds and many interesting contacts, who can help accelerate and make the jet market ready. This summit is really cutting-edge, and is the only event which really helps and understands high-tech start-ups. Thank you so much for that!” said Patrick Nathen, Cofounder of Lilium Jet.
The grand finale concluded two days of intense pitching during the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit, which saw 69 of the best startups in the Hello Tomorrow Challenge, representing 10 different industry tracks, give it their all. Out of the 10 winning startups, six were led by women, an impressive feat in the current state of gender imbalance in high-technological and entrepreneurial positions.
Hello Tomorrow’s principal partners, BNP Paribas and L’Atelier BNP Paribas, awarded the grand prize to the German aeronautic startup. The finalists of the Hello Tomorrow Challenge are as follow:
- Aeronautics: Lilium Jet (Germany), sponsored by Safran
- Air Quality: White Lab (UK), sponsored by Air Liquide
- Beauty & Wellbeing: Blitab (Austria), sponsored by L’Oréal
- Data & AI: Koniku (USA), sponsored by La French Tech
- Energy: H2GO Power (UK), sponsored by Butagaz
- Food & Agriculture: SafetyNet Technologies (UK), sponsored by Carrefour
- Healthcare: NovaGray (France), sponsored by Roche
- Industry 4.0: Re:3D (UK), sponsored by Airbus
- Transportation & Mobility: Canard Drones (Netherlands), sponsored by Groupe ADP and Michelin
- Waste & Water: CocoPallet (Netherlands), sponsored by Sycomore Asset Management
Hello Tomorrow Challenge is a yearly competition that recognizes and supports early-stage, deep technology ventures through financial support, mentorship and visibility. This year, 3,500 startups applied from all over the world representing a total of 105 countries. The Top 500 startups were invited to the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit where the grand finale took place, and which saw nearly 3,000 attendees this year in Paris. The grand prize winner and finalists were selected by a 40+ member jury of venture capitalists.
As part of its efforts to accelerate deep technology ventures, Hello Tomorrow has also partnered with The Boston Consulting Group on a global study on the deep technology ecosystem, notably, on the development of deep technology startups. Full results of the study will be released by the end of the year. See preliminary results here 👉 https://medium.com/@Hello_Tomorrow/deeptech-startups-need-support-beyond-funding-fd01529dcc66#.gadq7bxye
