Women startups have conquered international competitions weekend in Budapest, Hungary
BOOKR Kids, an interactive library application for children, won international competitions two days in a row. The application inspires kids to read classic and modern children’s stories even in our digitalized world.
The professional & international jury led by Her Excellency Colleen Bell, Ambassador of the United States of America to Hungary, had a hard job to choose the winners among the 12 finalist of the Women Startup Competition Europe 2016 — the closing event of Brain Bar Budapest.
The organizers have originally targeted European entrepreneurs with their competition, but the interest went beyond their expectation as they received applications from the U.S., Africa, Asia and Australia.
Women Startup Competition received over 160 applications. Beside the 17 Hungarian startups, most applied from the UK, Spain and the Scandinavian countries. A jury of international professionals have contributed to select the competition’s 12 finalists, and 1 team had the chance to be selected by the audience to attend the one week mentoring and pitch training in Budapest, Hungary, culminating in a Demo Day held as the final event of Brain Bar Budapest.
“It seems, that this year we have seen the result of 3 years of work as one of our selected teams who participated in our competition and has been prepared during our mentoring and pitch training week, also won Friday’s CEE Lift-Off — claimed to be the biggest regional competition!” said Tamas Muller, founder of Women Startup Competition.
The project which aims to foster women entrepreneurship, has double targets: on one hand, through the supporting ambiance and environment set by the organizing team, backed by sponsors, they wish to help, inspire and prepare female entrepreneurs to stand successful in an environment dominated by male entrepreneurs; on the other hand, they wish to attract investors’ attention to the less represented, but high potential of female entrepreneurs.
A well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, First Round Capital, has already announced in their last year’s report that there is a 63% higher success rate in their investments where there is at least one female founder in the team, compared to those who have only male founders.
“We are surprised and delighted to see such a huge interest. This inspired us to start negotiating about bringing the event to other continents.” — said Tamas Muller.
With the winning startup’s application, BOOKR Kids, you can reach a whole bookshop’s worth of children’s stories for free, or for a small subscription fee.
“We’d like our service, BOOKR Kids, to become a place on the internet where children and their family members can spend valuable time together. Our goal is to become international by making available more than 10.000 books in 27 languages within our app. The two prizes we won can help us get closer to this dream. — said Dorka Horvath, founder of BOOKR Kids, Winner of Women Startup Competition Europe.
Kids Friendly Media, a Finnish startup, came second place. Kids Friendly Media, with over 8 million users, helps families discover and book kid-friendly services they need.
Third place goes to BloomyLoom, a Hungarian small design startup with textiles designed to the last fiber. Their focus is baby wraps that support the developing spine and also help parents with visual impairment wrap their babies close to their hearts with ease.
And the finalists…
ALINA (Latvia) is new type of eco-friendly antimicrobial additive for building materials to prevent micro-organisms’ negative effects, as a result protecting and prolonging durability and aesthetics of materials for more than two decades.
Blendlee (Germany) develops and licenses Experiential Blended Business Training Packages in the area of management.
ClearKarma Group SAS (Austria), trusted food information platform, is solving the problem of global food traceability end-to-end from the farmer to the consumer, via food manufacturers and distributors.
Gather (Hungary) offers customized home interior designs for their users based on their personalities in the form of a mobile application. The system will learn and understand the needs and personal style of the users and create a custom set of colors, materials and furniture that they can easily purchase from the app.
ICAN Future Star Ltd (UK) creates mobile apps, under the name „HelloUni” to help applicants find their dream universities and universities find their ideal applicants.
Lilla Fisk AB (Sweden) is offering a subscription-based service, where parents can rent high-quality baby clothes in a full set.
Orrlando (Spain) helps you book any artist online — as an Airbnb for artists.
Plan Penny (Danemark) is a light-weight digital project planning tool designed for the creative minded freelancer.
She’z (UK — Israel) creates a community and social marketplace for wellness and lifestyle services based on the wisdom of women.
Although this season’s event-series ends with Women Startup Competition, from autumn the organizers continue helping gender diverse startups reach more-and-more success.
“It is our pleasure that this year we could continue working on Women Startup Competition Europe thanks to such great sponsors and partners like GE Digital, institutions from the Hungarian government and The European Institute of Innovations and Technology (EIT) — who believe and see long-term potential in female innovations and to whom it’s important to create gender diversity in tech and gender equality. “ says Tamas Muller, who points out strongly that workshop and mentoring events play a crucial role in supporting female entrepreneurship.
„What is the biggest untapped opportunity within European female entrepreneurial environment? Women. Within the population of Europe, 52% are women, but only 30% of them are entrepreneurs. The winners and the finalists of Women Startup Competition Europe could be a perfect idol for the aspiring female entrepreneurs. Europe needs more talented and creative female entrepreneurs to grow„ — argued Martin Kern, Interim Director of the EIT.
