The foundation of many economies was rocked this year, making it a very hard time to grow up as a young company. Times were tough globally, but in Europe in particular startup funding across all stages dropped a whopping $14 billion, down 38% from 2021’s peak year. This cataclysmic shift uprooted the business landscape—especially for those companies that were (and still are) getting their footing.
Consequently, this has also raised the bar for startups as instability in the market means fiercer competition for the ration of funding that is available. Startups and founders are going above and beyond previous benchmarks—making for a healthy crop of innovative businesses to keep an eye out for.
Connect: Europe will bring together some of these trailblazing companies, giving them the opportunity to pitch the premise of their startup to a panel of noteworthy judges. Taking place this Thursday, August 18th from 1-230 PM ET, the pitch competition will be an exciting event to see what’s the latest in the EU’s business landscape. Let’s take a look at what we can expect from this event.
Connecting Startups and Media
Connect: Europe is designed to bring together leading members of the media with startups that are helping to shape the business landscape. These competitions are events hosted by PR company Publicize and are open to all members of the startup community.
The concept of these events is to create stimulating conversation among experts across industries, generating the spark of collaboration that can lead to the ideation of tangible and attainable solutions in the different realms in which the events are themed.
For the latest event, six young companies from countries across Europe will participate—ranging in industries from sustainability, logistics, prosthetics, all the way to NFTs.
There is also a great lineup of noteworthy media judges that will be a part of the panel giving valuable feedback on contending companies’ pitches before a winner is selected. The panel of media judges includes journalists from publications including Business Insider, Crunchbase News, Financial Times, Novobrief, and more.
Closing Thoughts
Despite the global economic downturn affecting private funding markets, Europe currently counts 130 unicorns in 2022 following its 84 new unicorns created in 2021—showing that there is plenty of fertile ground for up-and-coming startups.
This event will be an opportunity for these budding young companies to share some of their real-world solutions for European business. There will be a live Q&A session with media judges afterward where founders and members of the audience can also ask questions to gain even deeper insights.
This event will generate discussion on what the future of the European business landscape will look like, showcasing some exciting new companies to look out for at the same time. For those that have questions, please reach out to [email protected]. If you already know you want to listen in, you can follow the Zoom meeting link.
Disclosure: This article mentions a client of an Espacio portfolio company.
