Ten perspective start-ups from the Smart Living and Health programme have with their entrepreneurial solutions enthused 190 investors and guests, whose interest in start-up projects is evaluated to be between 4.5 and 6 million Euros. The international innovative and entrepreneurial throb will be present in BTC City Ljubljana until Saturday, January 23rd, when the 2-day international business marathon International Business Hackathon, organised by ABC Accelerator and Business Intelligence Centre, comes to its end.
The Demo Day event is the final act of the intensive Smart Living and Health programme, which has taken place in ABC Accelerator in BTC City Ljubljana over the last three months. The aim of the Demo Day event was to financially strengthen start-up companies and enable their future development and breakthrough onto international markets. The event was also a great business opportunity for start-up companies on their way to developing into strong and independent economic entities which will be the creators of new employment opportunities and progress in Slovenia and abroad.
Jože Mermal, president of the BTC Management Board, attributes great economic potential to young start-up companies and adds: “The BTC Company believes that young people and young companies bring the necessary freshness into a business environment. The BTC Company 2020 Development Strategy gives them special attention and supports their innovative projects. As the co-founders of ABC Accelerator and the supporters of Demo Day event we are striving towards our goal of BTC City Ljubljana becoming a platform for progressive entrepreneurial ideas and an innovative city. At the same time we are supporting a story bigger than us – we are the co-creators of the developmental story of innovative and entrepreneurial Slovenia.”
Dejan Roljič, CEO of ABC Accelerator, labelled the Demo Day event as successful: “When you manage to rally more than 80 international investors at a Demo Day event, you can be sure that they are serious about investing in professional start-ups which have an extremely large potential of fast growth. Let actions speak for themselves.”
With a successful realisation of presentations and a big interest of potential investors at the event, the young entrepreneurial innovators successfully made their way into the international start-up midst. The event was attended by 100 Slovenian guests and 90 foreign investors; among the latter were also Jeff Burton, the co-founder of the renowned company Electronic Arts, and Oliver Rothschild, CEO of the ADVentura Capital Company.
In front of a packed theatre of invited guests in SiTi Teater in BTC City Ljubljana, ten start-up companies from Slovenia and abroad presented the investors with their solution for smart living and a healthy lifestyle. “The presentation ran smoothly, as we also got acquainted with target investors. There was quite a lot of interest by foreign investors, who were able to test our product – a safe driving simulator, which makes it possible for the user to confront potential critical traffic situations and thereby helps prevent accidents and educate on traffic safety”, as stated by Matej Vengust, CEO of the NERVteh Company.
The Demo Day event saw a presentation by the NERVteh Company and nine other companies: with its application the AppRay start-up provides better security of stored data on a mobile phone, as it checks the potential threats of other applications. The Dentem Company created a platform which brings patients closer to their dentists, while the mobile application Homey provides more efficient communicating between family members about their household chores. The Kripto Company developed an interactive platform for the purchase and sale of bitcoins, whereas the Mogy Company presented its specialised application for personal trainers and their clients. The Mony rabel application will provide users with their very own virtual personal financial assistant. The application by Pointme Company brings a new dimension to word-of-mouth marketing, as users will be awarded special benefits for their promotion of specific products and services. The Sportly application helps trainers with their tenders, promotion, and management of exercises and courses, while the online platform Vis medic allows patients to have video sessions with doctors from the best medical institutions across the world.
After a successful conclusion of Demo Day, another international event will take place on January 22nd and 23rd in the new start-up co-working ABC Hub on the lower floor of the Emporium Hall. The participants of the 2-day international business marathon International Business Hackathon, organised by ABC Accelerator in cooperation with the Business Intelligence Centre, were addressed by Patrick Mullane, executive director of HBC, Harvard Business School. During the event, he stated that he was positively surprised about the event venue and all the participants and added: “BTC City Ljubljana is a well planned innovative city, as it combines shopping, entertainment and business opportunities all in one area. I would definitely recommend my colleagues to visit BTC City Ljubljana, where innovativeness can be seen on every step. If you covered my eyes and sat me down in a room along with others, I would think that I am sitting among the innovators in Silicon Valley, since the enthusiasm and dedication of creators of new ideas in BTC City Ljubljana is on a very high level. I expect a lot of unexpected ideas from all the candidates – especially after their presentations. The competitors are quite different and have different experiences. I am also surprised by a great number of candidates from the IT field. Such an event (International Business Hackathon) is without any doubt a good chance of promotion for all the participants, partners, and the country as a whole.”
In the scope of the event, competitors from all over the world compete in solving the business challenge set by the Plastika Skaza Company. The members of the winning team will be awarded an MBA scholarship in form of Entrepreneurship modules at Cotrugli Business School and a money prize in the amount of 2,000 Euros. A special award will be given to the best individual, who will be invited to attend an educational seminar in the scope of the HBX module at Harvard University.
Both international events – Demo Day and International Business Hackathon, contributed to BTC City Ljubljana in the past week becoming the centre of start-up world. Lively innovative and business energy in the scope of ABC Accelerator and ABC Hub, the co-creator of which is the BTC Company, only strengthens the role of BTC City Ljubljana as an innovative city. With more than 4,500 companies and over 21 million visitors yearly, BTC City Ljubljana represents a great environment for testing progressive ideas, while enabling the development of new business opportunities and encouraging fruitful business cooperation. The BTC Company will continue organising and supporting events and projects which strengthen the international recognisability of the company and its partners as well as innovative and entrepreneurial Slovenia. On such basis, we will introduce also the third 3-month intensive programme in ABC Accelerator when the next start-up generation tries to find solutions in the field of commercial technologies.
Additional information
Maja Oven, Director of the Market Communications and Public Relations Sector
- T: +386 (0)1 585 13 15
- E: maja.oven@btc.si
