The biggest Business Angels and Startups European Conference – “EBAN Winter University” started yesterday in the Croatian city, Zagreb.
The two day conference brings together more than 400 business angels and investor and 100 startups from around the world.
Bruce Dickinson, the front man of Iron Maiden and entrepreneur; Candace Johnson, President of EBAN and one of the most powerful woman in Europe; Johann Hansmann, Best European early stage investor; Tom Tyler, heads of corporate and investment department Bloomberg; Tom Yoritaka, director of Cisco and Peter Cowley, business angel of the year in the UK, are just few of the leading business angels and investors to name that are present at this high-level event.
During the Conference, 20 startup teams out of 150 registered, will get a chance to pitch in front of the investors, competing for the prize that is 50.000 Euros worth. Besides the money, the winner would be entitled to a trip to Tel Aviv with opportunity to meet the local startups. Among the finalist, the most numbered are the teams from Croatia, even 11, whereas others are coming from Slovenia, Denmark, UK, Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Jamaica.
The event was opened by the Croatian President, Kolinda Grabar – Kitarovic and by the Peter Cowley, the best business angel in the UK.
According to the HRT Vjesti, the President Kitarovic expressed her pleasure to see so many business angels and investor that are ready to support and invest in new companies especially in startups.
Davorin Stetner, the conference organizer and President of Croatia Business Angels Network (CRANE), before the opening ceremony rated this event as a spectacle.
“More than 150 teams all over the world applied to participate at this event. 110 of them fulfilled the requirements to participate at this Conference. I am looking forward to this great event where high level representatives would show what Croatia can do in order to open doors for new investments. And I am sure that this event would surely boost those investments. Having said that, I am sure now that this conference would be agreat spectacle”, Stetner said in his statement to Croatian NOVA TV.
The First Day of the Conference was closed with the EBAN Lifetime Achievement Award. This distinguished award was given to Mrs. Esther Dyson, a leading angel investor, founder of HICCup , american journalist and best selling author.
She is also a chairman of Edventure Holdings, and is a board member of 23andMe and Voxiva.
What makes startup successful?
“The secret of a good startup is its good team”, said Mr. Peter Cowley, the best UK’s business angels addressing the Conference, quoted Denvnik.hr.
This statement was proven to be correct by most of the startups that presented their ideas and solutions at the Conference during the first day.
According to them the hardest thing for the startups are finding good business people with whom they can conduct and release their ideas. Apart from finding businessmen, according to Dnevnik.hr, the second hardest thing is to become visible and present at their target markets.
Who are the finalists?
- 45HC.com (Slovenia) – is an easy to use, quick and efficient container booking platform. This company is f the fastest container shipping platform on the web
- Angler (Croatia) – is a mobile application for solving geometry problems using smartphone’s camera, computer vision methods and Angler’s engine for recognizing geometry shapes and measuring their attributes.
- Balmaris (Croatia) Patent pending technology for the treatment of ballast water on ships, so that they conform to the new international regulation.
- Juvo (Croatia) – Home Friend is IoT home alarm system for reporting child’s movement towards potentially dangerous areas in home.
- Feelif (Slovenia) – ICT multimedia educational device for visually impaired and blind people enabling them to feel shapes on standard touch screen.
- GoLexigo (Jamaica) – interaktivna web aplikacija koja poboljšava dječji pravopis i pismenost kroz animirane slušne, vizualne i kinetičke znakove
- Gowaft (United Kingdom) – ondemand moving and delivery platform.
- HAPPYtoVISIT (Croatia) – The best way to find tours, activities and things to do when traveling.
- KAKIS positive toilets (Croatia)- The uniqueness of these toilets is the biological process that transforms humane waste into a valuable product.
- Kidsy (Denmark) – Kidsy is an affordable cloud based solution that simplifies communication and build stronger relationships between childcare providers and busy families.
- Lionscube (Bosnia and Herzegovina) – is a sales landing page builder for eBooks
- myBrushies (Croatia) – Making toothbrushing a game
- Nanodiy (Croatia) – gives you the ability to create prints from your desktop on any textile material with extremely low cost.
- OCULUS DIAGNOSTIKA (Slovenia) – Non-invasive, accessible and reliable diagnostic method for early detection of various neurodegenerative diseases based on eye-tracking technology.
- PET FINDER (Croatia) – Real time GPS, GSM pet locator with additional features to make your life easier.
- Run Zagreb (Croatia) – Mobile application which combines running and touristic sightseeing.
- Shoployal (Irland) – a mobile solution to track visit based loyalty automatically and locate the best offers from your favorite shops
- TinitusOFF (Croatia) – Mobile health app available on iOS, android and PC using music notch therapy to treat tinnitus (constant ringing in the ear, a symptom that harms more than 200 mil. people), based on newest scientific research.
- Trakbar (Croatia) – Smart business intelligence solution for the SME hospitality industry.
- Vollo (Croatia) – Fast & Easy travel search, comparison and booking
What is The EBAN Winter University?
The EBAN Winter University is one of Europe’s largest and most international business angel events held annually by
The EBAN Winter University 2016 is a spring of new ideas and trends, bringing together the world’s most eminent business angels, entrepreneurs and opinion makers, and enabling networking and deal making with experts in the field.