This week both the Danish and the Swedish national Venture Cup finals where held. The Danish where held here in Copenhagen, while the Swedish finale took place in nothern Umeå. In both startups and ideas from all over the nations competed – and most of the winners where from this region in both!
differnces between venture cups
Interestingly enough, even if both competitions share the name and give similar rewards to the startups, they differ a little. Both have different categories to win in, the Swedish Venture Cup has only four, and the Danish has six of them. Aslo in Denmark, Venture Cup is aimed only at university students and researchers that want to develop their ideas into commercial successes. In the swedish version this changed a couple of years ago, and it is now open for everyone. However, due to it once being university focused once, the Swedish version still has a lot of students or researchers amongst it participants. But a lot of former students are now competing as well in Sweden, which has raised the bar and made the startups more competitive in the last couple of years.
Winners from the region
But enough about Venture Cup, here are the winners!
- eDiabeat – eDiabeat is a web application that uses CBT and game mechanics to create commitment and a sustainable lifestyle improvement. They lead to an egalitarian, knowledge-based and patient-centered diabetes care and contributes to reducing health care costs. eDiabeat won the Human & Society category in Sweden
- Fieldly – Fieldly is a project management system specially tailored for the construction industry. The system delivers significant time and cost savings by eliminating the administrative paperwork and provides total transparency of information between supervisors, employees and customers. Fieldly won the Web, Software & Media category in Sweden.
- MGM Bio – Metagenomic mining, novel molecules for the treatment of viral diseases. They won the Life Science & MedTech category in Denmark.
- Roots Food – Providing the best nutritional super food solution to the developed market, through a sustainable practice, creating livelihood and nutrition to poor farmers in the Philippines. A winner in the Social Entrepreneurship category in Denmark
- SponsorBase – Online marketplace for sponsorships, helping the right sponsors and sponsees find each other. SponsorBase won in the Services category in Denmark.
- TychoBio – TychoBio manufactures high-value biological compounds that are used in numerous products such as medicine, artificial sweeteners, perfumes etc. We produce these compounds in moss, which is cheaper, safer and more environmentally friendly that conventional production methods. We make chemicals with a green conscience. TychoBio won the Cleantech & Environment category in Denmark.
- Velocatr – Velocatr is a cheap tracking device and bicycle light, powered by induction, creating and communicating through a “mesh network”. By using mesh networking technology, the Velocatr will allow for both fast real time tracking and communication – for free. They won the Product & Technology category in Denmark
Each startup has won between 25 000 to 250 000 kr, depending on if they won the category or the entire competition, and if it was in the Swedish or Danish Venture Cup.
A lot of Venture Cup winners turn into successful companies in the long run, so being one of the winners has a strong correlation with future success. See here for Swedish or Danish alumnis.