After many tears and sweating, and a lot of hard work, 5 lucky startups will now move to BlockStart’s 2nd Pilot stage, starting still this month. But what lies ahead?
The end of March was a very stressful and intense time for BlockStart’s 10 blockchain startups, as they reached the end of the programme’s 2nd Prototype stage. BlockStart’s committee of experts joined together in a series of e-pitchings to learn more about what our startups had been doing for the past 4 months, while further developing their Minimum Viable Products (MVP) and deciding on the best go-to-market strategy. Out of these online pitchings, 5 teams were selected to move forward to the Pilot stage of the programme, that will end with a Demo Day in June.
Moving to the Pilot stage
During the next 2 months, our 5 startups will have a unique opportunity to validate in real life conditions their blockchain solutions with selected pioneering SME adopters (previously matched during the Prototype stage) and work towards product/market fit.
The maximum amount of funding that each blockchain developer can receive is €4,000 to implement the solution within the end-users’ systems, as well as the costs to the developer to eventually work on-site with the SME adopters (should this be possible due to the on-going Covid-19 pandemic); while an SME adopter may receive up to €3,000 to compensate for their engagement with developers along the Pilot stage.
The 5 selected blockchain startups will have the opportunity to present their solution in an exclusive 1-day event open to sector industry SMEs, large corporates, investors and intermediaries like incubators, accelerators and associations: the Demo Day. BlockStart’s first Demo Day, held in October last year, joined together more than 100 participants and was a wonderful opportunity for startup developers to showcase their main achievements and reveal their final blockchain solutions.
A successful presentation and demonstration of the blockchain-based solution at TRL 7-8 will result in a successful completion of the Pilot stage.
With this final stage, BlockStart intends to facilitate relationships between blockchain developers and adopters, provide specialized mentoring for the implementation of the solutions developed during the Prototype stage and assure a successful exit for blockchain-based solutions that is mutually beneficial to developers and end-user SMEs.
Know more about the 5 selected startups
The startups that have reached BlockStart’s Pilot stage are:
- ComeTogether (Thessaloniki, Greece): established in 2018, ComeTogether gives control of the entire lifecycle to event organizers, providing the infrastructure for event ticketing, fraud and scalping prevention along with secondary market revenue management. Their BackTogether solution is a Covid-19 passport, integrated into ComeTogether, that adds a health component to the tickets, to enable the safe restart of events.
- IBISA (Luxembourg, Luxembourg): established in 2019, IBISA is a tech platform that leverages blockchain and Earth Observation satellites’ data to enable the next generation of micro-insurance for agriculture that is digital, cost-efficient, simple and scalable. Minorka is an extension of IBISA to democratize the access and use of Earth Observation data, acting as a marketplace for SMEs to easily identify and use valuable data for the businesses.
- Knowtary (Lisbon, Portugal): established in 2020, Knowtary is a web app that reduces document bureaucracy by validating and recognizing documents publicly and by fully integrating public and private identity and land registration mechanisms
- LoanXchain (Milan, Italy): established in 2017, LoanXchain is the first digital secondary loan marketplace, enabling lenders and investors to cooperate to finance the real economy.
- Motoblockchain (Malaga, Spain): established in 2018, Motoblockchain provides motorcycles’ owners the infrastructure to create a Digital Identity of the motorcycle and it gives buyers the possibility to access the history of the motorcycle they want to buy.
Stay in touch and follow up
We would like to thank all the 10 teams that have successfully completed the Prototype stage of BlockStart’s 2nd Acceleration Programme. Our committee of experts had a tough time deliberating over so many qualified prototypes. Missing the cut at the Prototype stage may hurt, but we will do our best to follow-up all our startups the best way we can.
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