After many tears and sweating, and a lot of hard work, BlockStart has selected the 5 lucky startups that will move forward to Pilot stage, starting still this month. But what lies ahead?

 

The beginning of August was an intensive month for BlockStart’s 10 DLT/blockchain startups, as they were reaching the end of the programme’s 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. 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 October.

Moving to Pilot stage

During the next 2 months, our 5 startups will have a unique opportunity to validate in real conditions their blockchain solutions with selected pioneering SME adopters (previously matched during Prototype stage) and work towards product/market fit.

The maximum amount of funding that each DLT/blockchain developer can receive is €4,000 to implement the solution within their systems, as well as the costs to the developer to eventually work on-site with the SME adopters; while an SME adopter may receive up to €3,000 to compensate for their engagement with developers along the Pilot stage.

The 5 selected DLT/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.

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 who have moved to Pilot stage are:

  • 2bSmart (Tilburg, The Netherlands): supporting organizations in understanding and applying IoT sensor, blockchain and smart contracts technology;
  • Datarella (Munich, Germany): provider of Industrial Blockchain Solutions and developer of blockchain-based innovations with a strong emphasis on the supply chain and ICT sector;
  • Infidia (Skopje, North Macedonia): seamless invoice financing based on blockchain;
  • Kedeon (Riga, Latvia): transparent monitoring for last-mile deliveries;
  • Rexs.io (Gdańsk, Poland): data trust company offering a blockchain-based digital notarization service that creates a shield of trust for any data, including IoT streams, live video feeds, documents, images, and more.

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 Partnership 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 we can.

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