Originally based in Berlin, Deutsche Telekom’s startup accelerator Hub:raum has opened offices in Krakow, Poland. What’s more, fifteen teams from ten different European countries gathered in Poland’s second largest city last weekend to attend workshops in hopes of joining Europe’s newest accelerator.
During the intensive workshops, called Hub:raum Warp, teams received much-needed mentoring and got the opportunity to work alongside fifty prominent international experts with backgrounds in financing, customer acquisition, product management and more.
“The mentoring turned out to be a great success since we got the chance to work with some of the Europe’s freshest startups coming from Central and Eastern Europe. During the past week, startups have received a great deal of knowledge which we hope they will spread onto their local communities and further fire up CEE’s entrepreneurial spirit,” said Jakub Probola, Head of Hub:raum Krakow.
At the end of the week startups pitched their ideas at Demo Day hoping to get accepted into hub:arum’s first batch of startups. From fifteen teams which attended WARP, four finalists were selected with Montenegrian TourVia.Me winning the competition and securing the best pitch award. Alongside Omnipaste from Romania, Collar Pocket from Poland and Excalibur from Slovakia, TourVia.Me was invited to join DT’s Krakow-based accelerator.
Only Excalibur – a startup developing authentication for web services – publicly accepted the offer with others hoping to join in the following weeks.
Hub:raum’s offices in Krakow are lead by a team of experienced serial entrepreneurs who’s goal is to further engage and help CEE startups develop and scale their ideas. “Our doors are always open. We can support different teams in developing their ideas and launching various products on the market,” said Probola.
Hub:raum is offering seed funding, co-working space, mentors, and DT’s assets which include access to a massive 170 million user base (both in Europe and US) as well an access to T-Venture, a 720 million euro fund run by the company.