In an effort to shed more light onto the European startup scene, Google, McKinsey and Rocket Internet have collaborated to set up a new awards show for startups. It joins The Europas, the European Tech Startups Awards which have been going since 2009, which TechCrunch partners with.
The Digital Top 50 Awards will highlight Start-ups and “Scale-ups” from EU and EFTA countries (that stands for the European Free Trade Association). The awards were announced at the new Viva Tech conference in Paris.
Applications are open from now until October 1st 2016.
It will also honor a Tech for Social Impact company. Academic giant INSEAD is joining as the official academic partner.
Applications are open now. Companies from the EU and from EFTA countries can apply for the following categories until October 1st 2016:
In each of the 5 categories, 10 companies will be selected as finalists, with just one selected as winner. The categories are:
Top B2B Start-up
Top B2C Start-up
Top B2B Scale-up
Top B2C Scale-up
Tech for Social Impact
Winners in the Start-up categories and the Tech for Social Impact category will be granted a cash prize of 50,000 euro each. All five winners will receive support via advice, consulting and coaching programmes.
A jury of “leading figures in tech, business and academia” will shortlist the top 50 tech companies from all applications. The top 50 companies will be invited to “Slush 2016” in Helsinki for the DT50 Awards ceremony, where the final winners of each category will be announced.