Yesterday The Europas, the European Tech Startup Awards and Unconference once again held its annual jamboree in London, throwing together an afternoon of deep-dive panel discussions on the hottest topics in tech, a “Pitch Roulette” session of early-stage startup pitches, and a glittering Awards ceremony, honouring the hottest startups, unicorns founders, investors and blockchain projects in the European ecosystem.
The awards are based on thousands of votes gleaned from a round of public voting, combined with industry judges drawn from founders and investors.
The photos from the afternoon Unconference and the evening awards are available on Dropbox and on Facebook.
To keep the conversations intimate and real, there was no live stream, but you can follow the coverage on Twitter here.
An annual celebration of Europe’s brightest and best tech companies, The Europas Unconference and Awards for European Tech Startups has been an established fixture on the European scene since 2009, when it was first held in a London bar. This year a block of free tickets were given away as part of “The Europas Diversity Matters Tech Pass”, to ensure that the event included more Seed or Pre-Seed-stage founders who are also women and people of colour.
Over 60 speakers were at the casual series if afternoon panel sessions, ahead of the industry Awards finale in the evening. There was also a pitch competition “Pich Roulette” where AiPod, BFF, Coinweb, PsycApps/Equoo, Frogology?, Tube Chat, Lookhealth.io, Blockchip and Loveshark pitched. PsycApps/Equoo was selected as the winner.
Over the last few weeks, startups had been able to either apply for an award or be nominated by a third-party. The winners of that round were combined with the top picks by an expert judging panel and the results combined to determine the hottest European startups across all categories. No fees were paid by entrants or winners to enter or accept the awards, marking this the only truly editorially independent tech startups awards in Europe.
The Europas is held in partnership with TechCrunch and all attendees, nominees and winners of the Europas Awards will get discounts to TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin later this year.
The sponsors and event partners were:
Bizzabo
Isotoma
Blockchip
Malta Blockchain Summit
Barclays
Bayer
BlueArray
Coinweb
Columbus Capital
Ihorizon
JAG Shaw Baker
Orrick
Outlier Ventures
Fieldhouse Associates
aiPod
Burlington
CEW Communications
London Tech Week
Who were Awards judges? They were:
Michael Jackson, Mangrove Capital
Stephanie Hospital, One Ragtime
Jason Ball, Qualcomm Ventures
Tugce Ergul, Angel Labs
Jeremy Yap, Angel
Sitar Teli, Connect Ventures
George McDonaugh, KR1
Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Seedcamp
Andrei Brasoveanu, Accel Partners
Candice Lo, Blossom Capital
Richard Muirhead, Fabric VC
Nancy Fechnay, Blockchain Investor
Eileen Burbidge, Passion Capital
Tina Baker, Jag Shaw Baker
Scott Sage, Crane Venture Partners
Eze Vidra, Remagine Ventures
Saul Klein, LocalGlobe
The winners, selected from the finalists, were:
1. Hottest Media/Entertainment
Hatch Entertainment
Judges’ comments: Potentially “the Netflix of Mobile Games”
2. Hottest eCommerce/Retail
Deliveroo
Judges’ comments: Utterly ubiquitous! You can’t walk down a street without a Deliveroo rider rushing past you, and increasingly international.
3. Hottest Fintech sponsored by Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Starling Bank
Judges comments: Huge growth in the last year, putting the heat on other challenger banks
4. Hottest Games Startup
Bossa Studios
Judges comments: Innovative new games which defy convention
5. Hottest Startup Accelerator sponsored by BlueArray
Founders Factory
Judges comments: Cleverly matching corporates with startups for wider distribution partnerships and collaborative innovation
6. Hottest Marketing/Adtech Startup
AppsFlyer – Now Europe’s leading platform for mobile attribution & marketing analytics.
7. Hottest Education Startup sponsored by Isotoma
Lingumi
Judges comments: Language learning platform for pre-school kids encouraging parent participation
8. Hottest Mobile Startup
Depop
Judges comments: GenZ’s eBay – A hit for ‘merch drops’ so teens can later “depop” their hot fashion.
9. Hottest Enterprise, SaaS or B2B sponsored by Barclays
Signal Media
Judges comments: An amazing AI startup turning data into accessible business knowledge
10. Hottest Hardware
Kano Computing
Judges comments: With new funding secured, a powerhouse of European hardware
11. Hottest Platform Economy / Marketplace
Syft
Judges comments: The “Taskrabbit for hospitality industry”
12. Hottest Health sponsored by Bayer Digital Health
Ada Health
Judges comments: Definitely your future doctor
13. Hottest Cyber Security sponsored by ihorizon
Digital Shadows
Judges comments: A cyber security powerhouse straight out of Europe
14. Hottest Travel & Mobility Startup
Seatfrog
Judges comments: Making upgrades effortless for airlines and passengers, it’s on a roll with investors, press and consumers alike
15. Hottest Internet of Things
Smarter
Judges comments: Smarter kitchens of the future, but today
16. Hottest Technology Innovation
Ultrahaptics
Judges comments: Just wave your hand and you too can become a Jedi Knight with this amazing technology, which will probably end up in our homes and cars.
17. Hottest FashionTech Startup
21 Buttons
Judges comments: A fashion social and shopping network growing like a weed.
18. Hottest Tech for Good
BuffaloGrid
Judges comments: Bringing connectivity to the next 3 billion
19. Hottest AI Startup
Black Swan
Judges comments: The leading European startup in Smart Data and Predictive Analytics, making uncanny predictions on what we’ll buy.
20. Fastest Rising Startup of the Year
Revolut
Judges comments: A challenger bank that’s challenging the other challengers, and is now even a player in cryptocurrency
21. Hottest GreenTech Startup
Asperitas
Judges comments: The next wave in Greening datacentres – Crypto miners take note!
22. Hottest Startup Founders
Joel Gibbard + Samantha Payne, Open Bionics
Judges comments: These founders are changing people’s lives with futuristic prosthetics
23. Hottest CEO of the Year
Pieter van der Does, Adyen
Judges comments: van der Does has skilfully piloted his company to a smash hit IPO this year
24. Hottest Angel/Seed Investor
Reshma Sohoni and Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Seedcamp
Judges comments: Still hungry for Seed startups, and has even raised a new EU-backed fund in tough political times.
25. Hottest VC Investor sponsored by JAG Shaw Baker
Pär-Jörgen Pärson, Northzone
Judges comments: A popular industry player and an early backer of the powerhouse that is Spotify and many other European unicorns
26. Hottest Blockchain/Crypto Startup Founder
Mona El Isa, Melonport
Judges comments: El Isa is considered a blockchain industry thought leader and Melonport is poised to change the game in crypto asset management and governance
27. Hottest Blockchain Protocol Project, sponsored by Outlier Ventures
Polkadot.io
Judges comments: Straight outta Berlin – The biggest project out there to link the world’s blockchains
28. Hottest Blockchain DApp, sponsored by Blockchip
Verisart
Judges comments: A real-world blockchain application taking the art world by storm
29. Hottest Corporate Blockchain Project sponsored by Coinweb
Billon
Judges comments: Billon is using blockchain to reimagine the flow of regulated money and data.
30. Hottest Blockchain Investor Europe sponsored by Malta Blockchain Summit
KR1
Judges comments: An pioneering blockchain and token investment player doing big things under the radar
31. Hottest Blockchain ICO Europe sponsored by Columbus Capital
Bancor
Judges comments: Bancor has created new standard for cryptocurrencies convertible directly through their smart contracts, and managed an amazing public ICO.
32. Hottest Financial Crypto Project
BlockEx
Judges comments: BlockEx’s digital asset exchange platform has made positive waves in the crypto assets world
33. Hottest Blockchain for Good Project
United Nations World Food Programme “Building Blocks’ Etherum Project (with Parity Technologies)
Judges comments: The combined United Nations, World Food Programme and Parity project on the Ethereum blockchain has changed the game for aid distribution to Syrian refugees in Jordan and is poised to be applied to other humanitarian projects globally.
34. Hottest Blockchain Identity Project
Trunomi
Judges comments: If data rights are the furture, Trunomi is helping to unlock that future.
35. Hall of Fame sponsored by TechCrunch
Saul Klein and Robin Klein, LocalGlobe
Judges comments: An incredible long-time double-act of European venture & startups. Every startup needs a Batman and Robin to help them, and Saul and Robin keep delivering!
28. Grand Prix Unicorn Award, sponsored by Bizzabo
Adyen
Judges comments: Adyen’s IPO was one of the biggest of the year and shows that Europe can produce the next wave of global Tech Unicorns.