How to Web Startup Spotlight: 4 month follow-up report

FOLLOW-UP REPORT*

How to Web Startup Spotlight 2012

* 4 months after the program

4 days of workshops, pitching, accelerator presentations, investment panels, mentoring sessions and 1 to 1 meetings with accelerators and investors

32 early-stage startups from 8 countries in the CEE region 12 accelerators from Europe, USA & Canada 20.000$ cash prizes

2012 PROGRAM OVERVIEW

LAST YEAR’S FINALISTS

http://2012.startupspotlight.co/finalists

32 startups from 8 countries …

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/08/incrediblue-an-airbnb-for-boats-wins-at-howtowebs-festival-for-cee-startups/

… that all got into the international spotlight

PARTICIPANT STARTUPS CAME FROM:

Romania Croatia Poland Bulgaria

Greece Estonia Hungary Serbia

1. “We have closed some deals around developing tools on our platform for startups at HTW”

2. “We have won IXIA Business Hitech Contest”

3. “Switched customer segment”4. “Found several interested

accelerators”5. “Lots of feedback”

1. “We have achieved some connections and with that some deals are pending to start”

2. “We’ve got two offers for VC investment”3. “We have a partnership, but not papers signed”4. “We actually received several proposals to enter

accelerators. We did not shake hands because we chose not to apply at the moment”

5. “The service we wanted to deploy on did not find the time to integrate with us”

6. “Yes, it didn’t end up yet. We just agreed the termsheet concerning an angel investment”

7. “We were accepted into Seler8er but decided to get traction first”

8. “We have started negotiating with an investor. We didn’t close the deal yet, the process is still open”

WINNERS’ PROGRESS

Incrediblue (Greece)

• got investment from OpenFund• publicly launched product• launched “Geeks on a boat” project at TNW Amsterdam conference

GoodMomming! (Romania)

• got accepted to GrowLab• moved to Silicon Valley• rebranded product to Early

Gameleon (Romania)

• Got accepted to Eleven • Got accepted to Mozilla WebFWD• signed partnership with Softlayer• won several pitching contests around Europe

MavenHut (Romania)

• Got 500k VC investment• Won The Next Web Romanian Startup Awards for startup of the year, best co-founder, best web app• launched second product• reached Top 100 Grossing Apps (money makers) on Facebook in Oct. 2013

“It was one of the better, if not the best conferences we attended around this company. All the mentors and investors at the event were

very relevant. Also many of the people speaking did a great job! ”

“How to Web Startup Spotlight was one of the best events which we visited in Europe. Really great guests, well prepared meetings with

mentors and investors, lots of opportunities to meet and talk with people. We haven't closed any deal after that but we keep in touch and

work with lots of great people we met there. ”

“We found the experience quite useful in terms of mentoring especially. Much higher level of mentors compared to any other event

in the region. ”

Sellbox

Useful at Night

Green Horse Games

Apply for Startup Spotlight 2013,

until October 20th!