- The 20 most promising deep tech scaleups competed in the EIT Digital Challenge 2021 finals.
- The 3 best companies receive prizes totalling € 250.000, including international growth support by the EIT Digital Accelerator.
EIT Digital has awarded the 3 best European deep tech companies in the online final of the EIT Digital Challenge scaleup contest 2021.
The first prize went to Connecting Food from France. The other two winners are Cubbit (Italy) and Nect (Germany).
“I was really impressed by the level of the companies that I saw pitching, really promising companies, we are very proud that Connecting Food was chosen. We have really great work to be doing and we are thrilled to be accelerated by the EIT Digital team,” says Maxine Roper, Co-Founder of the 1st prize winner Connecting Food.
A record number of 409 scaleups from 33 countries applied in the 8th edition of the EIT Digital’s flagship contest for digital deep tech companies. The EIT Digital Challenge targets European digital technology scaleups focused on fast growth of their business in Europe and worldwide. The companies applied in one of five strategic innovation areas: Digital Tech, Digital Industry, Digital Cities, Digital Finance and Digital Wellbeing.
The winners of this year’s competition have raised on average €7 million funding, have average revenue of €1.4 million and average team size of 45 people.
The 3 awarded companies will join the EIT Digital Accelerator program for their European expansion, both fundraising and customer acquisition. In addition to that, first prize winner receives a cash prize of €100,000.
“We do not organize the EIT Digital Challenge for the sake of having yet another startup competition,” states Chahab Nastar, Chief Innovation Officer at EIT Digital. “Our ambition is for Europe to build global dominant companies. The 20 finalists are the top 5% among 409 submissions that we have received. The popularity of the EIT Digital Challenge makes the competition extremely selective. All 20 finalists have the potential to become European Unicorns. The jury saw outstanding qualities in the 3 winners. We now welcome them into the EIT Digital Accelerator and will give them hands-on dedicated support for pan European fundraising and customer acquisition”.
