Evolutions 2023: Meetup & Showcase. See coverage of the conference and the winners of the startup competition
Startup Wroclaw: Evolutions this, year had a much richer formula. In addition to meetings, talks and discussions, workshops for students, startup wannabe, founders and employees of technology companies were added to the program of this year’s event. There were two options – for beginners and advanced in separate locations – at InQube and at Coventry University Wroclaw. And the startup competition.
Deputy Mayor of Wroclaw Jakub Mazur stresses that once again Wroclaw, which symbolizes creativity, openness, entrepreneurship, all the good qualities of a developing European city, shows that startups feel good here, that the city creates a system that encourages investors, but also initiators of new businesses and initiatives.
“Our title of the startup capital of Poland has its justification. We have several hundred participants in Evolutions: Meetup & Showcase, good projects, investor interest and an international community. I would like to see the kind of ideas that we will be reading about in the international agenda in a while, and I wish the winner of the competition to go to Prague, win half a million euros, and then in San Francisco win a million dollars for his project.”
– Jakub Mazur, Deputy Mayor of Wroclaw
Evolutions: Meetup & Showcase – training that inspires
This year, the panel event was combined with workshops, which were held in two Wroclaw locations – at Coventry University Wroclaw and at the inQube Business Incubator.
The turnout was great – more than 100 people took advantage of classes with specialists in two thematic tracks – for beginners and advanced startups. According to participants, the workshops were full of inspiration and a solid dose of knowledge.
“We’re at the stage when we’ve just started to get our first customers, so a timely topic is how to reach the customer, but also how, for example, to estimate our product so that the price is both adequate to the value and attractive to the customer. The workshop inspired us, and we began to think about whether changing the price would translate into sales results.”
– Jakub Karkocha, co-founder of LightApply, workshop participant
The workshop also had a worthy cause. The funds raised from ticket sales will be donated to the TuRazem Social Activation Association to educate children and seniors about new technologies.
“We are very pleased that it was our association that was chosen by the organizers. Thank you for such an award! We will use the donated funds for further active activities for the benefit of local communities, including the education of children and seniors in new technologies. We are facing a lot of challenges and changes this year, so each such initiative gives us wings and support.”
– Edyta Grabowska, president of Stowarzyszenie Aktywizacji Społecznej TuRazem
Evolutions: Meetup & Showcase – conference at New Horizons Cinema
The evening conference featured well-known startups from across Poland. Tomasz Karwatka of Catch The Tornado, in the style of the TV series “Breaking Bad,” shared his knowledge of, among other things, how he started his business and made his first contacts with people (selling tomatoes together with his brother), while five startups – Patryk Ogórek (Aurero), Przemek Głośny (Useme), Mat Łagowski (Inksearch. co), Róża Szafranek (HR Hints) and Kamil Walkowiak (cux.io) explained how to solve various issues related to running a company, dealing with customers, but also maintaining the internal balance of power in startups.
Tomasz Chołast of zrzutka.pl talked about the success of his platform, which turns 10 this year and celebrates raising one billion PLN.
Showcase Contest
This part of the meeting was awaited by everyone. In the Showcase Contest we could see 10 startups and their innovations. Each startup representative had 3 minutes to present their idea and answered specialized questions from jury members for a minute.
The leading themes of the projects were varied, although ecological themes definitely dominated (Green Sequest, Heilo, Vermico), as well as pro-health (Heilo, BioCam), or creating an opportunity to improve working conditions – in business (LightApply) or everyday life (QPER, Unitem Mower).
Startups that presented ideas in the competition:
- Green Sequest – Adrian Podgórny
- ADSHARES – Jacek Studzinski
- Heilo – Malgorzata Walichiewicz
- BioCam – Maria Kivachuk
- Esently – Paweł Gorecki
- LightApply – Jakub Karkocha
- QPER – Roman Robotecki
- Vermico – Wiktoria Kozłowska
- Dali Games – Grzegorz Kowal
- Unitem Mower – Maciej Nikodem
Prizes in the Showcase Contest
There were cash prizes for the first three places, a total of 28 thousand zlotys, OVHcloud grants worth 230 thousand euros and a pass to the “European Finals of Disraptors Summit 2023” in Prague. The competition held in the Czech capital will determine the winner, who will receive $500 thousand and the opportunity to represent CEE at the finals in San Francisco. That’s not all, however. Startups also competed for special prizes from the event’s partners: Spyrosoft and Unravel.
The 1st place winner was the Wroclaw-based startup BioCam.
Their product is an endoscopic capsule.
“The prize money will come in handy for our R&D work. At the moment we are at the stage of a medical experiment, the team is constantly improving and minimizing the capsule. We are also finishing the design of a telemedicine platform that will be used by doctors. I believe this award will help us popularize capsule endoscopy as a whole, because our main goal is for it to become the gold standard for gastrointestinal examination and translate into our health.”
– Maria Kivachuk, marketing specialist at startup BioCam
The 2nd place winner was the Wroclaw-based startup Unitem Mower.
Unitem Machines has been designing, building and programming advanced production machines for over 10 years. Unitem Mower is their modular autonomous system that can be adapted to most industrial mowing equipment.
The 3rd place winner was the startup Green Sequest from Sobotka.
It purifies the atmosphere of carbon dioxide using the potential inherent in nature, namely the properties of serpentinite, a rock extremely rich in magnesium and calcium oxides, on which the CO2 air purification phenomenon is based.
The winner of the special award from Spyrosoft was the Wroclaw-based startup LightApply.
LightApply is a system for managing a temporary employment agency. This convenient tool has already changed the daily work of hundreds of people, and the developers are constantly improving it and finding new customers.
The prize from Spyrosoft is the support of a Software Developer worth about PLN 220,000.
The winner of the special prize from Unravel is the Wroclaw-based startup BioCam, also the first place winner in the competition.
Unravel is giving the company the support of a Researcher/UX Designer and a UI Designer. The approximate value of the prize is PLN 55,000.
The organizers of Evolutions: Meetup & Showcase were Wroclaw Agglomeration Development Agency, Startup Wroclaw and OVHcloud Startup Program.
