In November How to Web Startup Spotlight brings together brave entrepreneurs, international tech experts, accelerators and investors from all around the world. The tech startups developing innovative products can compete for the 20.000 USD cash prizes by applying online at www.startupspotlight.co until Sunday, October 20.

Organized in parallel with How to Web, Startup Spotlight is the most important competition and orientation program for CEE startups. The 32 finalists will discuss with mentors, investors, as well as representatives of World Class Accelerators, while the winners will receive cash prizes with a total value of 20.000 USD offered by IXIA, the main partner of the event.

Startup Spotlight targets technology startups with less than 2 years of activity that have a least a prototype to show on stage and have not raised more than 100.000 EUR funding until the present moment. During the 4 days of the event, the teams will attend practical workshops and mentoring sessions and they will have 1 on 1 meetings with investors and representatives of the accelerators. Moreover, they will rehearse their pitches and receive valuable feedback during the pitching workshops. The best 8 teams will get the chance to present their product on the main How to Web stage in front of the entire audience of the conference.

The results of the previous Startup Spotlight edition talk by themselves. Out of the 32 early stage startups from 8 CEE countries that attended the program, 10 have closed an important deal as a consequence of participating in the program. Even if they got accepted to an accelerator, got a VC investment, signed a partnership or found an advisor or a new team member, Startup Spotlight had a significant impact over their further development, fueled their growth and helped them seize important opportunities. Moreover, 4 months after the event other 8 teams had unfinished negotiations.

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IDCEE is a high-scale international gathering of investors, startups, leaders of IT-companies, geeks and bloggers in Ukraine and it’s an entry point to the emerging markets of CEE and CIS.

In 2013, the focus of the IDCEE.org, Internet Technologies and Innovations conference, is startups and geeks. Program was widened with a new stream – Tech Stage (a corner for CTOs of the world global web companies). Another addition is tickets for geeks. Besides the three traditional cash prizes with total value of EUR 30,000, participants of Startup Alley will have a chance to compete for three new nominations. Startups will also have an opportunity to pitch in front of the representatives of the world leading accelerators, and all this will be done in a form of harsh speed-pitches – Startup Toasters.

IDCEE 2013 will take place on October 10-11, and will present a lot of new features. Besides a new venue (from now on, it will be NSC Olimpiyskiy – an easy to get spot in the city center), IDCEE introduces a new stream – Tech Stage – a platform for CTOs of the global successful web companies.
“IDCEE mission is to develop IT entrepreneurship“, says Viktoriya Tigipko, Managing Director of TA Venture VC fund and organizer of IDCEE. “It can stem only through the synergy of business approaches and tech solutions. We’ve created Tech Stage for business leaders and CEOs-to-be of web companies. We want them to have an opportunity to feel the atmosphere of technologies. And developers should be able to find common language with entrepreneurial network. Emergence of new projects after the conference is our contribution to the establishment of IT entrepreneurship ecosystem in Ukraine.”

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The Bulgarian LAUNCHub seed fund is excited to announce the opening the fourth application call for financing of digital startup companies.
All committed teams from South-East Europe (SEE) developing future disruptive technologies in the Digital Tech Sector are encouraged to apply here.

The application deadline ends November 3, 2013.

The culmination of the LAUNCHub funding selection will be the four-day Long-Weekend Event in the end of November in Sofia (Bulgaria), where shortlisted teams will receive several days of coaching and mentoring and will have the chance to pitch their ideas and get approved for seed investment. The successful applicants will receive funding of up to 200K Euro in exchange of equity and will participate in the LAUNCHub mentor-lead programme scheduled for February 2014.

During the call LAUNCHub will be seeking to identify and meet the most promising teams, focus being placed on startup companies that have formed their teams and can present traction.

Since 2012, LAUNCHub has invested 2 million Euro in 25 companies from 5 countries mainly in the SEE region (txtFeedback, UseTogether – romanian startups – being among them). On a strategic level the fund is partnering with Seedcamp and Mozilla WebFWD. More information is available on www.launchub.com.

RomanianStartups.com is a media partner with Launchub and romanian startups are invited to apply.

On Tuesday, September 17, 2013 the Romanian Game Developers Association, RGDA, was launched at TechHub Bucharest. They invited a special guest to be present and that was Richard Wilson, CEO of The Independent Game Developers’ Association, a true voice of game developers in the UK.

Andrei Istrate (Lead Level Designer at Ubisoft Bucharest), Cristian Tanase (External Communication Manager at Ubisoft) and Ionut Mihaescu (Information System Manager at SC Pamimai Distribution) are the co-founders of this association which aims to bring together the game developers from Romania.

Romanian Game Developers Association is a non profit organization whose purpose is to support and promote the Romanian video game developers market. RGDA is a useful work group open not only for video game industry professionals, but also for those who wish to start a carrier in this area.

There are several gaming startups profiled here on Romanian Startups (Green Horse Games, Gameleon, The Small Island, Tavern Games, Barrel Cat, eRepublik Labs) and we hope that more gaming startups will come on-board.

Bobby Voicu, the CEO of MavenHut (a Romanian game startup – not yet profiled on Romanian Startups) said:

RGDA says it’s the right tool to help freelance gaming developers, small and medium gaming developers in Romania. If they live up to their promises, they will help the industry a lot. And there is a lot of interest in this.I’ve seen more than 100 people participating on a meetup about gaming, as well as about 40 people present at the launch of RGDA, last Tuesday. To show just how much people around the industry need this, Cristi, my co-founder at MavenHut, met 3 people that were building a Snake version, without knowing about each other.

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During September 25th-26th, the 12th edition of the series of Business Days events will be held in Cluj, aiming, as indicated in their motto, at providing “inspiration, experience and opportunities for the people who want to generate value in Romania”.

Cluj Business Days (check out the website), the third event in a series of four planned for this year, will be hosted by Grand Hotel Italia.
The business community from Cluj (that includes tech business community) and from the whole central area of the country will have the opportunity to connect to the latest concerns and solutions related to business success, together with 60 top speakers of our country (entrepreneurs, managers of leading companies, investors, experts in various fields). The discussions, grouped under the general theme “Successful Entrepreneurship and Management”, will be occasioned by the 16 workshops, 4 conferences, 4 round tables and 3 business networking sessions during the two-day event.

“At the Cluj Napoca edition, our concern to support the development of start-ups in Romania takes new values. We have created new opportunities in order to help the entrepreneurs who are at the beginning of the road. The actions conceived in this respect are focused on three directions: testing the business idea, product or service, taking advantage of the presence and feedback of the audience, of 20 minutes meetings with investors and mentors attending the event and the business promotion through 3 minutes presentations in front of participating entrepreneurs and managers, “says Laszlo Pacso, the project coordinator.

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