A tech startup pitch competition is always a keen focus of attention at the annual EU-Startups Summit. This in-person event brings together over 2,000 people from Europe’s startup and business investment ecosystem. It showcases many of Europe’s hottest startups, and brings together people eager to learn from some of the most successful European entrepreneurs of our time.
In the on-stage Pitch Competition, 15 finalists from over 1,000 initial entries competed not only for the prestige of winning, but also for tangible benefits of investment funding, plus other valuable perks, which this year were worth over €1 million.
The Judges
The Winner
AlterEcho
Alter Echo’s CEO, Marco Molinari, was the winner of the EU-Startups’ Pitch Competition. The prize consisted of a package of some actual cash investment by Look AI Ventures and Techstars, match-funded by Malta Venture Capital, plus credits to use on business-building tools and platforms including HubSpot and IONOS.
Founded in 2025 in Denmark, AlterEcho operates in the medtech sector. It is developing a system of robotic avatars and AI agents with an aim to revolutionise the pharmaceutical and medical industries by removing the risk of human contamination from cleanrooms. Their solutions promise to reduce the industry’s biggest cost drain and operational hazard, resulting in cleaner, more efficient, and more profitable operations.
However, they had quickly found the pharmaceutical industry to be very change-resistant.
The startup had already been applying for grants and was in the process of raising an investment round of €2 million. Consequently, Marco told me that the longer-term prestige and boost to their reputation of winning the Pitch Competition was probably more important than the immediate benefits that came with it.
All 15 finalists had been able to develop their pitch with input and advice from David Trayford, a UK communication coach currently based in Hungary. David believes AlterEcho were worthy winners because Marco was one of the finalists who had put the most effort into preparing his pitch. It was certainly clear to me during the event that some of the other finalists had not properly prepared a timed three-minute pitch, and had to rush through their delivery at such speed that it was hard to follow what they were saying.
Here are details of the other 14 finalists, grouped by industry/business category.
Medtech/Healthtech
Asvel
Founded in 2023 in Estonia, Asvel is developing an AI-powered robotic endoscopy system that controls the surgical camera using real-time instrument tracking, soft-robotic actuation, and voice to improve precision and reduce surgeon workload. By enhancing minimally invasive procedures and reducing dependence on manual assistance, they help enable safer and more efficient operations.
Part of the greater efficiency is to accelerate the pace of surgery, given operating theater costs of over €40 per minute.
They have already planned future funding rounds of €2.2 million and then €3 million.
Entrelacs
Founded in 2025 and based in France, this healthtech startup aims to end one-size-fits-all mental health assessment by building AI that understands each person’s mental health beyond standardised tests. By combining conversational AI with adaptive psychometrics, its platform tailors evaluations to individuals, improves over time as its database grows, and enables earlier detection of mental health deterioration.
Their advisors include academics from Stamford and Oxford universities, and they are currently at a Beta stage. They initially operate on a B2B basis, and claim their service reduces employee absences due to sickness, and overall staff turnover. Entrelacs charges companies €60 per employee per year. They already have plans to raise this to €150, and to offer a D2C service.
Muun Health
Founded in 2023 in Estonia, Muun Health is developing the first wearable medtech device for monitoring women’s hormone health in real-time. Filling this gap in women’s hormonal health tracking will enable a better quality of life with non-invasive tech solutions. Insights accessible through their mobile application will also enable better management of reproductive health to optimize fertility treatments.
They have achieved laboratory proof of concept, and aim to launch their product in 2031.
Mobility and Transport
Agilica
Founded in 2023 and based in Belgium, Agilica delivers a patented multi-modal resilient positioning and GPS-independent navigation technology for enabling autonomous drone operations. Their onboard positioning system utilises ultra-wideband technology to enable precise, autonomous drone navigation and landing, even within GPS-denied or dynamic environments.
One of their biggest challenges is the limitations of existing technology, and they have identified key opportunities for last-mile delivery from ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore. In their favour is the growing DefenceTech sector. They are currently aiming to raise €1 million in 2027.
Arclight Aerospace
Founded in 2025 in Malta, Arclight Aerospace is developing a regulatory-grade airspace operating system that enables safe, scalable, low-altitude operations for drones and future Urban Air Mobility services. Their ambitious team seeks to provide governments with the tools to open urban airspace while giving operators predictable and scalable access.
Malta is an ideal testbed for them, being a small and sovereign island.
Cooled Motors
Founded in 2025 and based in the UK, Cooled Motors is developing a new type of magnet-less EV motor that reduces the cost of EV motors by up to 70% while matching the performance of standard magnet motors. Their ambitious team aims to deliver highly efficient, sustainable, and economically viable motors for vehicular transport and power generation worldwide.
If Cooled Motors captures a 1% market share it will be enough for the business to become a unicorn (valued at over $1 billion). However, the team currently lacks some key tech roles until they have raised money.
They are hopeful of partnering with a Top 5 Chinese car manufacturer, though personally I regard that as a risk. 90% of magnets used in EV motors are sourced from China, and perhaps the Chinese simply want to acquire the IP and/or shut down Cooled Motors.
I base my opinion on what happened to the Swedish EV manufacturer Uniti. A Chinese backer demanded to be the sole lead investor, then failed to make a vital payment on time, and the business collapsed. I had access to this information because I had invested in Uniti through an early round of equity crowdfunding conducted in Sweden.
Systellar Space
Founded in 2024 in Spain, Systellar Space is enabling AI for the design of complex physical systems such as satellites, aircraft, trains or cars.
Currently supported by Techstars Global Accelerator Program, the Systellar Space team is now further developing its innovative platform synapse™ and expanding its commercial reach to accelerate physical engineering.
Space Frontier
Agnia Aerospace
Founded in 2025 and based in the UK, Agnia Aerospace is developing a dual-mode electrospray thruster for low-Earth-orbit satellites that integrates ultra-high efficiency and high-thrust capabilities into a single, pump-free architecture. It is estimated that there will be 60,000 satellites in Earth orbit by 2030. Agnia Aerospace’s innovative technology promises to ensure that the next generation of space infrastructure remains manoeuvrable, profitable, and 100% debris-free.
They hope to receive some early-stage funding through a grant from the UK Space Agency.
Energy and Utilities
DAITABLE
Founded in 2023 in Slovakia, this startup leverages AI to monitor, predict, and optimise energy consumption in real time. By combining advanced analytics with seamless integration into existing systems, their system identifies inefficiencies early and supports sustainable, future-ready operations across energy-intensive sectors such as manufacturing, commercial buildings, and infrastructure.
Customers have been able to reduce their energy costs by up to 15%.
To date, the business has raised over €2 million on a valuation of €10 million.
eMomentum
Founded in 2025 and based in Italy, eMomentum delivers an IoT solution focused on maximising performance and minimising waste in industrial and infrastructural operations. Their turnkey solution continuously monitors motor-driven systems, helping to reduce energy costs and cut CO₂ emissions through AI-powered predictive maintenance analyses backed by expert support.
Their first efforts are focused on pumping water. Their core target customers are high water usage companies in cement, paper and metals industries.
They are currently raising a target of €1.2 million, and had reached €700,000 by the time of the EU-Startups Summit.
Fintech
Xydra Labs
Founded in 2025 in Germany, Xydra Labs is a frontier applied AI lab that has bootstrapped itself, and been profitable, from day one.
It has developed an architecture that allows LLMs to reason over structured enterprise data while mathematically preserving its topology. Xydra Labs turn LLMs from purely linguistic systems into verifiable reasoning engines for real-world structures, and aim to scale across financial services, insurance, and beyond.
It operates within each client’s infrastructure, removing the need to export data elsewhere, and thus reducing risks of data being compromised. They also work using agentic systems rather than an app. In one outstanding case study, Xydra Labs achieved in 8 weeks what a bank had not been able to complete internally in 5 years.
Artificial Intelligence
Snoika
Founded in 2024 in Estonia, this B2B SaaS startup helps companies become visible, cited, and recommended in AI search engines. It creates content for clients, and then positions it in the right places, using proprietary technology.
Snoika is able to fine-tune AI models, and turn AI search into a predictable inbound growth channel. It analyses how brands appear in real AI-generated answers and systematically injects authoritative context. It does this until pre-set target visibility KPIs are reached.
Vecify
Founded in 2026 in Spain, Vecify is developing an AI engineering compliance platform that helps teams move faster without compromising safety. By connecting requirements, verification, and certification through continuous traceability, the Vecify platform reduces manual overhead, catches issues earlier, and helps teams stay audit-ready throughout product development.
This was one of the pitches delivered at a rapid pace to meet the event’s time constraint.
Warden Machinery
Founded in 2023 in Luxembourg, Warden Machinery is developing AI and computer vision to make critical processes in metals and mining more predictable and efficient. They seek to support the transition from intuition-driven operations to use of data by deploying industrial AI agents at critical decision points, helping to enable real-time control and loss prevention.
A key target sector for Warden Machinery is steelmaking, which is a largely non-digitalized industry sector using equipment built in the pre-digital era. Such equipment can be difficult to adapt to the requirements of contemporary data usage, and upgrades in infrastructure can create cybersecurity risks.
You can also look back at the EU-Startups Summit pitch competition finalists in 2025.
