At the recent EU Startups Summit in Malta, 15 European startups were selected from over 1,500 applicants to give a 3-minute investment pitch to a panel of four judges. At stake was a first prize valued at €755,000 of VC backing and other valuable benefits. After their three minute pitch, there were four minutes for questions from the judges. Some of the startups were actively seeking investment, others were less formally open to discussions from interested potential investors.
The 15 startups covered a wide spread of 9 business categories. The judges, and the audience, were going to have to stay alert and sharp. After coming through a strict selection process, each startup had access to mentoring and all the pitches were going to be good. Congratulations to all of them for reaching the final stage. Who knows, if they did not win the competition, maybe they would find other investors anyway?
The four judges (from left to right) were:
- Isabella Yamamoto, Principal at Visionaries Club
- Allard Luschinger, Managing Director at Techstars Amsterdam
- Fernando Peres Ferreira, Partner at Ventures.eu
- Angelo Burgarello, Managing Partner at Look AI Ventures14
The judging process was to give each of the startups a score out of 5 across 5 criteria. When the scores were added up, the winner was a Swedish cybersecurity firm named PryvX. Here is a run down of all the finalists.
Cybersecurity
PryvX
Founded in 2024 in Sweden, PryvX is a B2B startup that provides secure data collaboration solutions to enable organisations to share insights without sacrificing any data privacy. Telcos and banks don’t work closely enough to prevent fraudulent hacks, and then pursue hackers, due to the complexity of their respective privacy regulations, and the cost involved.
By using data clean rooms, advanced encryption, and federated learning, PryvX helps different industries to collaborate, improve fraud prevention and tackle cybersecurity while ensuring compliance with strict data regulations. PryvX also provides an environment in which industries can learn from each other.
One of the judges asked about the degree of difficulty involved in creating the technology. “The tech is easier than fitting compliance regulations,” was the answer.
Margit Arctaedius, a cyber technology specialist and co-founder of PryvX, also told the audience that within a year since starting Pryvx has signed a strategic partnership agreement with INDICO by Telkomsel, the digital subsidiary of Telkomsel, Indonesia’s largest telecom operator. This is on the back of the new Indonesian Personal Data Protection Law that went into effect on 17 October 2024. They also have pilots running with BT Group and 3 Sweden.
Margit added they were about to close an angel investment round, and were already planning a seed round in 2026. The first prize, which included monetary funding along with credits for Google Cloud, social media advertising, staff upskilling, video creation and team tools, comes at a very appropriate time.
IDCanopy
IDCanopy was founded in 2024 in Austria, and is transforming digital identity for regulated industries by streamlining onboarding, eSigning, and compliance. Its platform helps businesses verify customers and partners faster, cheaper, and more securely. This reduces fraud and regulatory friction.
IDCanopy serves the financial services, telecoms, and gaming sectors, ensuring seamless identity management in business sectors where trust is non-negotiable.
CEO Bernhard Reiterer, who delivered ID Canopy’s investment pitch, said they want to raise €2 million to accelerate growth.
Energytech
aenergi
Founded in 2023 and based in Greece, aenergi provides AI-driven Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS) solutions for SMBs to optimise energy consumption, reduce their costs, and enhance sustainability.
Founder and CEO Rafail Kasapis explained that 30% of energy is wasted. Their vendor-agnostic platform integrates with existing infrastructure to offer predictive analytics and real-time monitoring for better energy efficiency through easy-to-use plug-and-play technology.
aenergi uses installation companies to provide them with leads, and ultimately wants to be an energy producer itself. aenergi is a sub-brand from Apollo Green Solutions, and up to now the founders have bootstrapped all the way to securing their first paying customers. Now it is time to accelerate their growth.
Caplyzer
Founded in 2022, Caplyzer is a Swedish deep-tech startup with a patented super-capacitive electrolyser technology enabling safer, cheaper, and scalable green hydrogen production to accelerate the transition to net zero.
CEO Rutvika Acharya told us over 90% of hydrogen used in heavy industries is produced using fossil fuels, and demand for hydrogen is forecast to grow seven-fold by 2050. Caplyzer’s scalable membrane-free technology eliminates gas mixing risks, reduces costs by using earth-abundant materials, and efficiently integrates with renewable energy sources.
Caplyzer’s Management Team includes serial entrepreneurs, experienced in both raising investments and managing exits. They are currently raising €1 million to scale the business and run pilot tests.
Entropyst
Founded in 2024 in Scotland, Entropyst is a cleantech startup transforming hydrogen production and advanced materials with a single breakthrough solution. Their first-of-its-kind, multi-purpose catalytic reactor converts methane into clean hydrogen and high-value solid carbon nanotubes, enabling a greener, more sustainable supply chain across key hard-to-abate industries.
Their Founder and CEO, Dr Arash Badakhsh, gave quite a technical investment pitch, though he managed to say quite simply that they recover hydrogen from dirty chemicals without using oxygen, so there are no CO2 emissions.
Their funding to-date has included £378,000 in grants, mostly from Scottish Enterprise. The work is capital intensive, and they are aiming to generate revenue from pilots. Other rival technologies suffer from operating on a batch production basis, and when Entropyst is up and running it will be able to halve the costs of hydrogen production.
Medtech
arterioscope
Founded in 2025 in Austria, arterioscope is a spin-off from Graz University of Technology. Health costs associated with heart failure currently amount to an estimated $30.7 billion a year, whilst at the same time 60% of people lack access to fast treatment.
arterioscope is developing a cloud-based, highly efficient, and accurate diagnostic tool for the early detection, risk assessment, and monitoring of heart failure by leveraging ECG data with Machine Learning. Feedback of results after an analysis against a database of many other crowdsourced records is instant, and their AI algorithm is capable of interpreting measurement data from ECG and PPG tests with 97% accuracy.
Co-founder and CEO Hermann Moser told the panel the company’s target markets include heart problem sufferers, hospitals and cardiologists, and equipment makers including GE and Philips. arterioscope is currently raising a €1 million seed round, with an MVP due to be ready this year. Right now its eventual exit strategy is to sell to an equipment manufacturer or pharmaceutical company.
Maritime Tech
AlongRoute Data
Founded in 2022 and based in Greece, AlongRoute delivers ultra-precise, AI-powered marine weather forecasts for maritime software providers. Dr. Georgia Kalantzi, a very experienced oceanographer who is CEO and Chief Innovation Manager, told us maritime weather forecasts are 70% inaccurate. Rival data suppliers, she continued, are focusing on making their data more presentable and easier to use, without making it more accurate.
AlongRoute uses masses of crowdsourced data that already exists from satellites, buoys and open sources, and refines its weather predictions by integrating real-time Earth Observation data. Armed with more accurate data, ships can make safer voyages by avoiding the worst weather, and improve fuel efficiency and reduce emission levels.
AlongRoute enhances digital maritime optimisation to boost route performance by up to 130% and achieve up to 25% operational savings per voyage. This is good for both insurance and shipping companies.
AlongRoute seeks to raise €1 million to improve R&D, boost sales and marketing, and hire more resources to expand operations.
Mobility
AviSense.ai
AviSense.ai is transforming how vehicles communicate with drivers by developing AI-driven perception and cooperative localisation tech to enhance the safety, accuracy, and trust of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). It was founded in 2023 in Greece.
The cost of autonomous vehicles is highly reliant on the cost of sensors – and the sensors can cost more than the rest of the car! Some vehicle brands, including Tesla, it was suggested, use lighter and cheaper sensors that operate to lower levels of resolution.
By using data from diverse sensors AviSense.ai delivers real-time situational awareness and centimetre-level positioning while providing drivers with explainable information through extended reality (XR) interfaces.
Potential B2B opportunities exist with delivery companies and bus and coach builders, confirmed CEO Gerasimus Arvanitis.
Grasshopper Air Mobility
99% of businesses have no access to air freight delivery. Founded in 2023 in Spain, Grasshopper Air Mobility develops autonomous flight-drive cargo drones, such as the Grasshopper e350, which seamlessly integrates air and ground logistics. They take off and land like helicopters, and need just a low-tech helipad rather than a heliport. In the air they fly like aeroplanes, and once they have landed their wings retract and they can drive on roads.
Co-founder and CEO Jakob Saalfrank delivered their investment pitch, and said their fully automated solution enables faster and emission-free deliveries, optimizing supply chains with vertical take-off, autonomous driving, and automated loading and charging for high-speed, cost-efficient logistics.
Grasshopper Air Mobility has a 5-year plan to step up to 25%, 50%, and then 100% of a Minimum Viable Product by 2030. They are also developing cooling-capable containers, which provide significant medical benefits, plus defence use cases and passenger mobility.
The company is seeking €4.5 million to accelerate growth through the next 12 months.
Smart Cities/Infrastructure
LOKI
Founded in 2023 in Italy, LOKI collects road images and data using plug and play hardware installable on a vehicle. The system crowdsources data on poorly maintained roads, anonymizes it before cloud storage, and then AI detects and classifies road defects, road signage, and crosswalk accessibility issues. This enables them to prepare reports for local authority road managers to improve maintenance and prevent accidents.
Improved roads can reduce accidents and the associated costs by up to 80%, said Francesco Papa, Co-founder and CEO, who delivered the investment pitch.
Using the LOKI service costs approximately €50 per kilometre of road analysed. Its target markets are in the B2B sector and include local authorities, road maintenance contractors, and insurance companies.
Media and Information Services
DeepFile
Founded in 2022 in Germany, DeepFile is a secure AI-powered document search tool that enables users to save time by quickly locating and accessing information within their files, while at the same time ensuring data privacy and GDPR compliance.
Operating locally on a user’s device, it indexes documents and images, provides trustworthy AI-driven search results without hallucinations, and keeps data secure.
The business raised $6,470 of Accelerator/Incubator funding in June 2023. It was recently awarded a grant of €180,000, and it has already raised a further €230,000 of a target €300,000.
Robotics – Space Frontier
Deplotic
Founded in 2024 in Italy, Deplotic has developed IDRA, an inflatable and deployable robotic arm designed for in-orbit servicing. It performs satellite self-maintenance through inspection, repair, and upgrades. Their patented technology provides a large workspace, high payload capacity, and vibration damping, increasing the economic and environmental sustainability of space assets.
Co-founder Laura Salamina graduated with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Turin. While delivering Deplotic’s investment pitch, she said their robotic arm could work on any satellite – just as long as it was sent in to space with it in the first place. A great benefit of an inflatable and deployable robotic arm is that it is lighter and takes up far less space than a conventional device.
Deplotic raised €230,000 in 2024 and is currently raising €1 million to see it through the next 18 months, with an aim to launch in 2027.
Robotics – Agritech
GuardenAI
GuardenAI was founded in 2023 in Hungary. It develops autonomous laser-equipped robots that use AI, dual cameras, and ultra-fine laser tracking to detect and eliminate agricultural pests, one by one, without pesticides. Pesticides also kill bees and other positive contributors to the food chain, and the pests and bugs they are intended for develop greater resistance over time, eventually making them virtually immune.
Nandor Kelecsenyi, CEO & Founder, explained that GuardenAI’s eco-friendly, low-maintenance solution preserves biodiversity, reduces costs, and provides adaptive pest control that improves over time.
Their hardware is specifically designed and engineered to withstand outdoor farm use. Each robot will cost under €20,000, and should pay for itself in 4 to 5 years. The company is currently fundraising.
Designtech
Vyzn
vyzn is an AI-powered SaaS platform founded in 2024 in Switzerland. It transforms how construction projects are planned, making them more sustainable and more cost-efficient.
vyzn empowers developers, planners and architects to upload 3D models, run multiple analyses and simulations, and work collaboratively to identify the best possible solutions – whether for new constructions of renovations. The uploaded models are assessed against crowdsourced data held on other buildings.
Martino Tschudi, CEO at vyzn, delivered the investment pitch and outlined the company’s planned expansion to Germany, Scandinavia, and then the UK and France.
Proptech/Legaltech
Clearlea.se
Founded in 2023 in Germany, Clearlea.se is an AI-powered lease management platform that automates data maintenance, document organisation, and deadline tracking for both tenants and property operators alike. It integrates with systems like SAP and SharePoint, enabling users to manage leases efficiently, generate reports quickly, and reduce manual data entry.
Hieronymus Deutsch, CEO, explained the benefits of using AI rather than expensive professionals who upload documents not only more slowly but also less accurately. Clearlea.se’s AI extracts information with 96% accuracy.
The business is in the process of raising a seed round of €600,000 from angel investors and real estate professionals. Maybe equity crowdfunding could have a role to play at this level of investment?
They would all be keen competitors and are very welcome to enter BOLD Awards VII.
