Spendbase.co, a startup that develops a platform for optimizing corporate subscriptions to SaaS services, has won the Ukrainian stage of the Startup World Cup 2024.
Now Spendbase will represent Ukraine at the global grand finals, which will take place on October 2-4, 2024 in San Francisco.
This year, the Ukrainian stage of the Startup World Cup was organized by the EIT Community RIS Hub in Ukraine and Sigma Software Labs with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation. The regional competition was divided into two tracks. Established startups went straight to the final round of the competition, while Rising Stars went through the Unicorn acceleration program from Sigma Software Labs.
The organizers received 126 applications from Ukrainian startups. The top 15 teams - nine from the Unicorn track and six Established Startups - took part in the Ukrainian final. In the finals, they presented their pitches to the jury:
- Daria Yanieva - Investment Director at Sigma Software Labs;
- Dmitro Vartanian - CFO at Sigma Software, General Managing Partner at SID Venture Partners;
- Kateryna Degtyar – Vacuum Deep Tech Acceleration Program Director;
- Roman Cherepakha – Investment Director at Horizon Capital;
- Natalia Petrova – CEO StrategEast;
- Mykhailo Khaletskyi - founder of the Polish-Ukrainian Startup Bridge.
In addition to Spendbase, awards were also given to the three teams that performed best at the Unicorn track demo day on August 29. The prizes went to:
- 1st place and $3000 - PEONY, disposable eco-pads that decompose in water;
- 2nd place and $1000 - Wild.Codes, an innovative marketplace for finding trusted remote developers;
- 3rd place and $1000 - CoSupport AI - a solution that improves customer support and provides businesses with useful data-driven insights.
As a reminder, registration of technology projects for the Startup World Cup started in July. The main prize of the world's largest pitch competition for startups is $1 million.