DigitalMara attended the Latitude59 2023 event, which took place May 24-26 in Tallin, Estonia. The core theme of this year’s conference was how to stay resilient in the face of economic, energy, climate and humanitarian challenges, how to see opportunities and find inspiration. The three days were full of open discussion, panel sessions and workshops and networking, and gathered startups, investors, experts and people of all kinds in the digital world. We’ve put together some impressions and results from this event.
The main focus of the conference was startups. Experts-investors held educational sessions about:
- The strengths and weaknesses of each funding model.
- Trends and insights of Venture Capital funding for tech startups, including what industries are receiving the most investment and what types of startups are the most attractive to corporate VC.
- The mergers and acquisitions (M&A) approach, considered one of the ways to scale up and accelerate growth, expand capabilities and teams.
- The impact of investing, what it means to investors and how to measure it. And its connection to charity.
STADIEM (accelerator program for media in Europe), the European Innovation Council, Germany Trade and Invest, Italian Trade and Investment agency, and representatives of various VC firms and accelerators talked about their programs and opportunities for startups and market insights.
As a side event, a Mastercard Lighthouse competition was held. Fintech and Impact tech startups from the Nordic and Baltic regions each performed a 3-minute pitch in hopes of getting into the grand finale and competing for several awards from Mastercard.
In the field of technology, the following questions were discussed:
- Relationships between society and technologies, how digitalization impacts society, including its benefits and challenges. The need for collective intelligence to drive innovation, growth and public good.
- The concept of Generative AI, its possibilities and applications. And also, what are the social and ethical consequences of increased adoption for society?
- Sustainable solutions, including climate action solutions and food technologies: how to reduce the carbon footprint, new types of farming, and alternative ingredients for food production.
- Digital therapeutics — evidence-based, clinically evaluated software applications that deliver medical interventions directly to patients to treat a broad spectrum of diseases and disorders.
The winners of L59 Pitch Competition 2023
In collaboration with the Estonian Business Angels Network, EstBAN, and TeraVC, Latitude59 annually conducts a Pitch Competition for the main money prize and other prizes from partners. Some 42 startups out of almost 400 passed to the open round of online pre-finals. Then, after several more stages, 6 finalists were selected. They pitched during the event in front of the audience.
The first prize was shared among three startups:
- Flowstep, a library of UX/UI recordings and screenshots to help in product design, got an investment of 600 000 euros.
- Cino, a virtual card that allows you to split bills and pay only your share, won 500 000 euros.
- ÄIO Tech, a biotechnology for innovative fats and oils from industrial side streams to replace palm oil, animal fats and other non-sustainable oils, was awarded with 150 000 euros.
DigitalMara
Latitude59 was a great opportunity to showcase our expertise and services to potential clients and partners and make valuable connections. Maria Zhurba, our technology partnerships manager, offered her impressions of Latitude59 2023.
“The event created ideal conditions for networking with the Brella app. These 3 days were intense but amazing. I had numerous working meetings. It was great to be a part of this startup world, to make new business relationships and learn about the most recent trends and advancements,” she said.
Some key things Maria noted:
- A wide international pool of participants, including people from Great Britain, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. This means that Latitude59 has a recognized international status and authority.
- The Nordic and Baltic regions are paying more and more attention to DeepTech. Funds are being invested into R&D, and universities and students are motivated to try to create tech startups.
- A large number of startups at the event are creating applications for socially significant fields such as healthcare, education and climate.
Maria attended all three days of the event. They were intense and full of networking sessions. She had meetings with startup founders and investors, discussing their software products and disruptive ideas, and looking for ways Digitalmara could assist them. Startups are becoming more conscious about funding and how budgets are spent. Investors want to not only listen to ideas, but also see a prototype, MVP or a ready product. This is the point where a reliable software development partner can help. It’s important to build an efficient software delivery process that addresses the interests of both startups and investors.
