DigitalMara attended the sTARTUp Day 2023 event held in Tartu, Estonia, from March 15 to March 17. The three-day business gathering brought together startup teams, investors, developers, marketers and others. Thousands of participants came to Tartu to learn, grow, and connect. We’ve put together some impressions and results from this event.
The days were filled with insightful talks, engaging workshops, networking opportunities and brilliant pitching sessions. Startups and companies were showcased from sectors such as AI, Deep Tech, Green Energy, Cloud Computing, FinTech, Health Tech, AgriTech, Ed-Tech, Transportation and Hoteling. Seminars were devoted to startups and technologies. Successful companies such as Bolt shared their experience, discussing growth strategies and software development. Microsoft and Google Cloud conducted technical seminars on accessibility testing and operating in the cloud. Here are some highlights:
- Fundraising
Practical insights and tips on negotiating fundraising documents were provided by lawyers and experienced founders, who spoke about the most common models startups use for fundraising and explained how to choose the one that corresponds to the needs of both founders and investors. Venture fund experts also shared their expectations for 2023.
- Marketing
Experienced marketing agencies provided practical tips and ideas on innovative marketing strategies, including using AR and Web3. Particular attention was given to the importance of PR for startups — global media reach, storytelling and growth through PR channels.
- Healthcare
This panel discussed questions related to the health tech market, particularly technologies that facilitate the shift to a patient-centric approach, aka predictive analytics, personalized medicine, and remote monitoring. Panelists responded to questions about the next steps in digitalization of healthcare, and which partners would be better to choose for the health and biotech sector to succeed. The Spanish and Portuguese health tech markets were mentioned.
- Cleantech
Experts in green innovations explained what cleantech actually is, its potential, technologies, and a lot of details about startups in this sector.
The winners of sTARTUp Pitching 2023
This year, 271 teams participated in the competition, competing for investments from EstBAN, Baltic Sandbox Ventures and Cocoon Ventures.
- First place and €200k went to Paul-Tech, a startup developing a soil station that lets farmers monitor plant growth conditions in real time.
- Second place and €125k was awarded to the biotech startup Gearbox Biosciences, which provides a novel antibiotic-free protein production technology.
- Third place and €100k went to MX Labs, which is developing a camera-based holistic health assessment for the early detection and prevention of chronic diseases.
- Hotelbuddy, Menken Trials, Audio Cat startups were also awarded.
DigitalMara
The event 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 sTARTUp Day 2023.
“The whole event is based on networking, which allows participants to build useful business connections and find what suits their current business interests,” she said.
Maria had a chance to communicate with many startup founders and investors, highlighting the following ideas:
“The essential pain point for startups is finding investors who will be interested in funding their product. The chances are much higher for those startups that not only pitch their ideas to investors, but also present a prototype, MVP or a ready product. That is when they face an obstacle – how to develop a good software product matching their needs and budget. The best solution is cooperating with a reliable software development partner that will build an effective software delivery process and consider the interests of both startups and investors.”
Maria attended all three days of the event. The first day was built around workshops related to various topics, for example, “How to increase the proportion of women in the IT field in Estonia.” Maria took an active part in the discussion, which generated various ideas. Another highlight of the first day was the networking event “From 0 to 100 product journey,” by Bolt, in which participants had a chance to exchange information about their companies. Maria had a lot of conversations with participants regarding their software development interests and Digitalmara’s experience.
During the two main days of sTARTUp Day, you could find Digitalmara at the matchmaking area, where our representative, Maria, had meetings with startup founders and investors, discussing their apps and platforms and looking for ways Digitalmara could be of help. In our opinion, the Brella app was an amazing choice for organizing meetings. It allowed you to customize your schedule and chat with the participants, which created extra convenience. By the way, Maria and Digitalmara were recommended by Brella as among the “Top Innovation Picks for You.”
