Bitwala and Ledger Selected to Compete for Top Honors at Pioneers Festival
Pioneers Festival is the major event for future technologies and entrepreneurship where Fintech startups and entrepreneurs come together to present their latest innovations. It also is a celebration of entrepreneurship and future technology, where businesses investors, startups and entrepreneurs meet and form new alliances.
Every year the Pioneers Festival recognizes 500 startups in a competition called The Pioneers500, focusing on seven topics: Business & Productivity, Energy & Utilities, Financial Services, Life Sciences & Agriculture, Lifestyle & Entertainment, Materials & Manufacturing or Mobility & Transportation.
These seven topics then form the Battle of the Ecosystems. Out of the Pioneers500 a jury nominates 10 outstanding teams per ecosystem. The Challenge Day marks the end of the competition when the best startup from each ecosystem will pitch on the Arena Stage and compete to become the Pioneer of the Year.
Among the top 70 are two companies from the Blockchain space, Ledger and Bitwala, who will both be competing in the Financial Services ecosystem.
Bitwala is an payment and money transfer system based in the Netherlands that allows users make SEPA payments abroad using bitcoin..
“We are honored to be in the Pioneers70,” said Jörg von Minckwitz, CEO of Bitwala. “Pioneers Festival is one of the biggest startup festivals in Europe and therefore it is really important for us. The event could potentially change everything. The launch of our app in one month’s time and Pioneers looks really promising. We have a really great product and this will give us the chance to show our product to an audience.”
Ledger, a startup based in France, specializes in in security, smartcard, cryptography, and embedded hardware. It produces some of the most popular hardware wallets in the digital currency space.
“We are very honored to have been selected to participate in the Pioneers Festival,” said Eric Larcheveque, CEO of Ledger. “The timing for us is great as we are going to work on our next round of funding, and we’ll have the opportunity to meet with A-level investors.”
Besides being able to meet and engage relations with other startups and entrepreneurs, Pioneers also makes it possible for both top investors and promising startups find what they are looking for.
The competition begins on May 22 with the Mentors Day and closes with the Challenge Day on May 23. The main Festival event happens on May 24 and 25 in the historic Hofburg Imperial Palace, located right in the city centre of Vienna.
