Bluebird Mountain Wins Hamburg’s UniPitch 2017

Practice, practice, practice – this is one tip experienced founders always give for delivering a great pitch. And that is what UniPitch Hamburg is all about. Pitching under “real circumstances” – on a stage, with a jury, and an audience.

After the welcome speech by Christian Salzmann, Executive Director at Startup Dock, and the two moderators Benjamin and Giulio, Consultants at Startup Dock, the day started off with a keynote held by Nico Lumma, Managing Partner at Next Media Accelerator. His stance? Pitching is easy, you just have to know how it’s done. In his keynote, he lay out the frameworks of pitching, dos & donts, as well as one surprising element: no videos.

5 Finalists For The UniPitch Challenge

Lucky for some of the finalists that used videos in their pitch, Lumma wasn’t one of the jurors. After the successful keynote, the UniPitch Challenge was held – the only pitch challenge in which teams are allowed to pitch twice. Once before the coaching sessions with mentors and once afterward. In total, five out of twelve startups made it into the final round: Bluebird Mountain, Breeze, CiDO, #Flugilo and Supyrb.

Konstantin from Bluebird Mountain started off and pitched PowderBuddy, a quadrocopter for deep snow lovers designed to save lives in the event of an avalanche.

Daniel from Breeze showcased images of global smog, positioning his startup as a solution for air pollution through miniature air quality sensors including a cloud solution.

Felix from CiDO disclosed what “Come in and Drop Off” is all about: a secure, electronic entry system for package deliverers. With its solution, the startup aims at failed deliveries, causing a problem for consumers and logistics companies.

Andrew and Alex from #Flugilo offer a solution for the damage of planes that occur during parking or storing. Their parking guidance system plans to cut costs for airline companies.

Lastly, Johannes from Supyrb introduced their app-based 3D game of marbles, Marbloid.

Pitch Coaching Sessions For Round 2

All startups were coached by experienced mentors and pitch coaches, including Ulrich Britting, CEO Best Audit, Mischa Krause, Senior Project Manager CatCap, Slaven Marinovic, Co-Founder Savvy Partners & Workworldwide, Veronika Reichboth, Manager nextMedia Hamburg and Sanja Stankovic, Co-Founder Hamburg Startups and Head of Corporate Communications DS Produkte.

During these sessions, startups could choose from five workshops. 20scoops CFO Holger Jürgens shed light on how to convince investors; Ludwig Linnekogel from kameraspiel.de explained what to take care of when producing a video (act naturally!) and the sessions held by Loana Junge (Spryker), Bianca Praetorius, and Oliver Welling (Linqfish) gave insights into different aspects of pitching and founding.

For the first time, a “pitching by example” session was held under the motto “learn from the best”. Niklas Heinen, CEO odernichtoderdoch, Marie-Lene Armingeon, Co-Founder SofaConcerts, and Hauke Windmüller, Co-Founder Familonet, were the three experienced entrepreneurs that pitched their startups and answered questions during a Q&A afterward.

Pitch Challenge Winner: Bluebird Mountain; Public Voting Winner: CiDo

During the second round, the effects of the coaching became evident: all finalists could top their previous presentations – and the audience audibly rewarded the progress of the teams. The winners were determined via online voting – Bluebird Mountain! The team of four, coached by Sanja, was awarded the “Golden Mic” along with a cash prize of 500€ as well as material prizes. Material prizes were also given to all finalists for their high-quality presentations.

The winners of the “Best Prototype 2017”, determined via public voting, were CiDo.

This year, the pitch was hosted by DESY, Hamburg Innovation, HITeC, HAW Hamburg, Startup Dock, Technical University of Hamburg and the University of Hamburg.

To stay updated about the UniPitch 2018, follow Startup Dock on Facebook.

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