Romanian Energy Startup Ringhel Won The Startup Europe Summit Pitching Competition

MY-GATEWAY, an EU funded project which aims to boost entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe, selected 17 innovative seed-stage startups to come and pitch at Startup Europe Summit. On 21st March all startups were called on stage to pitch in front of top-notch jury members:

• Ivo ŠPIGEL, co-founder Tech.eu
• Cristian MUNTEANU, Early Game Ventures
• Vojtech HORNA, Index Ventures
• Bogdan IORDACHE, Stripe
• Felix HUBER, GapMinder Venture Partners
• Cristian DASCALU, Buran Venture Capital
• Márton MEDVECZKY, Buran Venture Capital
• Milja LAAKSO, UNICEF

The announcement of the pitching competition winner was given during the official closing of the event. The announcement was chaired by the Mayor of Cluj-Napoca, Emil Boc, together with Maria-Manuela Catrina, Ministry of Communication and Information Society and Laura Mihaila, Head of Marketing at BCR.

Before announcing the winner, Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca, gave a few remarks on how grateful he is for having hosted the Startup Europe Summit in his city hence converting Cluj-Napoca the European capital of startups, even if just for a few days. He was fully aware of the importance that having hosted an event like this can have in the long term.

“If we connect each other and work together we can make our Europe stronger and more integrated. Especially in these times when more integration is needed; when our common future is Europe. We need more Europe, not less Europe. Let’s work together for a common future”, said Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca.

Following the Mayor’s remarks, Laura Mihaila, BCR, after stating how important the accumulation of capital is for Romania and highlighting how startups have the power to change the world, announced the winner of the competition.

Ringhel, represented by Mihai Darzan, the company’s CEO, was the startup selected by the jury. As Mihai summarized once on stage, Ringhel builds ERP and CRM software for power and gas markets, empowering companies to boost their business. Funny coincidence, the day before Mihai had eaten a fortune cookie which foreseen that ‘tomorrow a new adventure begins’.

After the announcement, Bogdan Ceobanu, Startup Europe policy officer at the European Commission, gave the final remarks. “Think about billions, not millions, diversity is not enough, we need to expand, we need to look beyond, we need to look not look for local heroes but for global champions”, Bogdan Ceobanu explained.

The pitching competition was celebrated in the frame of the Startup Europe Summit 2019, organized this year by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union as part of the Presidency programme in Cluj-Napoca.

About Startup Europe Summit

Startup Europe Summit is an event that aims to bring together all important key players of the startup ecosystem. By linking policymakers and startups who belong to the technology and innovation field, the summit aspires to create a better environment for entrepreneurs and the organizations that support entrepreneurship.

About MY-GATEWAY

MY-GATEWAY is an EU-funded project that unites different organizations to do the same with the country focus of Slovenia, Czech Republic, and Romania. MY-GATEWAY regularly organizes contests for startups to pitch at events. To learn about all the startups who took part in the competition, please click here.

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