PITCH 2014- Europe's largest startup competition is back!

Hold on to your metaphorical (or indeed literal) hats, Europe's largest Startup competition is back and this year it promises to be bigger and better than ever.

PITCH, which takes place annually as part of Dublin’s Web Summit (the world's fastest growing tech conference) has found an influential new backer in the form of soft drink giant Coca-Cola, which promises to expand the competitions reach even further and uncover the worlds most innovative startups.

In what promises to be an exciting display of innovation 200 Startups will battle it out in front of prestigious judges in the hope of being crowned one of the 2014 winners. Unlike in previous years, this time round the competition will be divided into 2 ‘sections’ one for seed companies and one for early-stage companies, which will result in a pair of overall winners.

So far PITCH has attracted judges who are truly giants of the tech world including Aaron Levie, founder of Box, Phil Libin of Evernote, Michael Birch of Monkey Inferno, Kevin Rose of Google Ventures, Shakil Khan of Spotify and Jawed Karim, founder of YouTube. Amongst the Judges this year will be Guy Wollaert, Coca-Cola’s chief technical and innovation officer, and David Butler, vice president of innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as Emmanuel Seuge, vice president of global alliances and ventures.

PITCH is open to any startup (anywhere in the world) that has received under $3 million in funding to date and has not had a significant change in business model over the past 3 years. From all those who apply the top 200 will invited to battle it our at web summit over the course of 3 days (4th - 6th November) and be crowned of the the winners.

It's an incredibly prestigious accolade to hold with the 2012 winners SmartThings (innovators in the 'connected home') just last week being acquired by Samsung for $200m.

A Global Partner

Web Summit and coca-cola might seem at first to be a somewhat incongruous coupling, but the companies chief technical and innovation officer Guy Wollaert explains;

“The world is changing all around us, and we therefore must change with the world to continue to thrive as a business. We’re already active in the global startup community through a number of business platforms but we’re always seeking new ways to continue to push the boundaries and stay at the edge of innovation. The Summit and its PITCH competition is the best place to be in this space, and we’re excited to be a part of this year’s event.”

Two winning businesses will benefit from a number of prizes including a cash injection from coca-cola as well as a trip to the company’s headquarters in Atlanta to meet with its executives for strategy talks and how best to utilize the global reach and enormous range of capabilities of coca-cola to the benefit of their startups.

The closing date for entries is the 19th of Sept so pop yourself over to the application page to be in with a chance to win!

If you are interested in Web Summit Dublin then be sure to follow us on twitter and keep an eye on our culture page as we might just be giving away free tickets to a few lucky self starters in the near furture...