The LIS Pitch Competition 2018 was announced alongside the rules and what the winner is taking home. The rules are simple: you have 3 minutes to pitch and 5 minutes of Q&A. The winner is taking home 1000€ (courtesy of Beta-i), two tickets for SingularityU Summit (courtesy of the José de Mello Group) and access to Grow by José de Mello Group (which includes a bunch of treats like access to a specialized mentors network, access to the Group’s companies and possible later stage funding).
Despite this being no small thing it’s important to say that pitching in front of startup-hungry investors comes with a whole lot of perks, like joining Techstars Paris, for example. Proof of that is Snapswap. They learned about the Pitch Competition when they were at SIBS Pay Forward and since they were actively exploring the Portuguese market at the time they thought it would be a great platform to showcase their solution.
Besides attracting a lot of interest during their pitch they also had a booth and ended up making valuable contacts with Portuguese financial institutions. According to Iaroslav Kovshikov, the Project Coordinator at Snapwap, “Denis (CEO) got challenging and smart questions during Q&A session”, what allowed them to explain well their solution and that happened because “the jury was well selected”.
Following that, Denis ended up having a series of meetings with Bertier Luyt, Managing Director at Techstar Paris – who’s going to be attending LIS again this year – the first one during Lisbon Investment Summit 17 and then things went from there.
When asked if LIS played an important role in the course of their startup’s life, Iaroslav said “definitely! Mainly because we were selected to Techstars Paris and also we obtained some prospects with whom we’re still discussing further cooperation with”.
Even though Snapswap is not attending this year’s summit due to a tight schedule, they say they “keep warm memories of LIS and Lisbon”, adding that they consider to come back in a few years to showcase their new products and meet other startups.
Applications close on April 30 and we’re waiting for yours. Like we’ll always be waiting for Snapswap return with open arms.