Over 600,000 EUR in prizes was awarded to Baltic startups at the flagship TechChill event on February 7, 2025 in Riga, Latvia. The 10,000 EUR no-strings-attacehd TechChill community prize was awarded to Adsmom, who were also given a 6 months membership at Startup House Riga and Bourzma merchandise. The 250,000 EUR investment prize from BADideas.fund went to THEO Growth,a 100,000 EUR investment from Depo Ventures was awarded to Protium Tech, 100,000 EUR investment from FIRSTPICK went to THEO Growth.
Additional prizes included:
- 50,000 EUR investment from LatBAN – Adsmom and Tournated
- Scholarship to Draper University in SIlicon Valley – MoonHealth, Protium Tech, Submerge Baltic
- Free EIC Grant writing from GSF Innovations team – Submerger Baltic
- Fast-track to Traction Builder 2.0, b2b accelerator with Snap Inc. – Box Box
- 60,000 EUr INVESTMENT FROM beamline accelerator – Protium Tech
This year the Fifty Founders Battle was open to startups from the Baltic states – Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Altogether there were 167 applicants (46% – Latvia, 22% – Lithuania, 32% – Estonia) of which 50 semi-finalists were selected to pitch on Day 1 of TechChill. This was narrowed down to the top 10 startups, finalists in the Fifty Founders Battle.
The ten finalists included:
- Adsmom (Latvia) – B2B SaaS platform that mines global ad libraries to drive better ad performance.
- GaltTec (Estonia) – portable fuel cell technology for a sustainable future.
- Hospilly (Latvia) – a platform for hospitals to optimize nurse workflow and patient communication with AI and process automation.
- Hypershadow (Estonia) – embedded AI copilot for vertical SaaS.
- Muun Health (Estonia) – early-stage medical device company focusing on tackling infertility.
- Protium Tech (Latvia) – high-efficiency electrolysers for lower hydrogen production costs.
- SelectZero (Estonia) – data observability platform for data-driven organizations.
- SUBmerge Baltic (Latvia) – autonomous underwater drones for water safety and security.
- Tournated (Latvia) – Shopify for sports management. Launch your own platform to manage sports organizations.
- THEO Growth (Latvia) – the world’s 1st plug & play business context management Platform for SMEs.
The jury was made up of [žūrijas locekļu vārdi].Kristaps Prūsis, Founding Partner of Outlast Fund, Ben Leblois, General Partner at BADideas Fund, Arta Beitāne, Partner at Buildit, Andra Bagdonaite, Partner at FIRSTPICK, Kasparas Jurgelionis, Managing Partner at Iron Wolf Capita
“One of the criteria for the winners was pitch presentation, and unanimously the Adsmom team stood out. We instantly understood their product, they have great traction, it was an easy decision. GalTec was our runner up, they’re tapping into a market in which, if they succeed, it will be revolutionary.” – Arta Beitāne, Partner at Buildit
TechChill was attended by 2000+ participants, more than 100 VC funds, and over 280 investors.
“This year we curated TechChill to be of value to our community which is, first and foremost, Baltic founders. Not only through the stage sessions, which were designed to bring practical value to everyday startup life, but also through the Fifty Founders Battle, which highlighted the best and brightest Baltic startup. This is an absolute success, which we see through our investors’ enthusiasm for their selected prize winners.” – Annija Mežgaile, CEO of TechChill
Previous TechChill Fifty Founders Battle winners include Baltic success stories Infogr.am (acquired by Prezi), Nordigen (acquired by Go Cardless), TrackDuck, Edurio, Anatomy Next (now Exonicus), Precision Navigation Systems, Longenesis, Vocal Image App, and more.
About TechChill
TechChill is a startup community non-profit that hosts the largest tech event in Latvia, and is now expanding its scope to include Italy. Having grown from a small grassroots movement of like-minded tech enthusiasts, TechChill celebrates the best of the startup community by annually bringing together thousands of attendees, including fastest-growing startups, most innovative corporations and speakers, investors active in the region and talented tech enthusiasts.
source: TechChill
