Benelux Venture Forum Seeks Top 40 Early Stage Companies to Pitch Venture Capital Firms in Leuven

On June 18, 2014, the most promising entrepreneurs will be showcasing their business to an audience of Benelux and international strategic partners, venture capital and corporate investors

By Robert Hoskins

The European Venture contest is seeking companies that want to raise investment capital.  Contestants can apply for one of the 40 pitching slots at the 14th annual Benelux Venture Forum held on the 18th of June in Leuven 2014. High-tech companies from across the technology sectors of Life Sciences, Clean Tech and Information Technologies are invited to apply for a free position on stage at the Forum.

Those selected will have the chance to present in 8 minutes their company and its unique strengths and gain the opportunity to network with investors and large corporate groups investing in their sector. In addition to their moment on stage, the Forum offers them the opportunity to request personalized meetings with investors of their choice as well as free access to the presentation dry-run (June 17), where they will be coached to critically improve their presentation. Each company presentation will be evaluated by a strong Investor Jury, consisting of venture capital investors and relevant senior corporate venturing & innovation people.

The jury, which totals over 40 members, includes people from Aster Capital, BASF, Capricorn Venture Partners, DOW, DSM, Finindus, Forbion, Gilde Healthcare, GIMV, Idinvest, Intel Capital, KLM, Newion Investments, PHS Fund, PMV, Prime Ventures, Oracle, Robert Bosch, Sofinnova Partners, Start Green and Time Equity Partners.

The full list of Jury members is listed on the event website. Next to the presentations by the presenting companies, the full-day program of the Benelux Venture Forum will feature panels on topics such as ‘Successful Growth & Exits’ and ‘Widening access to capital for entrepreneurs’ and features workshops on how to raise capital and work with different investors types, looking at corporate groups, business angels & family investors, accelerators and crowdfunding platforms and loan & guarantee facilities.

The program features many top speakers such as Prof. Dr. Herman Daems (BNP Paribas Fortis, KU Leuven, BARCO), Jurgen Ingels (Clear2Pay), Wim de Waele (iMinds) & Jos Peeters (Capricorn Venture Partners). Companies interested in applying for a presentation slot should register their company and create a profile on e-unlimited.com/bvf before April 27th.

The 10 best received companies at the Benelux Venture Forum will be among the top companies in the annual European Venture Contest, a pan-European that features over 500 companies each year. These Award winners received a guaranteed place on stage at the European Venture Summit that takes place in December in Dusseldorf. As the final event of the annual European Venture Contest, the Summit is one of Europe’s largest gathering points for high-tech entrepreneurs seeking investment capital and features over 120 award-winning companies and 100+ venture capital investors.

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