News
Winners of Europe's Digital Top50 Awards announced
• DT50 Winners 2019 are Bestmile (‘B2B’), Raisin (‘B2C’), nPlan (‘Early Stage’) and citizenlab (‘Social Impact’) as well as PlanA (‘new Sustainability Award’)• Google, McKinsey, Rocket Internet and Freshfields have joined forces with TechCrunch to reward Europe’s most promising start-ups
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (‘Freshfields’), Google, McKinsey and Rocket Internet announced this year's winner of the Digital Top50 Awards (‘DT50s’) at the TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin Conference. The awards recognise Europe’s top entrepreneurial talent and endorse the continent’s thriving tech scene. INSEAD, Ashoka, RWTH Aachen and TechCrunch supported as strategic partners. More than 600 early stage and digital firms applied across four categories: B2B, B2C, Social Impact and Early Stage.
The winners are:
• Best B2B Start-up: Bestmile. The Swiss-based company offers a fleet orchestration platform for mobility providers. The platform enables them to deploy, manage and optimize autonomous as well as human driven vehicle fleets. (www.bestmile.com)
• Best B2C Start-up: Raisin. Germany's Raisin has developed an investment marketplace for retail investors to compare interest rates and put savings throughout Europe with banks looking to expand their deposit reach. (www.raisin.com)
• Best Early Stage Start-up: nPlan. Based on AI and machine learning tools, the UK start-up provides schedule certainty for projects, by highlighting risk and suggesting optimal execution paths. (www.nplan.io)
• Best Social Impact Start-up: citizenlab. Still a small team in Brussels, it offers a citizen engagement platform for local governments in order to facilitate to reach more citizens, manage their ideas efficiently, and make decisions based on real-time data. (www.citizenlab.co)
• For the first time, a special ‘Sustainability Award’ was given to PlanA. The Berlin-based firm is one of the first data- and community-driven platforms in the fight against climate change. It aims to help businesses with carbon offsetting, environmental threat analysis and sustainability action planning. (plana.earth)
All winners will receive top-class consulting services from the sponsors, executive networking opportunities and further benefits. The winners of the ‘Early Stage’ and ‘Social Impact’ categories are awarded an additional €25,000 in cash each.
“Congratulations to all of these highly impressive winners. The Digital Top50 Awards are testament to how thriving and diverse Europe's start-up and tech community is. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be joining Google, McKinsey and Rocket Internet in supporting the sector in general and in particular the DT50 winners on their further journey,” said Lars Meyer, member of the jury and partner at Freshfields.
“A very positive trend for this year’s DT50 is that the share of female founders is higher than ever. While mixed or all-female teams in European tech start-ups still sit at a measly seven per cent, the share within the DT50 field is close to 30 per cent. That is good news, but we still have a long way to go. Embracing the differences and diversity more progressively can be a strong differentiator in the global competition,” said Karel Dörner, founding member of the DT50 awards and Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company.
“The DT50 awards aim to recognise and support a new generation of entrepreneurs. I am thrilled that our five winners embody diverse teams looking to solve some of Europe’s most pressing issues. We look forward to seeing how we can help them thrive and succeed using the best of Google,” commented Sandra Fruendt, founding member of the DT50 awards and Marketing Director Google.
“I would like to congratulate all 600+ applicants for their hard work in developing solutions to some of the most pressing challenges faced by business and society today. The level of talent that has come together here in Berlin, representing all of Europe, is truly inspiring. We now look forward to supporting the winning teams over the coming months,” added Alexander Kudlich, Executive Board Member at Rocket Internet.
ENDS
Notes to the editors
About Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is a global law firm with a long-standing track record of successfully supporting the world's leading national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments on ground-breaking and business-critical mandates. Our 2,800 plus lawyers deliver results worldwide through our own offices and alongside leading local firms. Our commitment, local and multi-national expertise and business know-how means our clients rely on us when it matters most.
About the DT50
The full list of finalists can be found here: https://www.dt50.org/finalists-2019
The selected Top50 finalists come mainly from Central and Western Europe, spanning sectors as diverse as health and biotech, energy and environment, and CRM/enterprise. Most of the businesses focus on AI, SaaS, marketplaces and platforms; and around one-third were founded by females.
Google, McKinsey and Rocket Internet have joined forces to create the Digital Top 50 Awards to reward and celebrate the bold and trailblazing work of tomorrow’s top entrepreneurs, together with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. Created under the patronage of Carlos Moedas, former European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, the awards are aimed at bolstering Europe’s thriving tech scene and recognising the continent’s most promising start-ups. Accompanied by the knowledge and resources of academic and research partners such as INSEAD, Ashoka and RWTH Aachen University, the DT50 brings together a wealth of expertise to support Europe’s digital ecosystem.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-top-50/
https://www.facebook.com/pg/digitaltop50/
https://twitter.com/digitaltop50