For the third year in a row, Flashpoint organized SummerSaas, where venture capital firms and tech startups from Emerging Europe and Israel met in an online format and held pitch competitions and panel discussions on trending topics.
Over these 3 years we demonstrated impressive statistics:
VC CONFERENCE PANELS
SummerSaaS grew from a pure pitching competition back in 2020 to the VC conference — simultaneously with the pitch sessions we had a series of panel discussions on key market topics:
1. SaaS Venture Capital Trends and Insights
Speakers: Ivan Draganov (Dealroom)
2. Unbundling European and Israel angel investing
Moderator: Alex Konoplyasty (Flashpoint)
Panelists: Ran Tushia (Easy Payment Gateway), Jared Schrieber (Numerator), Bas Godska (Acrobator Ventures)
Deep dive into separating EU and Israeli tech angel investing ecosystem. What’s similar and what’s different in each ecosystem. Where do our super angels hunt and what does it can catch a unicorn?
3. International Financial Institutions in European Tech
Moderator: Michael Szalontay (Flashpoint)
Panelists: Małgorzata Walczak (PFR Ventures),Bakhrom Ibragimov (EBRD Venture Capital), Bjorn Tremmerie (European Investment Fund), Dénes Jobbágy (Széchenyi Alapok)
Understanding the current market conditions in the private markets, as the public capital markets continue on a downward trajectory, especially in the tech sector, how does this affect valuations, new investments, and supporting emerging funds in the EU tech space going forward?
4. Tech Cyprus: Exploring the Opportunities
Speakers: Christina Economou & Marilena Stylianou (Trident Trust)
5. Emerging Europe tech winning the world market
Moderator: Donatella Callegaris (Flashpoint)
Panelists: Adam Kostyal (Nasdaq), Sander Van de Rijdt (PlanRadar), Mikayel Vardanyan (Picsart)
Discussion around how technology companies from Emerging Europe & Israel are rapidly shaping the tech ecosystem and creating more Unicorns than ever before.
6. Why is Venture Debt under-represented in CEE
Moderator: Denis Mosolov (Flashpoint)
Panelists: Michael Schuster (Speedinvest), Rafał Celej (Kondracki Celej), Tomek Kasperski (Omnipack)
Why are we seeing less venture debt in CEE compared to the US or Western Europe? The challenges with providing venture debt to CEE incorporated companies and why CEE companies are more debt-averse than their western counterparts?
7. Will ESG increase my value?
Speaker: Jan Dauman (Ocean14 Capital)
8. How to ace a marketplace?
Moderator: Lukas Harustiak (Flashpoint)
Panelists: Stefan Batory (Booksy), Josh Crossick (Preply), Stas Matviyenko (Allset), Peter Bialo (DocPlanner)
Building a successful marketplace business is notoriously difficult. The panel is about the success stories of some of the best entrepreneurs on the market.
9. Digitalisation of Venture Capital
Moderator: Marton Medveczky (Flashpoint)
Panelists: Harry Thomas (Beringea), Shamillah Bankiya (Dawn Capital), Anton Ask Åström (EQT Ventures), Dr. Andre Retterath (Earlybird Venture Capital)
VCs usually use tools that already existed in the 90s: email, Excel, and Powerpoint. But as companies and technologies become more advanced and complex, shouldn’t VCs adapt as well? Modern VC firms are buying into this notion and are becoming technology companies of their own, integrating different tools into complex workflows and building their internal solutions. We will discuss what challenges are hidden under the hood of this process, what are the demands of VCs and what direction we should move forward.
10. Venture Scouting in Europe
Moderator: Dmitry Smirnov (Flashpoint)
Panelists: Dima Sarle (Earthians), Madeline Lawrence (Peak), Paul Zoicas (The Private Investment Group)
Venture scouting and angel programs have been on the rise with several prominent European VCs launching their programs in the last few years. Discussions about how these programs work across different markets and what are the ideal scouts profiles. How much money can you make as a scout and what are the compensation schemes options?
PITCH COMPETITION
The competition selects the most promising startups and provides a rare opportunity to pitch in front of hundreds of leading Seed and Series A investors. SummerSaas 2022 pitch competition covered six tracks:
-Vertical Saas (construction, real-estate, logistics, etc.)
-Horizontal Saas (productivity, sales, HR, support)
-Developer Tools (R&D productivity, product analytics, DevOps)
-Fintech
-New Economy (Gig economy, Web3).
-Ukrainian Tech Startups
The jury consisted of the top decision-makers (Managing Partners and Partners) from the top investment funds, such as SpeedInvest, Nasdaq, Plan Radar, Acrobat Ventures, PRF Ventures, Numerator, Earlybird, Cherry Ventures, OTB, Viola Growth, Day One Ventures, Credo Ventures, Launchub, Early Game Ventures, Lighthouse, BrightCap Ventures, FilRouge Ventures, Venture Friends, Market One Capital, Inovo Ventures, Portfolion, 3VC, Vendep, and many more.
PRIZES
Participants received $10k in Amazon Web Services credits, a comprehensive Inbound Marketing Course ($5k) from Hubspot’s top professionals, and a complete recruiting solution from Comeet. Furthermore, the Grand Final Winner won an individual coach session with the Flashpoint Investment Team, which will assist with positioning, pitching, and introductions to key VCs, as well as 2 tickets to Web Summit from Chili Piper.
Special appreciation to Sprinto and Trident Trust for supporting SummerSaas this year.
WINNERS
We received over 100 pitch decks, which our team of investors analyzed and chose the top 30 startups to pitch to the Partners from the leading pan-European and regional Venture Capital firms. Natalie Refuah (Viola Growth), Rexhi Dollaku (Base 10), Enis Hulli (500 Startups), as well as our Managing Partner Alexander Konoplyasty and Partner Anton Fedorov, were among the members of the jury this year to choose the season’s brightest startup.
Meet GorillaLink, the brightest SummerSaas 2022 startup from Tel-Aviv, Israel. GorillaLink is a Nadav Nachshon-founded startup that develops the next generation of IoT connectivity. They develop the next generation of edge2cloud solutions via satellites and extreme-NB communication technologies.
Judging panels and individual track winners:
VERTICAL SAAS:
Inventure — Ekaterina Gianelli , Partner
Portfolion — András Molnár ,CEO
LaunchHub — Todor Breshkov, Managing Partner
Credo — Ondrej Bartos, Managing Partner
Superhero Capital, Juha Ruohonen, Managing Partner
ClickClick Drive is the leading marketplace for driving schools in Europe. They create seamless access to mobility, including management software for driving schools, and a theory app for future drivers.
HORIZONTAL SAAS
Brightcap ventures — Elina Halatcheva, Managing Partner
FilRouge — Julien Coustaury, Managing Partner
Speedinvest — Michael Schuster, Partner
GR Capital — Max Filipov, General Partner
PitchMe creates a unique talent marketplace in the Recruitment landscape. It empowers candidates to demonstrate their real abilities and knowledge allowing anyone with the relevant skillset to apply for a position regardless of their professional background.
DEVELOPER TOOLS
EarlyGame — Dan Calugareanu, Partner
Inovo — Maciej Małysz, Partner
Presto — Premysl Rubes, Managing Partner
Dell Capital — Omri Green, Partner
Flyer One Ventures — Vitaly Laptenok, General Partner
Flatlogic Platform is an easy way to create and host full-stack web apps. The second winner of the Developer Tools track is Monosnap- a screenshot tool for Mac and PC, it takes screenshots, records videos, and uploads files directly to the cloud.
FINTECH
Market One Capital — Marcin Kurek, Managing Partner
Venture Friends — Apostolos Apostolakis, Founding Partner
Oktogon VC — Gyula Feher, Managing Partner
OTB — Karol Szubstarski, Investment Director
UNIQA Ventures — Andreas Nemeth, Managing Partner
BaiaNet is the first crowd-sourced collaborative commerce platform designed exclusively for emerging markets and informal economies. BaiaNet removes barriers of entry with simple messaging and transaction tools that work on any connected device.
NEW ECONOMY
3VC — Eva Arh, Partner
DayOne — Zsolt Weiszbart, Partner
Lighthouse — Michal Zalesak, Partner
Cherry Ventures — Filip Dames, Founding Partner
GorillaLink is a plug-and-play PaaS solution that seamlessly enables the connectivity of smart devices across multiple satellite networks providing 100% global coverage.
TECH STARTUPS OPERATING IN UKRAINE
Next Road Ventures — Ewa Chronowska, Partner
Vendep — Sami Ahvenniemi, General Partner
SMOK VC — Borys Musielak, Managing Partner
Black Pearls VC — Wojciech Drewczyński, Partner
Getpin is an expert in local marketing for small and large businesses, it provides universal tool to manage your business’s online presence regardless of the number of outlets.
We are thankful to our sponsors
Trident Trust
Sprinto
Chili Piper
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Comeet
HubSpot
Thank you to everyone who took part in SummerSaaS 2022 and we would love to see you next year!
Kind regards,
Flashpoint Team
P.S. If you are a tech entrepreneur who missed out on SummerSaaS but would still like to pitch to Flashpoint, please visit flashpointvc.com/contact to get in touch with us.
