The tenth and final city pitch of this year’s #believeinyourself Challenge, Austria’s largest startup competition, will take place in Carinthia. In Klagenfurt, seven young companies from all over Austria will compete in the Green Mobility & Sustainability category on Wednesday, May 10th.
Register here to be a spectator at the event. The winning startup will then compete in Vienna on May 24 against the winners of the other city pitches for the title “Startup of the Year 2023”. The winning teams of the city pitches will also receive a cash prize of EUR 1,000 from Erste Bank and Sparkasse as well as two annual licenses for wîse up, the digital platform for training and further education of the Austrian Chambers of Commerce. wîse up offers more than 15,000 innovative learning content in the form of videos, interactive formats, texts and webinars that are suitable for EPU, startups, SMEs and corporates.
The nominated startups
ELOOP
The Viennese startup ELOOP has already established itself strongly in recent years with its e-car sharing service. Intelligent pricing should make it possible for customers to rent an e-car for any period of time and always pay exactly the right tariff. The ELOOP fleet consists of the two Tesla vehicles Model 3 and Model Y. With the flexible service, the startup wants to make mobility in cities more sustainable.
Repark
Repark is a young company from Vienna, whose platform should make it possible to rent private and commercial parking spaces temporarily and permanently. By reducing the time it takes drivers to search for parking spaces, CO2 emissions are expected to fall sharply. Repark also offers a specially developed access module for garages. This should be installed on the garage door within a few hours and be immediately ready for use. Users can thus open the garage via mobile app.
GATE Space
The startup GATE Space is active in space, which emerged as a spin-off from the Vienna University of Technology and its space team. The start-up company develops flexible chemical propulsion solutions for satellites in order to increase their mobility in space.
EOOS NEXT
A three-wheeled e-bike with a 3D-printed chassis made of recycled plastic: This is what the Viennese startup EOOS NEXT is offering. This means of transport should be particularly sustainable because the production takes place locally and in a resource-saving manner. Two people have space on the e-bike. At the same time, there is a separate luggage compartment at the front. This should make it possible, for example, to make deliveries in an environmentally friendly manner.
Bike Gorillaz
Bike Gorillaz from Vienna offer customers e-bikes for a monthly subscription price. The bikes are individually adapted, the young company offers trekking e-bikes, mountain e-bikes and e-bikes for children. The insurance included in the price also covers all damage not caused intentionally as well as theft (without excess).
Imhotep.Industries
The Upper Austrian startup Imhotep.Industries has set itself the goal of “harvesting” drinking water from the air. For this purpose, the young company has developed an atmospheric water generator called “PHANTOR”, which condenses water from the ambient air. This should produce up to 10,000 liters of pure drinking water every day. This should make it possible to better supply regions where water is scarce. A prototype of the generator is currently undergoing a long-term test in Dubai.
Circle One
The Viennese startup Circle One wants to help the area of packaging in e-commerce to become more sustainable. To this end, the young company is working on linking conventional shipping packaging to a reusable system in order to produce less disposable waste.
The jury in Klagenfurt
The startups compete again in front of a top-class jury. This decides which start-up enters the final of the #believeinyourself challenge. The jury members are:
1,000 euros await the City Pitch winner and, of course, advancement to the final! There, the prize money of 10,000 euros and a PR package worth 10,000 euros are at stake.