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Romanian startup Ringhel won the Startup Europe Summit pitching competition

The MY-GATEWAY EU funded project under the Startup Europe initiative selected 17 startups from the Central and Eastern European countries to pitch at the Startup Europe Summit. The winner of this edition is the successful Romanian startup Ringhel which offers management solutions for the Power and Gas business.

People from the winning startup Righel

european commission

People from the winning startup Righel

MY-GATEWAY, an EU funded project which aims to boost entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe, selected 17 innovative seed-stage startups to come and pitch at Startup Europe Summit in Cluj-Napoca. On 21st March all startups were called on stage to pitch in front of top-notch jury members:

  • Ivo ŠPIGEL, co-founder Tech.eu
  • Cristian MUNTEANU, Early Game Ventures
  • Vojtech HORNA, Index Ventures
  • Bogdan IORDACHE, GECAD Ventures
  •  Felix HUBER, Stripe
  • Cristian DASCALU, GapMinder Venture Partners
  • Márton MEDVECZKY, Buran Venture Capital
  • Milja LAAKSO, UNICEF Ventures

The announcement of the pitching competition winner was given during the official closing of the event. The announcement was chaired by the Mayor of Cluj-Napoca, Emil Boc, together with Maria-Manuela Catrina, Ministry of Communication and Information Society and Laura Mihaila, Head of Marketing at BCR.

Before announcing the winner, Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca, gave a few remarks on how grateful he is for having hosted Startup Europe Summit in his city hence converting Cluj – Napoca the European capital of startups, even if just for a few days. He was fully aware of the importance that having hosted an event like this can have in the long term.

‘If we connect each other and work together we can make our Europe stronger and more integrated especially in these times when more integration is needed, when our common future is Europe. We need more Europe, not less Europe. Let’s work together for a common future’ - Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca

Following the Mayor’s remarks, Laura Mihaila, BCR, after stating how important the accumulation of capital is for Romania and highlighting how startups have the power to change the world, announced the winner of the competition.

Ringhel, represented by Mihai Darzan, the company’s CEO, was the startup selected by the jury. As Mihai summerised once on stage, Ringhel builds ERP and CRM software for power and gas markets, empowering companies to boost their business. Funny coincidence, the day before Mihai had eaten a fortune cookie which foreseen that ‘tomorrow a new adventure begins’.

After the announcement, Bogdan Ceobanu, Startup Europe policy officer at the European Commission, gave the final remarks.

‘Think about billions, not millions, diversity is not enough, we need to expand, we need to look beyond, we need to look not for local heroes but for global champions’ – Bogdan Ceobanu, Startup Europe policy officer

The pitching competition was celebrated in the frame of the Startup Europe Summit 2019, organized this year by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union as part of the Presidency programme in Cluj-Napoca.

Startup Europe Summit

Startup Europe Summit is an event that aims to bring together all important key players of the startup ecosystem. By linking up policy makers and startups who belong to the technology and innovation field, aspires to creating a better environment for entrepreneurs and the organisations that support entrepreneurship.

MY-GATEWAY project

MY-GATEWAY is an EU-funded project that unites different organisations to do the same with the country focus of Slovenia, Czech Republic and Romania. MY-GATEWAY regularly organises contests for startups to pitch at events.

To learn about all the startups who took part in the competition, please click here