Ten finalists for Pirate Summit 2021

Out of the Box NRW is the name of the competition, which is only taking place for the second time. The ten finalists have now been chosen and will have to prove themselves at the Pirate Summit at the end of June. Only the first three places will receive money.

Almost 50 start-ups were nominated and now the ten finalists of Out of the Box NRW have been announced: Cargoboard, Clinomic, Enlyze, Greenbimlabs, Iconpro, Lumoview Building Analytics, Sentin, Tremaze, Trustcerts and Westphalia Datalab. They all have to present their ideas at the Pirate Summit at the end of June in Cologne's Odonien, from which a jury will then select the best. The organizers are expecting 300 investors, 80 speakers and guests from 500 start-ups.

Start-ups can be nominated for the competition (not by the founders or employees themselves). In addition, a jury will decide who will be among the finalists. First place is endowed with 25,000 euros, second place with 15,000 euros and third place with 10,000 euros.

Start-ups taking part must have a digital business model. They must also have been founded in North Rhine-Westphalia between 2017 and 2019. The initiators primarily want to support early-stage start-ups. At the Pirate Summit, the start-ups should also find investors and networks to promote their ideas.

Last year's winner was the Dortmund-based start-up Motionminers, which supports companies in process optimization. In second place was Visensys, which operates intelligent monitoring of public spaces or companies, for example. Forkon took third place. They are dedicated to digital fleet management.