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The Danube Cup International Pitch Competition 2022
What is the Danube Cup?
The Danube Cup is an annual International Pitch Competition for students of universities along the Danube. Two Hungarian top universities, Corvinus University of Budapest and Budapest University of Technology and Economics, founded the competition in 2016. Danube Cup’s mission is to bring start-ups to international success, while bringing together the most motivated university startups along the river Danube. This year’s 6th edition is organized by WU Vienna.
The partner network of the Danube Cup 2022 comprises 7 universities from 4 countries:
Regensburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany
University of Passau, Germany
Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary
University of Belgrade, Serbia
The Winners of Danube Cup 2022:
Congratulations to all Finalists, and special shoutout to the three winning teams.
- First Place: AirMate, a startup from JKU Linz
- Runners Up:
- Signovative, a startup from OTH Regensburg
- Circle One, a startup from WU Vienna
More highlights on the Danube Cup 2022 are published on our social media channels: Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Go check it out.
What can you expect at Danube Cup 2022?
The Danube Cup is a unique opportunity for early-stage student startup teams. What you can expect this year:
- compete with other student startup teams on an international level
- receive professional business advice from experienced startup mentors and entrepreneurs
- learn that international market research is a must
- understand the importance of startup validation
- practice pitching in front of a jury or investors
- make friends with other local and international students
- get familiar with ecosystem players and widen your social network
- connect with students from other countries and broaden your network
- find additional team members with skills currently missing in your team
- travel and accommodation costs will be covered for the teams that make it to the Final Competition in Vienna
- teams at the Final Competition win prizes (cash and in-kind)
Timeline of Danube Cup 2022
The Danube Cup 2022 Competition is organized by the Entrepreneurship Center of WU Vienna and consists of 3 parts: one national and two international parts.
National Pre-Selection
Each partner university organizes a national pre-selection and nominates two student startup teams to participate in the semi-finals. Teams will be mentored by the respective universities.
Semi-Final
The Semi-Final will take place on May 12th from 11am until 4.30pm online via Zoom for the startups. Participants can join the live stream at 2pm on YouTube. The event will be fully dedicated to the student startup teams, therefore we will start with a trial pitching round in front of the mentors. The teams will then receive feedback on their pitches and can improve during the dedicated working session before the real thing. 8 teams will make it to the Final Pitch Competition in Vienna, one team per university will be selected plus one more startup, that is voted by the community.
Final Pitch Competition
On the day prior to the Final Pitch Competition the organizing team of WU Entrepreneurship Center will host a Community Event in Vienna for the finalists and university representatives on May 30th. The event is mainly focused on cross-disciplinary and international networking.
The Final Pitch Competition on May 31st is part of Vienna UP 2022, a decentralized community-driven festival in Vienna, shining a light on what the future of technology holds. That’s why we integrated the Danube Cup Final Pitch Competition into an event at Vienna UP: The Conference of Entrepreneurship Avenue, Europe’s largest student-focused startup event-series.
The 8 finalists will pitch in front of a renowned jury in the afternoon of the Conference, and will not only gain international visibility, but get also the chance to win amazing in-kind and cash prizes.
About Entrepreneurship Avenue 
The Entrepreneurship Avenue is Europe’s largest student focused start-up event series and was founded in 2014. It consists of one kick off, four labs (workshops) and a final conference. The aim of the labs is to introduce students from different disciplines, in diverse teams, to the concept of entrepreneurship. It gives them the chance to experience founding a start-up as an alternative career path in a safe environment. During the workshops series students teams will be provided with the relevant theoretical tools and network to work on their early stage ideas.
The conference is the final event and gives participants the opportunity to get to know the (inter)national start-up scene by inviting relevant partners from the ecosystem. The conference is open to everyone, even if not participated in the lab series and aims primarily to inspire young people.
Take a look at the aftermovie of Entrepreneurship Avenue Conference 2021 to get a glimpse of what the entrepreneurial spirit is all about.
About Vienna UP’22 
27.05. – 03.06.2022
From Technology to Beyond.
From Now to Future.
From Vienna to Global.
Initiated by the Vienna Business Agency, ViennaUP’22 is a decentralized community-driven festival in the heart of Europe, shining a light on what the future of technology holds. Together with its contributing partners, ViennaUP creates a unique interconnected experience for startups, investors, tech enthusiasts, creatives, and visionaries.
ViennaUP’22 is about creating meaningful connections and starting first conversations with smart minds. Participants have the opportunity to dive into hotly discussed topics across different industries, expand their international network, and get inspired by the Viennese startup scene – one of the most diverse and fastest-growing startup communities in Central Europe.
Click on the postcard to watch the video “From Crazy to Grand”.
Agenda for Final Pitch Competition on May 31st
- 15:00 – 16:00 Danube Cup Pitch Competition
- 16:30 – 16:45 Winner Announcement
Since the Final Pitch Competition is hosted by Entrepreneurship Avenue Conference, click here to see the full agenda and register now for free.
Meet the Jury of Final Pitch Competition
- Julia Reilinger (Portfolio Manager at B&C Group): Julia is a portfolio manager at B&C Group, one of Austria’s leading private equity holdings and core shareholder of companies AMAG, Lenzing and Semperit. She is responsible for the portfolio management of B&C Innovation Investments (BCII). BCII invests in innovative technology-based growth companies of relevance to the industrial sector.
- István Lám (Co-Founder and CEO at Tresorit): Istvan is a cryptographer, computer scientist, and entrepreneur. He is co-founder & CEO of Tresorit, a leading provider of encrypted productivity solutions for cloud collaboration.
Carlota Vento (Venture Analyst at Plug & Play): Carlota works at Plug and Play Ventures, as an early-stage investor and supports large corporations in the Travel & Smart Cities verticals in Vienna in their innovation journeys, by connecting them to startups that meet their tech interests. She is passionate about innovation and driven to continue building a unique ecosystem of startups, blue-chip corporations, and investors globally to develop and implement the technologies of the future.
- Marcus Ihlenfeld (Founder and CEO at woom bikes)
- Ute Stadlbauer (Regional Manager at Vienna Business Agency): Ute is regional manager at the Vienna Business Agency, in charge of managing investments from the Americas, Portugal and Spain. Before joining the VBA, Ute was a freelance project manager for international museums and institutions and head of publishing at Belvedere Museum. Ute is interested in the intersection of technology and culture. She holds an MBA from TU Wien and Donau Universität Krems, and has a background in business administration, roman studies, art history, and natural sciences. Lived and studied in Mexico City, fluent in German, English, Spanish, French.
Agenda for Semi-Final on May 12th
- 11:00-12:00 Trial Pitching Rounds & Feedback Session with Mentors (for startups only)
- 12:00-14:00 Lunch Break & Working Session (for startups only)
- 14:00-14:05 Welcome Note (Live-Stream)
- 14:05-14:30 Keynote from Christoph Hornik (Co-Founder of Epiclay)
- 14:30-16:00 Pitch Competition
- 16:00-16:15 Jury Decision
- 16:15-16:30 Winner Announcement
Meet the startups competing in the Semi-Final Pitch Competition
You can vote for your favourite startup here until Thursday, May 12th 4pm. Go to Community Voting.
The Jury decides which startup will represent it’s university in the Final Competition, for each university one startup will be pitching in the Final. An additional slot in the Final Competition goes to the startup that reaches the highest number of votes in the community voting.
Meet the Jury Members at Danube Cup Semi-Final
- Prof. Dr. Sean Patrick Saßmannshausen is Professor for Entrepreneurship and Head of the Start-up Center at OTH Regensburg, Germany. With more than 20 years of experience, he has supported the creation many enterprises. Since 2014, he has grown the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Regensburg and has developed OTH Regensburg to a leading institution in the field of entrepreneurship.
- Tamara Schneider joined to create the INN.KUBATOR and strengthen the local startup community in 2017. As a startup and digitalization center she supports entrepreneurs and people with ideas as well as those companies willing to work with startups or interested in digitalization. Tamara has a huge network and thinks the most valuable benefit a founder can get is connections – to other founders, companies, experts, investors and other inspiring persons.
- Dr. Rudolf Dömötör is Managing Director of WU Vienna Entrepreneurship Center and of the Entrepreneurship Center Network (ECN), a joint initiative of 25 Austrian universities promoting cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship among students and faculty. He is a co-founder of Entrepreneurship Avenue, the largest entrepreneurship event series with a focus on students in Europe, and co-author of the Austrian Startup Monitor, Austria’s largest startup study. He has been actively involved in the Austrian startup scene for many years. He studied business administration at the WU. For his academic career, he was based in Australia (University of Technology, Sydney), USA (George Washington University) and New Zealand (University of Canterbury) over several months respectively.
- Gergő Kujbus has been building digital products in logistics, construction and retail sectors for more than 10 years. Experienced in scaling local startups and managing their expansions to the US, CEE and APAC regions. He is passionate about technologies that disrupt traditional industries.
- László Csíki is an expert with more than 10 years of experience in financing and management of innovative early-stage companies and providing strategic consultancy, with a special interest in go-to market and growth strategies of R&D based innovations.
- Dr. Nedeljko Milosavljević is an experienced technology transfer professional, successfully leading the Center for Technology Transfer of the University of Belgrade (CTT-UB) for the last 11 years. He was vice president of the Association of European Science and Technology Transfer Professionals -ASTP and a board member of HEPTech. Currently, he is a Co-director of Founder Institute Serbia, President of the Alliance for Business and Innovation, a member of the International Board of the Association of University Technology Managers – AUTM (USA), an International Board member of the International Technology Transfer Network – ITTN (China), an international partner in the World Business Angels Investment Forum – WBAF, board member of the Youth Entrepreneurship Council and a board member of the Science and Industrial Cooperation Council. Furthermore, Dr. Milosavljević is a senior consultant and business developer for Oxentia, an expert for the European Commission and WIPO, and a co-founder of two start-ups.
- Dr. Florian Köhne is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Entrepreneurship at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. His research is focused on social entrepreneurship, migrant entrepreneurship, and hybrid enterprise governance in a transnational context. Previously, he worked as a business development manager and was involved in different entrepreneurship projects in Latin America.
Meet our mentors for the Trial Pitching Rounds at the Danube Cup Semi-Final
- Nelly Rahimy: While researching the Donut Economics Model for her PhD, Nelly Rahimy works as a coach and teacher for sustainable start-ups at the University of Passau. She is also Co-Founder of the social start-up KurkuMama – focused on empowering women in agriculture.
- Dr. János Vecsenyi is a seasoned startup mentor and entrepreneurship educator. He has been teaching entrepreneurship for thirty plus years at Hungarian Universities, mentored startups all over Europe as mentor of Health Venture Lab European startup accelerator powered by EIT Health & GE Health. He also created a Hungarian startup launchpad website www.vallalkozasindito.com and published several books on entrepreneurship.
- Monique Schlömmer, MSc is is Program Manager at the WU Entrepreneurship Center. In this function, she is responsible for cross-university agendas and cooperations (e.g.: Entrepreneurship Center Network (ECN), Entrepreneurship Avenue and Changemaker Program). In addition, she is completing her PhD studies at the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and is involved in the critical experience of venture capitalist (VC) decisions. Due to her dual role, she supports synergies between research and practice between institutions.
- Mag. Birgit Wimmer-Wurm supports startups with passion as a sparring partner in Business Modelling, Strategic orientation and Pitching. Her expertise lies in business economics, challenging the idea and structure the next steps on the entrepreneurship journey in individual working sessions and coaching.
- Tamara Čolić Milosavljević, besides commercialisation of the University of Belgrade’s IP and management of projects focused on innovation and entrepreneurship development. Ms Čolić Milosavljević also bolsters cooperation with various institutions and SMEs with a view to more intense technology transfer. She is a European IP Helpdesk Ambassador and active entrepreneurial ecosystem facilitator on local, national, and international levels. She has trained and mentored individuals and teams on topics related to Business Model building, IP, and business opportunity commercialisation, and with the international team of peers created an open, multilingual and web-based BOSS platform, designed to stimulate students’, researchers’ and teachers’ ability to use the results of their research and to start and carry out entrepreneurial projects.
- Dr. Pal Danyi is Lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Information Management at BME with the experience of mentoring hundreds of university startuppers. His research area includes applying AI in pricing. Founder and member of several startups and also an experienced corporate entrepreneur.
- Dr. Sevim Süzeroglu-Melchiors is Professor for Digital Entrepreneurship and Financing at the OTH Regensburg. In her previous role as head of an innovation and IP consultancy, she accompanied many inventors and founders in different phases of the innovation process. Today, she follows her passion to encourage students for start-ups by raising awareness, qualification and support in teaching and practice.
Organizing Team 2022
Dr. Rudolf Dömötör
Director of WU Entrepreneurship Center
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Monique Schlömmer, MSc
Program Manager at WU Entrepreneurship Center
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Johanna Wiesner, MSc
Program Manager at WU Entrepreneurship Center
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About the Organizing University 2022: WU Vienna
WU Vienna (Vienna University of Economics and Business) is a leading academic institution and one of Europe’s most attractive universities in business and economics, with around 22,000 students in Bachelor, Master and PhD-programs; and around 2,400 staff. WU’s triple accreditation by EQUIS, AACSB, and AMBA – the three foremost international accreditations for business and economics universities – is a testimonial of WU’s high quality standards. As an international and open-minded university, WU is an important hub for global exchange, and a place where students and teachers work together.
Link: https://www.wu.ac.at/
Since June 2015, WU Entrepreneurship Center has been the central place to go to for guidance on student entrepreneurship. It is the long-term goal of the WU Entrepreneurship Center to help increase the number and especially the quality of entrepreneurial activities amongst WU students, alumni and faculty. At WU they want to present Entrepreneurship as a life perspective and show what is possible when ideas are realized.
Link: https://www.wu.ac.at/gruenden
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Frequend Asked Questions (FAQs)
Who is eligible to participate?
To be eligible, teams must meet the following requirements and must be nominated by the delegated university of the Danube Cup network:
- This event is not an idea competition. We are looking for teams that have already performed validative market research for their ideas, at least locally. The applicants must validate their business idea among potential customers/users, considering competitiveness. The product must be unique and innovative, and must enjoy growth potential independently of local market trends as far as possible.
- Teams must have at least two, maximum five total members.
- Teams may contain non-university member participants. However, at least one team member must be a registered BCE or BME student. A “registered student” is a student who has been accepted into a degree program at BCE or BME and is working toward the completion of that degree by taking at least one course each semester of the 2021/22 academic year.
- Participants can only be a member of one team.
- Teams must present an original idea for an enterprise that has not existed before 2021.
- Teams must not have received financial backing or investment by professional third-party accelerators, incubators, existing companies or venture capitalists.
How to win?
- Competition Finalists are expected to prepare a presentation showcasing the company’s innovative solution, idea, and/or technology. Finalists will pitch in English.
- Pitch time will be 4 minutes. At the end of the pitch, the panel of judges will be provided additional time for Q&A.
- Finalists will be assessed by a panel of judges consisting of acclaimed academics and industry professionals, and the results will be announced at the Award Ceremony & Closing Session on the same day.
What to win?
- Each team at the Final Competition will receive a certificate, a Danube Cup package with delicious products from Austria and Event Tickets.
- First Place and Second Place will also get prize money.