Women Startup Competition Comes to Tel Aviv for the First Time
Tech it Forward, a marketing and tech event agency based in Israel, was honored to host the Women Startup Competition (WSC) in Tel Aviv for the first time!
Some Background
The event took place in Tel Aviv for the first time ever on June 13 and was organized by local WSC brand ambassador Tech It Forward and sponsored by LeumiTech.
WSC is a not-for-profit business incubation platform on a mission to educate and inspire women to create startups and to support them in their company’s challenging early years. WSC’s signature event is a yearly startup competition across Europe.
The Event Itself
The event is focused on presenting the startups, but also provides many other business development opportunities. These include pitching and networking workshops, exposure to investors, and professional support in the early stages of the idea valuation and business model development. Women Entrepreneurs received these workshops throughout the two-day program.
The event also consists of a mentoring session with a panel of experts from many different backgrounds and industries
Based on feedback, the female entrepreneurs found the mentoring program to be incredibly useful. A diverse team of experts were on hand to discuss and work through challenges the entrepreneurs faced. This was all done with the intention of fine-tuning their value proposition, strategy, business model, and to help them finalize their pitch presentation.
The Results of the Competition
The winner of the Tel Aviv semi-final was Talia Cohen Solal, the CEO of Genetika+. Genetika+ is a biotech startup, developing a personalized testing tool to better treat depression, by helping physicians find the best drug therapy for their patients.
It’s important to note that depression affects nearly 350 million people worldwide. It is also the leading cause of disability worldwide, to put into perspective the scope of this issue.
By using biological, environmental, and genetic data, Genetika+ is developing a personalized solution to help each distinct patient recover better and faster.
The winner, Talia Cohen Solal (pictured 4th from left)
The Winner, Genetika+, will join other countries’ semi-finalists at the London Final in November.
Second place: Pink of View, a personalized, predictive indicator for risk management of breast cancer driven by Machine Learning. (CEO Adi Zamir, Pink of view)
Third place: Otailo, a solution for retail returns management, matching online and offline retailers to avoid huge costs of returns. (CEO Ronit Mayer, Otailo).
From the applicants in Israel 9 were selected to pitch their startup company.
The Pitches were judged by a panel of industry experts from both Europe and Tel-Aviv:
- Delia Pekelman, Deputy Head of Leumitech Business Center
- Sofia Lelakowska, Head of Global Alliances at Avon
- Alexandra Veidner, CEO at WSC
- Hilla Ovil-Brenner, Managing Director at TechStars Tel Aviv
- Sara Tancman, Founder and CEO of the Briah Foundation
Mentors included:
- Sofia Lelakowska, Head of Global Beauty Alliance at Avon
- Alexandra Veidner, CEO of Women Startup Competition
- Iran Reznikov, Partner at RED Capital Partners
- Sophie Meyer Cahn, Senior Manager PWC Israel
- Jennifer Elias, Co-founder of Tech It Forward
- Jessica Rosner, Co-founder of Tech It Forward
Final remarks
Avon partnered up with Women Startup Competition to find and accelerate the best beauty-tech startups across Europe.
And although the competition is not limited to any specific industry, a beauty-tech sub-category has been launched this year as part of the competition in collaboration with Avon.
This accelerator program is a big opportunity for early-stage female founded startups operating in beauty-tech, e-commerce, or fashion to scale their business with the globally renowned beauty company Avon.
If you are interested in this beauty accelerator program, applications can be submitted online from now until the end of September. The winning teams in the accelerator program will be selected in October to join up with Avon’s global team.
But the events don’t end there!
There will be 6 more events coming up across Europe in 2019, so stay tuned for more information regarding these competitions!
To see other events organized by Tech it Forward, follow us here!
