The Europas – Europe’s tech startup awards – hit Berlin on Tuesday evening with over 1,000 guests gathering to celebrate the best of the continent’s tech entrepreneurship.
ZeptoLab, the Moscow-based makers of the smash hit Cut The Rope game took the ‘winner of winner’s’ Grand Prix award after hitting 300 million downloads, marking it out as potentially the next Rovio/AngryBirds killer combination. Another gaming firm, Wooga, snatched the People’s Choice Award. The Berlin-based social gaming company won after 300,000 votes were cast by Europe’s tech industry. London’s Wonga was named Best “Heavyweight” Startup after a year, which saw the online short-term loans pioneer’s profits surge. The best Startup Founders were named as the team behind science platform Mendeley. And Atomico was named Best VC of the year in Europe by the judges.
As someone who created the awards four years ago – initially just in a bar in London – it’s been fascinating for me to see the scene grow. The Europas were an order of magnitude bigger this year, with over 1,000 entries making it a tremendously difficult task for the 75 judges – drawn from entrepreneurs, investors and the media – to pick out the winners. From recent successes like Sketchfab, to titans of the industry like the Hall of Fame winner Niklas Zennstrom, the awards showed that, despite its fragmented nature and a tough economic climate, Europe’s startup scene now has a real head of steam.
The judges included partners from Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Index, Google Ventures and CrunchFund, entrepreneurs like Jawed Karim (founder of YouTube and Youniversity Ventures) and Michael Birch (founder of Bebo, Monkey Inferno) and Lady Gaga’s manager and angel investor Troy Carter. Journalists from Europe’s tech news scene, including The NextWeb, VentureBeat, Reuters and some of Europe’s leading blogs also took part in the process. It was also great to see some traditional firms, as well as a few Silicon Valley giants, supporting the awards.
Paddy Cosgrave, The Europas’ co-organiser and founder of the Web Summit series of events in Dublin and London, said: “These awards show just how hot European startups are right now. It was fantastic to see so many people from the community together to celebrate the level of innovation and excitement out there.”
You can see a full list of the nominees here.
And here are the winners:
The Europas Tech Startup Awards 2013
Full List of Winners and Highly-Commended (marked “HC”)
Best MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Startup
Winner: Markafoni
HC: Cinemoz
Best CEE (Central And Eastern Europe) Startup
Winner: NextStories
HC: Infogr.am
Best Russian Startup
Winner: AlterGeo
HC: Zeptolab
Best Nordic Startup
Winner: Instabridge
HC: PowerKiss
Best French Startup
Winner: Qunb
HC: WriteThat.name
Best German Startup
Winner: MyTaxi
HC: EyeEm
Best UK Startup
Winner: GoCardless
HC: Skimlinks
Best Irish Startup
Winner: DataHug
HC: CurrencyFair
Best Recruitment and Jobs Startup
Winner: InternAvenue
HC: Adzuna
Best Advertising or Marketing Tech Startup
Winner: Socialbakers
HC: Conversocial
Best Transport, Travel or Environmental Startup
Winner: Shutl
HC: BlaBlaCar
Best Education Startup
Winner: Scolibri
HC: Memrise
Best Service Provider to Startups
Winner: 33Seconds
HC: Ballou PR
Best European Startup Accelerator/Incubator
Winner: Seedcamp
HC: Springboard
Best Startup Founder/ Co-founders
Winner: Mendeley – Jan Reichelt, Paul Foeckler & Victor Henning
HC: SoundCloud – Eric Wahlforss & Alexander Ljung
Best Entertainment, Audio or Video Startup
Winner: Intellitix
HC: Crane.tv
Best Business, Recruitment or Enterprise Startup
Winner: DataHug
HC: Duedil
Best Startup From Outside Europe
Winner: Paymentwall
HC: WalkMe
Best “Lightweight” Startup
Winner: Sketchfab
HC: Infogr.am & Memoto
Best “Heavyweight” Startup
Winner: Wonga
HC: Supercell
Best Exit of 2012
Winner: Face.com
HC: Qype
Best VC of the Year (Company)
Winner: Atomico
HC: Index Ventures
HC: Passion Capital
Best VC of the Year (Individual)
Winner: Neil Rimer (Index Ventures)
Best “Middleweight” Startup
Winner: Transferwise
HC: SwiftKey
Best Commerce, Finance or Payments Startup
Winner: Toshl
HC: Dashlane
Best Culture (Fashion, Art, Music, Media) Startup
Winner: Lyst
HC: Soundrop
Best Gaming or Social Games Startup
Winner: Zeptolab
HC: Playmob
Best Product Startup
Winner: EyeEm
HC: Infogr.am
Best Social, Mobile or Apps Startup
Winner: Zeebox
HC: Everplaces
Best Startup Advisor/Mentor of the Year
Winner: Max Niederhofer
HC: Philipp Moehring
Hall of Fame: Niklas Zennstrom
Tech Journalist of the Year
Ben Rooney (Wall Street Journal)
Best Angel or Seed Investor of the Year
Christophe Maire
Grand Prix
ZeptoLab