Event Sessions

Venture School 2021 concluded on Thursday 26 August with a thrilling Pitch Night as four start up entrepreneurs pitched their business ideas to the Thursday Gathering crowd and a panel of expert judges.

The evening was filled with a wonderful, supportive vibe as the four entrepreneurs vied for the top prize, one month’s co-working space at CIC Rotterdam as well as one hour’s free business consultation.

First to pitch was Omid Hajishirmohammadi, who shared his vision of a circular built environment and to make Earth a better place for all species via creating a circular waste-free construction sector. It was a confident pitch that was spot on at 3 minutes exactly and led to some great questions from the panel.

Next up was Daria Mischuck. Daria is founder of Source.eco, the first sourcing sustainability platform that connects factories, traders, and importers, enabling them to share data that benefits each ecosystem actor while incentivizing sustainability practices in production and purchasing behavior. Daria took the judges questions head on and showed great insight and passion for her business.

Following on from Daria was Jules Rombouts, Co-founder and Director of Technology at Nature’s Principles who develop biotechnological solutions to create a more sustainable future. Jules pitched their latest process, a novel L-lactic acid production process enabling a more sustainable and cost-effective production of lactic acid. It was fascinating to hear and intrigued the judges to probe more into the business model.

Finishing the pitching was Stan van der Weijder of 4watoto whose mission is to guarantee children rights to the kids whose rights have been violated the most. It was a new experience for Stan and we were delighted to have a first time pitcher take part.

Our three expert judges, Tony de Bree, Andres Campo and Melissa Ablett-Jordaan, gave their feedback and guidance to all four participants but there could only be one winner and so the winning pitch was awarded to Daria.

Huge congratulations, Daria, and to all the other participants for taking part.