AceON Accelerator, which is the initiative by Accace and Zaka VC, continues to champion startups across Europe and beyond, enhancing their market entry and growth potential. The culmination of our third international acceleration program was celebrated with a grand gala finale in Bratislava.

What were we doing for startups in Spring Accelerator 2024?

The Spring Accelerator 2024 program was meticulously designed to educate startup founders through intensive sessions with industry experts. These sessions covered essential topics such as finance, product development, investment strategies, and the venture capital landscape, equipping founders with a comprehensive understanding of the startup ecosystem.

A key component of the program was the involvement of 29 dedicated mentors who shared their experiences and provided guidance to the participating entrepreneurs. Their mentorship was invaluable, fostering growth and resilience among the startups.

Founding and running a startup is an extremely difficult task that requires a lot of effort and determination, as well as courage and the desire not to give up. However, we are not worried. We saw these qualities in many of the participants in our program, especially those who presented at the gala finale of the last cohort – Demo Day 2024.

We selected the 10 best startups for Demo Day

Demo Day was held on May 23 in the heart of Europe – Bratislava, featured the top 10 startups selected from an initial cohort of 36 teams. These startups presented their innovative solutions to an audience of 80 guests, including entrepreneurs, investors, and senior executives from the local startup community.  

The startups represented a diverse range of regions and sectors from Portugal to Georgia:

1. Cerebria Tech from Slovakia:

Data-driven B2B platform that supports revenue growth. The platform provides comprehensive information about potential customers from more than 10 trusted sources. 

2. Swayme from Poland:

Platform that connects social media users with businesses that offer discounts and incentives for posting and tagging their products or services on Instagram. 

3. Stride from Romania:

Mobile application that replicates features of cognitive behavioral therapy and fosters nicotine-free lives from within.

4. Biterium AI from Georgia:

Bringing preventive and cardiovascular health by cloud-based SaaS solution for healthcare providers and conversational mobile app. 

5. Progalit from Ukraine:

SaMD (Software as a Medical Device) providing automation of treatment and prevention of kidney stones (urolithiasis). 

6. Jusi from Portugal:

Making app development simple by estimating budget and timeline of the development and matching with the right developer. 

7. Cloudcrop from Georgia:

A digital agronomist for all greenhouses resulting in a significant profit growth. 

8. ContextMinds from the Czech Republic:

SaaS start-up saving time and money of marketing agencies, SMEs and content marketers in area of content planning. 

9. Eternity.ac from Poland:

Creating digital clones (B2C, B2B). 

10. Gameblyo from Poland:

Mobile game treating amblyopia – vision and brain-affecting disease. 

The jury and the audience did not agree on the winner

The jury, composed of Ján Kasper (Co-founder & Managing Partner, ZAKA VC), Peter Pašek (Managing Director & Partner, Accace Slovakia) and Andrej Petrus Petrus (Head of Investment Committee, ZAKA VC), faced the challenging task of selecting the winner. Ultimately, Cerebria Tech emerged as the winner, with Cloudcrop securing second place.

It was difficult to choose the best one because there were many very good startups. In the end, Cerebria Tech was declared the winner of the entire Spring Accelerator 2024, with Cloudcrop coming in a close second.

Our 80 guests in the audience also had the opportunity to vote and present the People’s Choice Award to their favorite team.

The Polish startup Swayme won the most votes, charming the audience with both their solution and the cheerful nature of their founders. Congratulations!

We are already preparing the autumn program, which promises to be even better

Accelerator AceON and its team are already looking forward to welcoming more startups in the next program, which will start in autumn 2024. All scalable startups developing a platform, SaaS solution, or online tool that they can quickly launch into the world are encouraged to apply.

Follow AceON’s social networks or sign up for a reminder on the website, and don’t miss your opportunity to become part of the international acceleration program at AceON Accelerator, founded by strong partners Accace and ZAKA VC.

Developing the ecosystem and supporting start-ups in the form of education and possible investment – with this mission we joined forces with family venture house ZAKA. 17 start-ups went through the first spring batch and the jury selected two winning teams during the final Demo Day pitching.

After almost two months of an intensive program consisting of 14 workshops and dozens of hours of mentoring, 13 teams from Czech and Slovak start-ups made it to the Demo Day. The best pitch deck was decided during the evening at Campus Coworking by a jury composed of  Peter Pašek (Managing Director & Partner of Accace Slovakia and Co-founder of AceON), Ján Kasper (Co-founder & Managing Partner of ZAKA, Co-founder of AceON) and Andrej Petrus (Chief Investment Officer at ZAKA). Together they agreed that not one, but two teams – Wopee.io and Mapheim – deserved to win.

Mapheim is an innovative platform that enables businesses to create interactive maps easily and for a low price. Mapheim connects the physical and digital world and provides a better experience for visitors of fairs, conferences, festivals, or parks.

Wopee.io is an autonomous testing platform using bots to improve effectivity and reduce waste in software development and testing.

The Spring Pre-accelerator was open to idea and pre-seed stage tech start-ups from the Czech Republic and Slovakia during the first year. Next years’ plan is to focus on European countries where AceON wants to support local talents and move them into the global start-up scene.

“At ZAKA VC we are convinced that one of the main criteria for the success of a start-up is a quality team. Central Europe is currently one of the fastest growing start-up regions and we want to contribute to ensuring that the talent in this region gets enough support to launch and grow their business ideas. We are excited about the progress made by the start-ups in the Spring Pre-accelerator, and we are already curious to see what the autumn batch, as well as the next editions of AceON, will bring,” says Ján Kasper, Co-founder & Managing Partner of ZAKA, Co-founder of AceON.

“In the first year of the AceON Accelerator, we confirmed how important it is to have the proper business model and a scalable product. It’s not enough to have an original or innovative idea, you need the personal commitment of a founder with a strong team. We believe our robust mentoring program has helped everyone move forward and validate their idea. We look forward to their progress and will continue to support them,” adds Peter Pašek, Managing Director & Partner of Accace Slovakia and Co-founder of AceON.

The spring round brought together 17 start-ups, 16 mentors and speakers who delivered 14 workshops and provided dozens of hours of 1:1 mentoring. In the spring batch, we covered topics such as finance, marketing, community management, and no-code. Among the mentors were experts such as Peter Pašek (Accace), Andrej Petrus (ZAKA) and Pavlína Louženská (#HolkyzMarketingu).

The program continues with an autumn investment round with applications opening during the summer.

AceON is focused on accelerating technology and software ideas that have the potential to scale. Start-ups can participate in 2 types of programs – the Spring Pre-accelerator, which has already taken place and will take place again next year, and the Autumn Accelerator.

The 2-month Autumn program will be centred on 1:1 mentoring, networking and support based on individual needs, e.g. finalisation of MVP (minimum viable product). A maximum of 5 start-ups will be accepted into the autumn batch based on several criteria focused on potential for success in the global market, scalability or experience and skills of team members. Compared to the spring batch, the Autumn Accelerator also brings investment for selected start-ups. The application process and details of the program will be published on AceON website during the summer.