This is the 12th time that the conference TechChill is taking place in Latvia. In these years, the event has grown from a handful of young entrepreneurs to the leading startup business conference in the Baltic.
"TechChill is a business conference where many Baltic tech startups gather and we invite investors to make connections and cooperation,” said Annija Mežgaile, executive director of the TechChill Foundation.
This year, more than 350 start-ups participate in the event, mainly from Latvia, but also from other Baltic and European countries. And over 225 investors — from 25 different countries around the world.
At the heart of the TechChill conference is a stage where investors sit on high white chairs, who in this case are like a jury evaluating the start-ups on stage. Each start-up has three minutes to prove its idea and possibly receive investor funding.
Ideas are evaluated in three different categories and the most successful ones will receive €10,000, €50,000, and €150,000 awards, respectively. Some present their ideas, some already have prototypes, like Aigars Lausis, creator of the "BeTriton" bicycle amphibia.
“It's a vehicle that can be driven both on the water and the ground. Two people can stay in and sleep,” said Aigars Lausis, chief executive of BeTriton.
The conference is also attended by entrepreneurs who took their first steps in the business world several years ago, but have now grown from startups to serious players in the industry, including Latvian cryptocurrency company Gravity and Lithuanian financial technology company Revolut. Now they share the experience here and look for new partners to invest in.
