Orange Grove’s thrilling pitching competition “The Squeeze” was back on Tuesday 1st of November, celebrating innovation and impact-driven entrepreneurship! And this edition of “The Squeeze” was even more exciting as it was honoured with the presence of H.M. King of the Netherlands Willem-Alexander and H.M. Queen Máxima, along with members of the Netherlands Government, as part of their State Visit to Greece taking place between the 31st October and 2nd November 2022.
Six innovative Orange Grove startups went head-to-head on stage and presented their disruptive business ideas to a panel of distinguished judges from the USA, the Netherlands and Greece. The first prize was won by Grandmama, presented by its CEO Vicky Klimi and the second prize went to Struuct, pitched by its CEO Spyros Konstantis!
The Royal Couple were welcomed to “The Squeeze” by the event’s hosts Alexandra Sarma, Yiannis Kanellopoulos and Yiannis Nikolopoulos (partners and BoD members of Orange Grove) at the SNFCC Lighthouse, where the competition took place. Once the pitching concluded, the Royal Couple and members of the Government, met with the pitchers of the six competing startups to discuss their business ideas and exchange insights on the startup ecosystems of the two countries.
The six competing startups of “The Squeeze” #14th edition were:
– Agro-U (Korina Chatzigeorgiou), a two-sided marketplace that quickly and easily connects farmers with skilled agricultural workers.
– Meterscope (Giorgos Efthymiou), a surveillance and data collection system that ensures the quality of perishable products (food, drugs, microbiological material, etc.) at all stages of the production chain (production, processing, storage, handling).
– Indust Systems (Mike Drakoulelis), an Internet of Things system making industrial processes more efficient and greener.
– Genomix4U (Stavroula Siamoglou), making genomics accessible to everyone by providing personalized health and lifestyle services based on genetic profiles.
– Struuct (Spyros Κonstantis), a platform for automated defect recognition and digital infrastructure asset management to help increase the lifespan of structures.
– Grandmama (Vicky Klimi), an online platform helping families to find trusted and experienced caregivers for seniors locally, healthcare providers and health companies to empower their everyday life!
An impressive line-up of distinguished professionals participated at the judges’ panel of this year’s “The Squeeze”, which included:
– Marisa Antonopoulou (COO, Action Finance Initiative – AFI),
– Serena Davis (Co-founder, Hippo Seeds),
– John Fox (Sr UI Engineer iOS, Netflix),
– Thijs Geerdink (COO, Reggeborgh) and
– Sotiris Kokkinos (CEO & Co-founder, FEAC Engineering).
We were excited to welcome back on the stage of Orange Grove, Daria Nepriakhina (Initiator, Ideahackers.network) and Robin Schuil (Founder, Vendora.gr), to present this unique event. While the audience included previous winners of “The Squeeze” competition, members of the startup ecosystem, investors and entrepreneurs, offering valuable networking opportunities at the social event that followed the competition.
And of course, we couldn’t have “The Squeeze” without our traditional Orange Stories fireside chat! On Thursday 3rd November Daria Nepriakhina, Robin Schuil and John Fox were “squeezed” by our Orange Grove alumni entrepreneurs, back at Orange Grove’s office, on Praxitelous street where we discussed startup growth hacks and shared valuable experiences, during our exciting “Ask-me-anything” conversation.
“The Squeeze” is among the most renown and earliest pitching competitions in Greece’s startup ecosystem, organized by Orange Grove and the Embassy of the Netherlands since 2014. It has provided to over 100 startups the opportunity to present their ideas to targeted audiences and claim valuable prizes for their growth. The competition was back this year, as a physical event with a limited audience, after a two-year absence due to the coronavirus pandemic. This year’s winners of “The Squeeze” won tailor-made training and networking trips to the Netherlands.
“The Squeeze” competition is made possible thanks to Orange Grove’s Main Sponsors Reggeborgh and Heineken, and Sponsors Interamerican, FrieslandCampina, Philips, HeDA, as well as KLM, sponsor of the prize winners’ tickets to the Netherlands.
Orange Grove’s thrilling pitching competition “The Squeeze” was back on Tuesday 14th of May, at 18:00, co-organized by the Netherlands Embassy and the U.S. Embassy in Greece! This edition of “The Squeeze” was even more exciting as it featured innovative startups from the Food and Agri-tech sector and was titled #FarmingtheFuture.
The most exciting pitching competition for startups, “The Squeeze” by Orange Grove, was back for its twelfth edition, on March 8th, International Women’s Day (18:00-22:00)!
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New pitches, new opportunities! Eight ambitious Orange Grove entrepreneurs took the stage on the 27th of June 2017 to present their innovative business ideas to an international panel of experts!
The exciting pitching competition was back on the 30th of March 2017 for its 9th edition with eight ambitious Orange Grove startuppers stepping up and giving their best pitch ever, to win €15,000 and €10,000 in prize money: the ultimate kickstart!
The international pitching competition was back at Orange Grove on September 22nd 2016, from 18:00 until 21:00. Selected Orange Grove entrepreneurs battled to the bitter end, for a chance to win €15,000 and €10,000 in prize money.
The 7th edition of “The Squeeze” pitching competition was back at Orange Grove on 23th of June 2016, offering the opportunity to eight high-potential startuppers to present their ambitious ideas to a distinguished panel of international judges and select audience of investors, journalists and members of the startup ecosystem.
One more “The Squeeze” competition took place 10th of March 2016 with eight aspiring entrepreneurs of Orange Grove taking to the stage to pitch their innovative ideas, answer tough questions and make their startups known to the local and international ecosystem!
“The Squeeze” was back on the 10th of December 2015 for its 5th edition! The thrilling pitching competition invited eight Orange Grove entrepreneurs to go on stage and pitch their startup ideas to an international jury panel of established professionals and a wide audience startup founders, executives, embassies’ representatives, journalists, investors and much more.
On the 26th of September 2015 the 4th edition of “The Squeeze” took place offering the opportunity once more to eight Orange Grove entrepreneurs to claim a total of €25,000 in monetary prizes and present their ideas to a unique audience of journalists, investors, startup founders and much more!
“The Squeeze” pitching competition was back for its #3 edition, on 11th of June 2015. Presenter for the eventing was Peter Economides (Brand strategist Apple’s “Think Different” campaign). Peter was accompanied by an amazing line up of judges squeezing the eight ambitious founders who went on stage to present their unique ideas.
On the 26th of March 2015 Orange Grove welcomed once its innovative entrepreneurs on stage to pitch their ideas and claim the competitions incredible prizes.
The 1st edition of “The Squeeze” took place on 13th of December 2014! Presenter of this inaugural edition of what would become the most thrilling pitching competition and one of the longest running competitions in Greece was Peter Economides (Brand strategist Apple’s “Think Different” campaign). Together with Alexis Pantazis, Jeremy Downward and Costas Maroulis they “squeezed” eight innovative startups of the Orange Grove incubation programme competing for one of the two amazing monetary prizes of the event.
