The Startup Launchpad 2021 – London Calling!
Every year, the HEC UK Office organizes a Learning Expedition to London for 170-200 student-entrepreneurs from the HEC Startup Launchpad. This program works like an accelerator, designed to help student entrepreneurs launch their startup within 10 weeks.
This year, the trip took place virtually on March 15-19, and included Entrepreneurs’ Talks and a Pitch Competition in 2 rounds with its final “Grand Pitch Night” streamed live on Youtube - an exceptional evening!
Meeting inspiring entrepreneurs from UK & US
On Monday 15th, students started the week with a special kick-off by Cayetana Hurtado & Maxime Le Dantec from Balderton Capital to advise them on investors' expectations when financing a startup. A fantastic presentation to introduce these two full days of talk!
On Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th afternoon five successful entrepreneurs from the UK and the US shared their entrepreneur's journey with our students. From their first steps as an entrepreneur, to their main challenges and the lessons they have learnt, our students heard the fascinating stories of:
- Adrien Nussenbaum - Co-founder of Mirakl (USA) - https://www.mirakl.com/
- Julien Callede - Co-founder of Made.com & Next Momentum.io (UK)
- Jamie Crummie - Co-founder & Director of Too Good To Go UK -
- Kathryn Whright – CMO of Upside Saving
- Thomas Jonas - CEO & Co-founder of Nature’s Fynd
These sessions were fantastic, allowing students to ask all their questions to our speakers and connect in an informal setting.
Startup competition & The Grand Pitch Night
On Wednesday 18, the Pitch Competition began with a first round…. During an exciting afternoon, 37 startups pitched in front of 18 judges (VC/Entrepreneurs/investors…) who had the difficult task of selecting our 6 finalists. A special thank you the 31 startups who took part in the pre-selections – they did an amazing job.
The 6 finalist teams then had the opportunity, on Thursday 19th morning, to have a one-hour mentoring session with 12 expert mentors who helped them to get ready for The Grand Pitch Night. Thank you to all mentors who were so committed to contributing to their team’s success!
Finally, the Grand Pitch Night was the climax of this fantastic week with 6 startups pitching live on Youtube in front of our Jury Frederic Jousset (Co-founder of Webhelp & Art explora), Alice Leguay (Clim8Invest), Emma Davies (Octopus Ventures) and Julien Callede (Made.com & NextMomentum).
To know more about the talented winning teams:
The Jury Award was awarded to Wempo and the Audience Award was awarded to Nootropia.
Discover their projects (PDF)