Each year, the SaaStock Global Pitch Competition gives up and coming startups the chance to get in front of leading VCs, showcase their product in front of the SaaStock audience, and win a trajectory-changing investment package worth $500,000.
Over the years, stellar startups have taken to the stage to pitch their products—and they’ve gone on to pretty impressive things. In this post, we delve into the archives and see where the Pitch Competition alumni are now and take a closer look at what’s in store for this year’s participants.
What is the SaaStock Global Pitch Competition?
The Global Pitch Competition gives budding SaaS startups the opportunity to get in front of the industry’s most influential VCs and funds, as well as the wider SaaS community in attendance at SaaStock conferences.
The competition runs twice a year, in Austin at SaaStock USA (May) and in Dublin at SaaStock Europe (October).
Founders make their initial pitch the day before the conference. Those that go through then take to the stage at the conference, with the semi-finals on day one and the finals on day two.
The winning company receives an investment package worth $500,000.
The Competition is a valuable experience for all participants, giving them invaluable exposure to our audience, generating brand awareness, VC interest, and positioning your business as one-to-watch.
Interested in joining us at SaaStock Europe for this year’s competition? Apply here.
Who is the SaaStock Global Pitch Competition for?
The Competition is for Pre-Seed and Seed stage B2B SaaS startups who want to position their business in front of the SaaS community.
Participants must be actively fundraising, have fewer than 35 employees, and no more than $1.5M ARR.
Pitch Competition Alumni: Where are they now?
Let’s take a look at some of our winners, their pitch comp stories, and what’s happened since.
Europe 2024: Compare Ethics
Founded in 2018, Compare Ethics is an AI-enabled SaaS platform that helps companies like Reiss and New Look verify business compliance with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) regulations.
Co-founder and CEO, Abbie Morris, took to the Dublin stage in 2024 against other startups including ApTap, Coreloops, and Veriom,
Speaking throughout the process, Abbie said:
“I’m really enjoying being part of the Pitch Competition. It really forces you to make sure you’re handling the objections that you might have in a normal conversation upfront. So it just makes you better overall and I love that.”
She continued: “We are in the climate space, so having SaaS expertise on board from an investment point was a really important aspect to the cap table that I wanted to add in this round.”
Just four months on from winning, we’re excited to see what’s next for Compare Ethics.
Europe 2023: Tipple
Out of 100 companies, it was D2C sales platform Tipple that took the crown in 2023.
Founder and CEO Eoin Bara revealed on the SaaS Revolution Show that Tipple entered the competition midway through a Seed round, primarily seeking exposure to the many investors at SaaStock.
After a shaky start on Startup Day, involving an old deck and some impressive improvising, Eoin went on to pitch against the other high calibre startups, Flowcore, Flowmate, Bekodu and InsideOut at the conference.
He explained that even as they moved through the competition stages, more and more investors were reaching out looking to meet in Dublin. After the win, he said “inbound from VCs went nuts”.
The result? A very competitive Seed Round. The process ended over subscribed, with three potential leads and much more money on the table. The round closed at $4.3M.
Today, Tipple allows alcohol brands to sell directly to consumers across 11 European countries. The company also recently launched in the US and has five, billion dollar companies on its roster.
USA 2023: Corrily (Now unSurvey)
Corrily won out against 18 other SaaS startups at the inaugural SaaStock USA back in 2023. At the time, Co-Founder and COO Alex David said: “The pitch competition was an exceptional experience. Not only were we able to showcase our company, creating leads for our business – we were also able to meet and network with the other contestants, all of whom were amazing founders in their space. Winning the competition was the cherry on top – along with the fundraising support that it helped drive!”
Since winning, Corrilly has pivoted to unSurvey, a conversational AI platform that reimagines how companies gather feedback, conduct research, and more.
Europe 2022: Caribou (Rebank)
Founded in 2017, Caribou (previously Rebank) came out on top in 2022. Earlier that year, Founder Juan Andrade had been in New York to meet investors in person. He came back with great leads but wanted to meet more and thought SaaStock was the right place to do it.
Juan found that preparing for the pitch competition helped him simplify the message he’d been using in New York. He boiled down the key points and improved the pitch ahead of the event.
Speaking on the podcast shortly after winning, Juan told us that the Pitch competition helped them to raise a round with more investors. He also built relationships with potential partners, and connected with peers in the SaaS and startup space.
Europe 2020: Usercentrics
Not even the pandemic could stop the Global Pitch Competition. In 2020, consent management platform (CMP) Usercentrics won at our remote conference.
At the time, Usercentrics was a team of 50 working remotely either from its headquarters in Munich or locally in London, Lisbon, and California. Early on in their journey, CEO Mischa Rürup, explained their lofty goals of becoming the leading and category defining Consent Management Platform in Europe and the US and building a network standard for obtaining and forwarding consent information.
Usercentrics has raised €27.2M to date and has grown to a team of over 200 employees. It’s active in 100 countries, with 2000+ resellers and handles more than 61 million daily user consents
Europe 2019: Crankwheel
Crankwheel Founder and CEO Jói Sigurdsson was already a big advocate for events as part of the company’s GTM strategy. One of their best acquisition channels, they’d found their first customer outside of Iceland at another event and met more at their first SaaStock back in 2017.
Jói entered the Global Pitch Competition, simply under the ethos “you have to be in it to win it”. His view was that, however far they got, it was good exposure for the screen sharing platform. Immediately after winning, Crankwheel had built its social media following, unlocked PR opportunities in the Nordics, and garnered interest from a number of VCs.
Hear more from Jói on the SaaS Revolution Show.
Europe 2018: Cledara
Back in 2018 Cledara Founder and CEO Cristina Vila Vives launched the product during the Pitch Competition. Not only did they have a successful launch but Cledara went on to win.
Within a year, the software management platform had found early product adopters, been accepted by Techstars London, and raised a Pre-Seed funding round. In 2022, the company raised a $20M Series A and now serves over 1000 customers in 32 countries.
Speaking shortly after the competition, Cristina said:
“It has been amazing because we launched Cledara right on stage during the pitch competition at SaaStock which triggered a massive snowball as it helped us find early adopters amongst the companies that were attending the event…Being able to say that we are SaaStock Global Pitch competition Winners helps companies and certainly those early adopters trust us and onboard Cledara.”
Ready, set, pitch! Apply for the SaaStock Global Pitch Competition
This year’s USA Pitch Competition takes place in Austin (12-14 May) at SaaStock USA.
With over 15 expert decision makers from top VCs, this is your chance to get your businesses invaluable exposure and be in with a chance of walking away with a $500,000 investment package.
Claim your spot amongst this incredible alumni group. Apply now.
