8th Envolve Award Greece Finalists Announced
– 10 finalists in line to receive funding, mentorship and business support services
– Envolve Award Greece winners’ announcement will be livestreamed
on Wednesday, 23 June 2021
Athens, Greece, 16 June 2021 – Envolve Entrepreneurship (https://greece.envolveglobal.org/) has announced the 10 finalists of the 8th Envolve Award Greece, who are in line to receive interest-free funding, mentorship and business support services. The finalists’ businesses are based in Athens, Thessaloniki and Heraklion and operate in the industries of FinTech, Retail Tech, Education, Technology, Tourism, F&B and e-commerce.
The Envolve Award Greece winners announcement will take place on Wednesday 23 June at 19:00, also hosting members of the Greek government and the innovation ecosystem. In particular, the following speakers will participate, either live or digitally: Minister of Digital Governance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis representing the Presidency of the Government – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Deputy Minister of Development and Investments, Christos Dimas and Deputy Minister of Education, Zetta Makri. Speakers from the innovation ecosystem include Myladie Stoumbou, Regional Director for Partner Business Development at Microsoft; Peter Economides, Brand Strategy Consultant; Fotis Karydas, Journalist and Communications Consultant; Marina Hatsopoulos, Board Chair at Levitronix Technologies, and Christos Spatharakis, Co-Founder & CEO at Ferryhopper. For a second consecutive year, the event will be presented by Sakis Tanimanidis at ATRAKTOS, and will be live streamed on Chorus Call Hellas’ webcast platform in both Greek and English.
Registration at the following link is required to watch the livestream: https://87399.choruscall.eu/links/envolve_en_disclaimer.html
The Panel of Judges and Envolve’s team in Greece have carefully evaluated hundreds of Greek owned and operated businesses and business ideas, from individuals and teams operating both locally and globally. This year, despite all of Envolve’s entrepreneurship support activities being conducted digitally, expectations for the 8th award cycle were greatly surpassed, with numerous strong business plans submitted, particularly in the Tourism, Technology and Healthcare sectors.
In addition to Envolve Award Greece, the public can vote for their favorite finalists via the #GetEnvolved Award, based on pitch videos on Envolve’s Facebook and Instagram channels (www.facebook.com/envolveGR and www.instagram.com/envolveGR). The three #GetEnvolved Award Winners will receive €3,000, €2,000 and €1,000 respectively, regardless of the main Envolve Award Greece results. The first prize of 3.000€ is sponsored by Brookstreet Equity Partners LLP to celebrate entrepreneurship in the name of late George V. Bolos, a co-founding partner, General Manager of the Olympic Games 2004, respected CEO and serial entrepreneur. The award will be presented by his daughter Miss Natalia Bolou, who is flying from Paris for the event.
Jimmy Athanasopoulos, Chairman of Envolve Entrepreneurship, commented: “Although it has been a challenging period, Envolve continues its mission by supporting entrepreneurs in Greece and empowering them to pursue their dreams. This year’s finalist show that great ideas, innovation, teamwork and growth can flourish despite any setback. We are inspired by the hundreds of entrepreneurs we met during the application assessment, who saw the opportunity to start a new business and develop their business model.”
Alexandros Nousias, Country Director of Envolve Entrepreneurship in Greece, commented: “We congratulate the ten finalists and the hundreds of aspiring entrepreneurs for their perseverance. Our team intensified its presence introducing two educational programs for students, authorized by the Ministry of Education, as well as two additional projects in sustainable entrepreneurship and innovative technologies. Our main goal is to push the boundaries of entrepreneurship in Greece and let it flourish despite the challenges of the pandemic. The finalists are remarkable teams of individuals with knowledge of the market, innovative thinking, and drive.”
Envolve’s mission rests on three main pillars: education, resources and awards. The non-profit organization provides education for start-up and early-stage businesses, leveraging partnerships that increase the availability of entrepreneurship resources. The award programme, which was founded in Greece by the Libra Group on behalf of The Hellenic Initiative, enjoys the backing of many organizations that have stepped forward in support of the Envolve Awards both in Greece and the USA. Since 2012, Envolve has declared 31 award winners in Greece, operating in 19 sectors. These winners have contributed to the Greek economy with the creation of more than 1,800 new jobs and have a combined valuation exceeding €330 million. The network of supporters in Greece includes: Alexander Innovation Zone, Amazon, Antidote, Atraktos, Atradius, Epixeiro.gr, I.A.D.R., IED, Intracom Telecom, indima.gr, Ioannis Vassardanis & Partners Law Form, Jalouise PTY LTD, Lykourezos Law Offices, Microsoft, People for Business, Prisma Consulting, Reed Smith, SAP Hellas, Startup Elevator, Vestbee, V+O Communication and White Room.
This year’s event is kindly sponsored by ATRAKTOS, Chorus Call Hellas, Brookstreet Equity Partners LLP, Red Bull, Action 24, Epixeiro, Aria Hotels, Ferryhopper, TYCO, MINU and Marocaine.
The 8th Envolve Award Greece finalists are:
- bindbops: bindbops is a software for real estate construction and service operations, which automates asset onboarding by analyzing the label of any physical asset, such as equipment, machinery, or inventory. Bindbops’ technology is based on Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing and AI, enabling service providers in building operations to improve their efficiency, minimize errors and manage their assets and inventory. With bindbops’ API (Application Program Interface) integration, technology companies that focus in IoT, AI and AR/VR can automatically capture the data needed from physical assets.
Website: https://bindbops.com
Applicants: Harry Mylonadis, Kyriakos Chatzidimitriou, Thanos Daskalopoulos. - Carge: Carge provides e-mobility solutions, which help electric vehicle drivers seek, book, plug, and pay at thousands of charging stations across SE Europe. It is the only mobile app globally that uses intelligent algorithms for grid balancing through direct connection with each car.
Website: https://carge.co/
Applicants: Eleftherios Karabatsakis, Peter Benos - Hotellisense: Hotellisense offers a cloud-based business Intelligence platform enabling hotels to discover the wealth of data found in their key systems to increase their turnover and occupancy. Hotellisense unifies the hotel’s management systems and data, helping decision makers in sales, revenue, marketing and operations to analyse complex parameters and make evidence-based decisions.
Website: https://www.hotellisense.com
Applicants: Spiliotis Georgios, Antonakakis Dimitrios, Karathanasis Georgios. - Inteligg P.C.: Inteligg P.C. has developed SMARTH-PROP, an advanced self-learning and self-adjusting smart thermostat system. SMARTH-PROP technology includes Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms and Model Predictive Control (MPC) techniques, deployed on a Cloud Computing platform. The solution offers multi-zonal control of heating/cooling systems in large buildings.It utilizes wirelessly connected sensors and achieves higher energy savings up to 40%.
Website: https://www.inteligg.com/
Applicants: Christos Ioakeimidis, Konstantinos Genikomsaki, Ali Bagheri, Vasileios Sakellariou - Momcycle: Momcycle is an online marketplace dedicated to pre-owned children’s products. Momcycle offers parents a user-friendly tool with multiple functionalities, allowing them to convert items they no longer need into cash and buy their favorite brands at great discounts. It features curated listings, the highest security standards for transactions and a seamless shipping procedure. Through Momcycle, parents can prolong their products’ useful life enhancing sustainable consumption.
Website: https://www.momcycle.gr
Applicants: Ileana Ismyridi, Niki Lalioti. - obko: obko is a data-driven application, which integrates a user’s entire financial life and behaviour to scale up premium financial services to the mass market, services that currently only affluent banking customers enjoy. obko introduces a revolutionary suite of services through automation and AI, including a Personal Assistant, a Financial Coach and a Relationship Manager, to simplify the users’ daily financial tasks, optimize spending and savings habits and receive meaningful and personalized financial guidance.
Website: www.i-am-obko.com
Applicants: Giorgos Gavriil, Vasilis Linakis, Nikos Konstantinidis, Evi Efstathiou. - Project Parenting: Project Parenting is the first educational platform for parents in Greece. Project Parenting has developed a multidisciplinary network of specialized experts, who share their experience and knowledge through videos, e-books, articles, live discussions and webinars. The team aims to add a digital channel for parents with live shows hosted by experts. The ultimate goal is to support holistically all the parents every step of the way and cover their needs, by giving them all the necessary tools, both theoretical and practical.
Website: www.projectparenting.gr
Applicants: Marina Arplia, Danae Kotsou, Marialena Mantzavela, Marialena Aggeli, Dimitris Konstantinou, Oly Patsoura, Foteini Meletaki. - Tourmie: Tourmie transforms traditional concierge by enabling hotels and property managers to provide personalized travel services to their guests. Tourmie allows guests to search, book and pay for personalized travel services such as excursions, car rental and transfer easily and quickly from the security of their mobile phone. Through Tourmie, accommodation providers increase the efficiency of their front office, optimize guest relations and create new revenue channels.
Website: https://www.tourmie.com
Applicants: Stelios Christakis, Giorgos Christakis, Giannis Makridis, Nikoleta Kampitaki, Giannis Kotronakis. - Valuelenz: Valuelenzis a retail-tech, hybrid-commerce solution empowering retailers of any size and sector to provide “phygital” shopping with personalized, fast, convenient, and safe customer experiences. Valulenz enables SMEs in a simple and cost-effective manner to compete with bigger players in retail, democratizing technology access, and delivering significant economic and social impact.
Website: https://valuelenz.com/
Applicants: Panos Konstantinidis, Jenny Tantidou. - 12GODS: 12GODS creates herbal beverage blends in a fully biodegradable capsule for NespressoTM machines. By bringing together scientific innovation with the best agricultural practices, 12GODS, aims to introduce healthy products that conform to sustainable business practices throughout the production process, while radically reducing beverage brewing times for end users. 12GODS hopes to align its products with the health, lifestyle and environmental concerns of discerning, modern customers.
Website: https://www.12gods.eu
Applicants: Filippos Zebilas, Konstantinos Macheras, Nikolas Antoniadis, Giannis Kouroudis, Giorgos Ganotis, Dimitri Iossifidis, Vasilis Grigoropoulos, Vagelis Karaiakofoglou, Daniel Karathanasis and Lianthi Bakae.
For more information about the 10 finalists you can visit: http://bit.ly/8EAGF
– Ends –
About Envolve Entrepreneurship:
Envolve is an entrepreneurship support organization, founded by the Libra Group. It provides education, resources, and award programmes for start-up businesses globally. The organization encompasses the former Hellenic Entrepreneurship Award (HEA) and the American Entrepreneurship Award (AEA) – programmes which have declared 57 winners since 2012, supporting job creation and economic growth in Greece and the USA. Striving for a global society where all business owners can prosper and grow, Envolve is committed to developing and cultivating entrepreneurial ecosystems, by ensuring business support services are more readily available to entrepreneurs.
To learn more about Envolve, please visit https://greece.envolvelglobal.org
Past Envolve Award Greece Winners
7th Envolve Award Greece Winners: Collaborate Healthcare (www.collaborate247.com), Finclude (https://www.finclude.ai), MOJOOLS (https://www.mojools.com) and Rodi Pharmaceuticals (http://www.rodipharmaceuticals.com/EN)
6th Envolve Award Greece Winners: apifon (www.apifon.com), BookingClinic.com (www.bookingclinic.com), CollegeLink (www.collegelink.gr), Ferryhopper (www.ferryhopper.com), Geomiso (www.geomiso.com), MyJobNow (www.myjobnow.com), PD Neurotechnology (www.pdneurotechnology.com) and Think Silicon (www.think-silicon.com)
5th Envolve Award Greece Winners: Allcancode (www.allcancode.com), Fresh Strips (www.freshstrips.com), NOMADA Honey Soda (www.nomadahoneysoda.com), Tech Talent (www.techtalent.jobs) and Quizdom Education
4th Envolve Award Greece Winners: blueground (www.theblueground.com), bubbllz (www.bubbllz.com) and Raymetrics (www.raymetrics.com)
3rd Envolve Award Greece Winners: Heliix (www.heliixinc.com), Smart Guide and Yoleni’s (www.yolenis.com)
2nd Envolve Award Greece Winners: Anassa Organics (www.anassaorganics.com), e-satisfaction (www.e-satisfaction.gr), Open Circle (www.opencircleproject.com) and RTsafe (www.rt-safe.com)
1st Envolve Award Greece Winners: Casa Parlante (www.casaparlante.gr), Different & Different (www.differentanddifferent.gr), rabt (www.rabt.co) and Stella Mare (www.stellamare.gr)
About the Libra Group:
The Libra Group is a privately-owned international business group that is active in 35 countries across six continents. It is focused on six core sectors: aviation, energy, hospitality, real estate, shipping and diversified investments. The group is wholly-owned by the Logothetis family.
For more information, visit the website: www.libra.com
About The Hellenic Initiative:
Mission: Investing in the future of Greece through direct philanthropy and economic revitalization. We empower people to provide crisis relief, encourage entrepreneurs, and create jobs.
We are The Hellenic Initiative (THI) – a global movement of the Greek Diaspora.
Website: http://www.TheHellenicInitiative.org/ & http://onegreece.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thehellenicinitiative
Twitter: @THI_OneGreece
For further information, please contact:
Giannis Michalis
V+O Communication
Phone: +30 2107249000
Email: gmi@vando.gr
