The winner will receive a fast-track for the final interview for Batch 25 at the Silicon Valley acceleration program. Startups have the opportunity to qualify for a 4-month long intensive seed program and a 150 thousand USD seed fund. The application deadline is October 19th.

 

Digital Freedom Festival Co-Founder Dagnija Lejina: “We’re excited to continue our friendship with 500 Startups. Silicon Valley is indeed coming to the Baltics to look for the best ideas and teams with the ambition to become the future unicorns. Only the best will get a golden ticket to San Francisco.”

 

500 Startups Partner Marvin Liao: “I’m a huge fan of the Digital Freedom Festival, as we’ve found several promising companies by attending the event the last two years. 500 Startups will definitely participate in future festivals as well.”

 

The best 3-5 startups will make it through the first round during Investor Day on November 29th, and will have the opportunity to present their idea on the Digital Freedom Festival main stage on November 30th to local and international investors, media and other Digital Freedom Festival guests. Participating startups will gain visibility and new connections, with the competition winner receiving a fast-track to the final interview round for the next batch with the Silicon Valley accelerator.

 

Participation in the competition will provide the opportunity to improve idea quality and presentation skills, gain a product evaluation from industry representatives and experts, and give access to contacts and investors all over the world.

 

Additional information and application form are available here.

 

Last year’s 500 Startups Pitch Competition winners were B2B startup CENOS and blockchain-based crypto and digital inheritance service Digipulse, both from Latvia.

In 2016 winners included Funderful – the SaaS (software as a service) solution for education institutions from Latvia, and the fintech/proptech-startup SkenarioLabs from Finland.

 

The Digital Freedom Festival will gather more than 1500 technology and startup entrepreneurs, experts, policymakers, investors and motivational speakers from around the world. Recognising the important role of technology in the lives of humans, the main topic will be centred around Human&Machine. The conference will include lectures and discussions about artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, green technologies, smart cities and digital detox.

 

About 500 Startups

 

500 Startups is a global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator with a network of startup programs headquartered in Silicon Valley with over $350M in committed capital across 4 main funds and 13 micro funds. Forbes magazine has listed 500 Startups as the best startup accelerator in the world. It has invested in 1,800 technology startups all over the world since it’s inception in 2010 including several companies worth over 100 million and 1 billion dollars, for example Twilio, Behance, MakerBot, and many more.

 

About the Digital Freedom Festival

 

The Digital Freedom Festival is a global technology, startup, policy and lifestyle festival, which will be held on November 29th and December 1st in Riga. It will gather technology and startup entrepreneurs, experts, policymakers, investors, journalists and motivational speakers from all over the world to look for answers to how entrepreneurs, society and and policymakers can better cooperate and use the benefits provided by technology.

In 2017 the Digital Freedom Festival gathered 1300 technology and startup entrepreneurs, experts, policymakers, investors, journalists and students from 36 countries. The conference livestream was viewed more than 9000 times.

The conference is organised by the Digital Freedom Festival group, the DFF NGO, as well as the Lejiņa & Šleiers reputation management agency. Festival official bank – Norvik Banka, startup competition partner 500 Startups, Rockstart, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM), European Commission, USA Embassy, Dutch Embassy etc. Media partners – Delfi, Dienas Bizness, LETA, Diena, SestDiena, The Baltic Times, LabsofLatvia, bel.biz, BerlinBalticNordic.net etc.

Two-day festival tickets are available online.

Follow the latest Digital Freedom Festival news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts (#DFFestival).