EWOR

🚀 Two brothers from Lebanon and their best friend co-found a startup... and within 6 months they have raised €500,000 from top-tier investors! ➡️ Meet Mario Assaf, Elio Assaf and Raphaël Ausilio, co-founders of Optiverse, an agentic AI for workplace productivity and note-taking. 🇱🇧🇨🇭Emigrating from Lebanon to Switzerland, Mario completed his Master’s in Finance at University of St.Gallen MBA, whilst Elio studied Mechanical Engineering at EPFL and ETH Zürich. 👾 Elio was always a builder. At 12, he built a software to use his neighbours’ WIFI. Years later, he led ETH Zürich’s aerospace team (ARIS) to victory in an engineering competition by launching a 6 meter rocket to the stratosphere. 🏫 Elio then went on to write a Master’s Thesis in Nanotechnology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he met Rapheal, who was developing a new technology for cellular activity monitoring. 🫛 Like Elio, Raphael was also born a builder. In fact, he had also tried to build a software to hack into his neighbours’ WIFI when he was a teen. (Peas in a pod.) 🛋️ After becoming best friends, Raphaël spent 3 months crashing on Elio’s couch to ideate a video-to-video summarisation tool. With a product roadmap drawn, Elio called in his business-minded brother, Mario, to join the ideation-couch-crashing for 3 more months. 🚀 They pivoted, and Optiverse was born. A year later, Optiverse has over 200 enterprise users (pre-launch). And they have a team of brothers working around the clock to build something groundbreaking. Keep your eyes posted! #startup #entrepreneur #tech

🚀 We had a BLAST at START Global Summit last week! Beyond hosting a LIVE Grand Pitch to a packed out room of investors (see list of pitchers below), our 3 biggest highlights were: 1️⃣ Emil Kostadinov (Manamind) beat 80 global applicants to win the SAAS Pitching competition 🏆 2️⃣ Daniel W. Dippold hosted a main-stage panel discussion with Michael Baum (Splunk, The Yope Foundation) 🎤 3️⃣ We hosted a side-event with 20 Tier-1 GPs, and we joined our friends at Sigma Squared Society, Cherry Ventures and Sequoia Capital for various dinners 🫂 --- ➡️ We want to personally thank Max, Hannah, Simone and the whole START team for their incredible work. START Summit is truly a must-attend event. 🗣️ And we want to shoutout our awesome pitchers: Matthew (Möbius Industries), Ariel Harmoko (Artifact AI), Viktoria (Salesy), Johann (Supplied), Kyle (Neobanc), Elio (Optiverse), Anastasia (Your Beet), Mark (Cambridge Surgical Models). -- 🔜 If you missed START Summit, our next Live Grand Pitch will be at Bits & Pretzels in Munich in September - we cannot wait to go again! #tech #entrepreneur #STARTSummit #startup

🚨 𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 : Applications for the next EWOR Fellowships open today! -- EWOR gives rebels, nerds and visionaries an unfair advantage in building companies that matter on a global scale. Our fellowships offer: 1️⃣ Up to €150,000 in immediate funding, followed by support in securing a multi-million euro funding round within 12 months. (On average, our fellows raise €2m at pre-seed.) 2️⃣ Weekly coaching with our partners who have built companies collectively worth over €12BN, including SumUp, Adjust and ProGlove. 3️⃣ A fully remote, modular structure so you can build from anywhere, focusing on the aspects of our programme which matter most to you. -- We have two fellowships: 💡 Our Ideation Fellowship supports founders as early as pre-idea. 📈 And our Traction Fellowship supports founders who have up to €1M ARR. Both are designed for: 💸 Serial entrepreneurs, such Ricky Knox (who built GMS to €4 billion in ARR (acq.), Azimo (acq.), Tandem Bank and now Prosper with EWOR). 🥼 Deep-tech founders working on the cutting-edge, such as Mark Golab (the founder of Cambridge Surgical Models who recently brought an artificial liver to our Grand Pitch). ✨Exceptional first-time founders, such as Jorgen Tveit (who raised Europe’s biggest ever pre-seed round for a first-time founder (€13m) with EWOR). – 🚀 If you're an outlier looking for the launchpad to propel you to the moon: 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: https://lnkd.in/eYTN9ZPg #entrepreneur #EWOR #founder #launch #applications

🫂 Thanks for the kind words Piers MacNaughton, ScD !

🚀🚨 7 days to go until our 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡 at St. Gallen. Let's go START Global! ➡️ If you missed our virtual Grand Pitch on Wednesday, this is a great chance to catch 11 of our fellows who are actively raising, including: 📤 Viktoria Izdebska, revolutionising lead generation with Salesy 🛒 Anastasia Trofimova, revolutionising grocery shopping with Your Beet 🥼 Mark Golab, developing surgical tools with Cambridge Surgical Models -- 🫂 We will also be running multiple exclusive community events throughout the event - if you want to be involved, drop a comment below! 🎟️ And, of course, we have an exclusive discount for you: use "GrandPitch2000" on checkout for 20% off! (Ticket link in comments!) -- 🔜 We simply cannot wait to see you there :) #startup #tech #entrepreneur

11 Outlier Founders meet 400 Top-Tier Investors. 🚀 Yesterday, we hosted an Online Grand Pitch to show that the future of tech does not just reside in Silicon Valley. 🌍 That is why we have a remote structure: We want to support Nerds, Rebels and Visionaries from 𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴 the globe to create globally impactful companies. ➡️ And yesterday, we did just that. 11 of our fellows from across the globe pitched to a sea of Tier-1 VCs, GPs and angels: ♻️ Matthew Pierre-Louis, creating circular economy with Möbius Industries 💸 Ariel Harmoko, building Agentic AI accountants with Artifact AI 📤 Viktoria Izdebska, revolutionising lead generation with Salesy 🏡 Tyler Sellars, revolutionising real-estate investment with Cactus AI 🏦 Johann Rozario, streamlining KYC and compliance with Supplied 🌲 Piers MacNaughton, tackling domestic pollution with SeeAir, Inc. 💳 Kyle Collier, democratising property ownership with Neobanc 🔬 Salil Patel, creating digital biomarkers with Oxford Neurolabs. 🏎️ Elio Assaf, helping enterprise teams to work faster with Optiverse 🛒 Anastasia Trofimova, revolutionising grocery shopping with Your Beet 🥼 Mark Golab, developing surgical tools with Cambridge Surgical Models 👀 Mark Golab even brought a very real-looking artificial liver to his pitch, putting the Nerd, Rebel and Visionary in "Nerds, Rebels and Visionaries"! --- 🫂 Thank you to our investor partners for joining in and completing our ecosystem: Fabrice (FJ Labs) Cornelius Menke (Sequoia Capital), Sebastian Becker (redalpine), Gabriel Matuschka (Fly Ventures), Marcel Doeppes (Flix), Fred (Stride.VC), Rupert Schaefer (10x Founders) and many, many more. ❤️ And thank you to our awesome team-members for making everything run so smoothly: Dr Sonia Amend, Adriana Del Solar, Gülce Horataci and more! -- Finally, a note for those who missed out: Don't Fret. 🔜 If you could not make it, be sure to catch the LIVE version of our Grand Pitch on 21st March at START Global Summit in St. Gallen. Ticket link in comments! #startup #investor #founder #entrepreneur

‼️ 🚀 We are beyond excited to announce our new cohort of Ideation Fellows, a group of rebels, nerds, and visionaries tackling the world’s biggest challenges. This is one of the most talented cohorts we’ve ever brought together, including: 🌍 Josh Raine, co-founder of Wasoko, Africa’s leading B2B e-commerce platform, which scaled to $26M MRR and raised a $125M Series B. Josh is now ideating alongside Dr. Ghaz Samandari, PhD, a behavioral scientist, humanitarian, and tech founder with 20+ years of experience improving women’s and adolescents' well-being across nearly 30 countries. 🤺 Dila Ekrem, an 11x Turkish national fencing champion with 35+ medals from international tournaments who met her co-founders, David Podolskyi and Leon Stawowiak, while studying Management and Computer Engineering at Technical University of Munich. 🛰️ Anirudh Aggarwal, an aerospace engineer and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University graduate who worked on aero-engine manufacturing for GE, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce. He recently co-founded Turbolence, a UAV startup focused on offshore cargo delivery. -- 🚀 Over the next few months, our Ideation Fellows will develop their ventures with guidance from our unicorn-founder-turned-mentors. We can’t wait to see their ideas take flight. 👀 In the meantime, we’ll be sharing their founder origin stories. (Trust us, it’s tempting to spill the details now, but it’s worth the wait). -- 🫂 Welcome to the EWOR community: Alexander Wolters, Alramina Myrzabekova, Anirudh Aggarwal, Célian Riboulet, David Podolskyi, Dila Ekrem, Dylan Nguyen, George Cheng, Dr. Ghaz Samandari, PhD, Greg Tucker, Josh Raine, Leon Stawowiak, Leonardo Benini, Luc Mahoux-Nakamura, Lyndon Leong, Maximilian Winter, Dr. Mykhaylo (Миша / मिशा) Filipenko, Nicolas Dehandschoewercker, Yimeng Li, Zebo Furqatzoda, Ziping Ye

🚨 𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐭 (𝐰𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮)! ➡️ On March 20-21st in St. Gallen, we will be combining forces with START Global for our biggest ever LIVE Grand Pitch! 🚀 12 EWOR Fellows, each raising between €250k and €5M, will be taking centre stage to pitch to a crowd of top-tier investors. 🫂 Following the main event, we will be hosting an EWOR Community Meet Up with all of our Fellows, Investment Team and Partners. 🎟️ You can get a 20% discount using the code "GrandPitch2000": https://lnkd.in/eunrnzpJ -- 🔜 We can't wait to see you there - DM us if you're coming! #entrepreneur #startup #startsummit

🎙️ Daniel W. Dippold and Petter Made (Co-Founder of SumUp) recorded a podcast with Startup Insider about outlier founders. It’s a must listen conversation for any investors or founders out there who are too focused on products and commercials, rather than what really matters. Check it out, as linked in the comments! — ➡️ This podcast is Episode #1 of a new series which Petter Made will host called “Founder DNA”. 👀 Be sure to keep your eyes peeled as interviews with the likes of Fabrice Grinda (FJ Labs) and Markus Villig (Bolt) are on the way! #startup #founder #entrepreneur #tech

🗣️ Exciting news: Our new Fellow, Dr. Bjol R. Frenkenberger, has closed a €600k round for MIR Insight! 🔎 MIR Insight is an AI-based forecasting tool for manufacturing industries, with an initial focus on textiles, fibers, and plastics. ♻️ For context, the textile industry alone accounts for up to 8% of global CO₂ emissions, driven by 40% overproduction. Bjol’s mission is to tackle this waste at its root by making manufacturing smarter and more efficient. And we believe he will do just that. -- 🎹 Before entering the world of tech, Bjol was a child piano prodigy. At just 12, he won the Austrian National Piano Competition and achieved perfect grades in every subject at school. 📈 After earning a Master’s in Musicology from King's College London, an internship at Bloomberg took him to Japan, where he led business development at FiNC Technologies, a health tech data analysis platform.   🧑🏫 During that time he developed an interest in uncertainty and decision-making in business, which led to a PhD at University of Oxford where he secured over £35k in scholarships and ultimately graduated with Distinction. 💡 While at Oxford, he recognised how advancements in forecasting technology could revolutionise industries plagued by inefficiencies, particularly in manufacturing. That realisation became the foundation for MIR Insight. 🚀 In late 2023, he founded MIR Insight, using proprietary AI to forecast supply, demand, and pricing with up to 97% accuracy; and helping clients to avoid multimillion-euro costs while cutting CO₂ emissions. 📈 In 2024, the company secured €36k in ARR. In the last month alone, they’ve already secured €36k in revenue. With this momentum, MIR Insight is on track to hit £1m ARR in 2025. And with that prospect, the future of manufacturing looks a lot smarter than before. #entrepreneur #founder #tech