The winner is: PeerIndex / London startup
The Europas in London ended with a win by PeerIndex the social ranking service, which clinched the Grand Prix award. The result was based on both public online voting and expert judges, recognising the startup’s significant market traction against a much larger competitor, with less resources and a clear path towards both a big consumer and business market.
After the expert judges picked their favourites from 400 entries, and those results where combined with approximately 40,000 public votes from the tech startup industry, clear trends started to emerge from those marked out as Winners and those Highly Commended in the awards.
While London is a startup hotspot for innovation in Europe, with Conversocial, Pusher, OneFineStay and Mixcloud among those taking honours, there was a marked drift and it looks like it will become a drift to Germany and probably Berlinstartup takeover. Many startups like Amen, EyeEm, 6Wunderkinder, clipticker come from Berlin, a few other startups from eastern Europe like Nordeus won their category or were Highly Commended, while companies from Copenhagen (Podio), Stockholm (iZettle) and Helsinki (Rovio, AngryBirds) showed that European innovation remains strong even in smaller countries. Bucking that trend to the North was Busuu from Madrid which won the Education category, showing that tech entrepreneurship is alive and well across the breadth of Europe.
A packed crowd of almost 500 people started their evening with a short welcome video recorded by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who encouraged startups to set up operations in the city. Looks like that european startups grabbing the opportunity to reach global markets with world beating products and services.