This was Demo Day

The program of the first technology accelerator focussing on the hotel and food industry worldwide reached its peak with the Demo Day last Thursday. Olaf Koch, CEO of METRO AG, opened the event asking: “What does DIGITAL look like in HoReCa today?” to a full-house in Berlin, laying the groundwork for insights on the state of digitization in the food and hotel industry today. The tone was clear from the outset – “restaurants and hotels will develop innovative solutions to improve customer experience, establish new services, optimize processes and consequently boost quality and efficiency.”

The Techstars METRO Accelerator intends to make significant contribution to this change: with good ideas, strong teams and creative enterprises. After three intense months with countless mentors, we could finally find out which startup company wowed investors and could get them on board. “We rely on partners like METRO to help increase the diversity of the Techstars community and contribute to what we can offer entrepreneurs around the globe,” emphasized David Brown, Techstars co-founder and managing partner.

After the opening with Olaf Koch, David Brown and the team from Techstars METRO Accelerator followed the most important part of the afternoon: the eleven startup pitches. They presented their digital business ideas in RADIALSYSTEM V to about 400 investors, experts and multiplicators. The digital solutions from Coffee Cloud, Flowtify, Gastrozentrale, GroupRaise, Journy, Lunchio, Poshpacker, Roomatic, Rublys, Wynd and Zenchef garnered much applause and excitement. The four week pitch training literally paid off not only on the stage, but afterwards in networking with investors and industry experts. In the evening, there was a party in the Arminiusmarkthalle, with street food and delicious drinks. But see for yourself… We’ve embedded the opening speech by Olaf Koch and the startup pitches for you in a YouTube playlist below. Have fun checking it out!