Ladies and gentlemen,
On 15.01.2024, the Fund of Funds launched the National Competition "Best Youth Startup in Bulgaria 2024" together with Sofia University, with a deadline for applications until 15.03.2024.
The competition is being held with the active support of the Ministry of Innovation and Growth , Ministry of Education and Science and 40 partner organizations.
Young people aged 18 to 29 can apply to it only with a business idea or an already established startup.
The ambition is that every year this competition becomes more significant, more popular throughout the country and more useful for young people. The main participants in the competition are the students of the Bulgarian universities. The competition consists of an 11-week training/mentoring program and a competition part. The participants of the past two editions of the competition received valuable knowledge in the field of startups and entrepreneurship, information about opportunities for future development and other programs, mentorship from investors, international appearances (COP28, Web Summit - Portugal, SLUSH - Helsinki, Norway), and some from them and financing from the national funds.
This competition will also lay the foundation for a future financial instrument under the "Education" Program 2021-2027, through which startups of students and doctoral students, with the participation of teachers, will be financed.
The initiative takes place for the third consecutive year and attracts projects of young people from all over the country. The competition is a springboard for successfully implementing plans for your own business in all sectors of the economy and aims to increase the entrepreneurial culture of young people in Bulgaria, including generating and developing ideas, business planning, marketing, presenting to investors, etc. In its first edition in 2022, the competition attracted 36 projects, and last year the participants were over 50. Authors were students or graduates of 17 Bulgarian and 7 foreign universities. Upper year students from 7 Bulgarian high schools were also admitted to the competition. The competition has supported the acceleration of ideas from various fields - fintech, e-commerce, recycling, virtual reality, applications of artificial intelligence, electromobility, education, agro-technologies and urban agriculture, career development, civil society, architecture, creative activities, etc. The strongest projects received direct investment or managed to attract financing at a later stage.
The website of the competition with the application form is as follows:
https://www.startup-competition.fmfib.bg
