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Countdown for Startup Night now underway

  • Startup Night third time round - call on young firms to participate
  • Conference and hackathon offer expertise and networking for young entrepreneurs
  • Microsoft Berlin is the event's third location

The countdown is underway. Young company founders can now apply to join in the third Startup Night. Up to 150 startups from all over the globe will have the chance to present their products and services at Deutsche Telekom's Berlin Representative Office, the Ludwig Erhard Haus of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK), and Microsoft in Berlin on September 5. They will be supported by Deutsche Telekom and its partners, Berlin Partner für Wirtschaft und Technologie, IHK Berlin, Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB), Lufthansa Innovation Hub, Microsoft, and the 'on the rock' agency.

Looking for startups - support for innovative ideas
Startups in the fields of commerce/retail/fashion, communication, entertainment, data analytics, food/lifestyle, automotive/travel & transport, fintech, Internet of Things, wearables, health, security, and energy are called on to apply now here. The Startup Night offers them an opportunity to present their business concepts to prospective customers and investors, find new partners, and gain access to new markets all over the globe. To participate, startups must already have one product or service on the market and should make their presentation for visitors to the Startup Night as creative as possible.

"It's not often that you will find so many innovations and innovators under one roof," reports Julia Bösch, founder of Outfittery. "We made vital contacts last year with creative peers – to good music and in a special ambience." The first Startup Night was held in 2013. 2,500 participants and over 100 exhibitors joined in the event in 2014. This year, for the first time, there will be three event locations, offering the 150 startups an ideal backdrop for their presentations.

The first startups to qualify for participation are MyCouchbox and Siut. MyCouchbox distributes packages of snacks to customers once a month for cosy evenings at home. Siut combines prefabricated concrete parts with optical fibers to create luminous surfaces. The two startups will have their own stands at the 2015 Startup Night.

Startup Night - everything stays different
This year's event will start at 9.00 a.m. with a conference at the Ludwig Erhard Haus. English presentations, workshops and discussions will be held there through to 5.00 p.m. and will focus on such aspects as foundation, financing, marketing, sales, and partnering. The conference is being organized by Deutsche Telekom's hub:raum incubator. Between 5.00 p.m. and midnight, the young companies will present their portfolios to a Berlin audience as well as to potential customers and investors at the three locations.

This year's side program again offers an exclusive panel discussion and musical highlights as well startup competitions such as Start Tel Aviv and Le Web. At the end of the evening, the Customer Choice Award will be presented to the lucky winners. Visitors award this generously endowed prize to the three most attractive startups.

This year, the Startup Night will again include a hackathon, supported by Lufthansa Innovation Hub and Deutsche Telekom. Management and technology consulting specialist Detecon will provide experts to support selected startups on strategic and operational issues, including attractive presentations at the Startup Night event.

About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies with around 151 million mobile customers, 30 million fixed-network lines and more than 17 million broadband lines (as of December 31, 2014). The Group provides fixed network, mobile communications, Internet and IPTV products and services for consumers and ICT solutions for business customers and corporate customers. Deutsche Telekom is present in more than 50 countries and has approximately 228,000 employees worldwide. The Group generated revenues of EUR 62.7 billion in the 2014 financial year – more than 60 percent of it outside Germany.

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