De Laurenskerk in Rotterdam was transformed Wednesday evening into a magical arena where eight international startups met each other in a boxing ring to compete for an investment of up to €1,000,000. The Italian Risparmio Super ensured a knock-out and went home with the championship belt.

An audience of about 750 watched eight international startups, including two Dutch contenders, battle each other in four rounds, guided by the skilled host James Digby. The startups -- Holland Haptics and Innovader (Netherlands), Graduateland (Denmark), Watchado (Austria), CrystAL-N (Germany), Cookisto (Greece), Zentrick (Belgium) and Risparmio Super (Italy) -- found each other in the ring competing to convince a team of champions -- prominent investors -- to invest in their startups. The champions included the international investors Melih Odemis (Turkey), Michael Friebe (Germany, German business angel of the year 2011), Michiel Muller (Netherlands, founder Tango and Route Mobiel) en Frank Peters (United States).

Frank Peters, part of Tech Coast Angels, the largest business angel network in America, opened the event as keynote speaker. He spoke about the crucial role a solid team plays in the success of a startup. Not only do the employees in the office play a role in this team, one's life partner on the homefront is also important to the success of a business.

After a short break, Jonathan Ortmans, president of the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW), spoke about his travels around the world to support and stimulate entrepreneurship. He praised Rotterdam's Get in the Ring as one of the most prestigious entrepreneurial events during the GEW and pointed out that at the same time all over the world events on entrepreneurship are happening.

And the winner is…
The event closed with the announcement of the winners by Jonathan Ortmans and Hendrik Halbe, initiator of Get in the Ring. The 750-member audience, comprised of investors, entrepreneurs and ambitious students, chose Risparmio Super as the winner of the day. The Italian Risparmio Super received the championship belt and rang the closing bell at the AEX on Thursday, Nov. 15.

In addition to the overall winner, Risparmio Super, the Greek venture iKiosk won the social media award, a prize worth EUR 4,000. The Greek team, which garnered more than 1200 votes online, also won the chance to give their pitch live in the ring during the event.

After the ceremony at the podium, the rest of the evening was also busy with a closing dinner. People with good ideas were coupled with people with the will to invest. We are sure to hear more about this in the coming months.

Global Entrepreneurship Week
Get in the Ring is one of the eight featured events over the whole world during Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW). GEW inspires worldwide more than 7 million people to make their innovative and creative ideas a reality and to discover the entrepreneur in themselves. Millions of entrepreneurs come together each year during the third week in November to be a part of over 33,500 events.

'Get in the Ring' is organized by the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship and the Economische Faculteitsvereniging Rotterdam (EFR).

For more information check getinthering.nl
For photo’s go to Startup Campus facebook.

tags: featured, James Digby, Risparmio Super, Tech Coast Angels