European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes has named Clear Returns the winner of “Tech All Stars“, an EU-wide search to find Europe’s best young startup company and celebrate European entrepreneurship.
The competition is part of Startup Europe, the European Commission’s initiative to strengthen the business environment for web and ICT entrepreneurs so that their ideas and business can start and grow in the EU.
Founded by Victoria Brock and headquartered in Glasgow, UK Clear Returns helps companies deal predict and understand ecommerce returns. Returns not only cost retailers time, money and manpower, it can damage their customers’ perception of their business. Clear Returns has a range of smart, cloud-based solutions designed to help online and multichannel retailers minimise returns , giving them the knowledge they need to grow the proportion of products kept by their customers and the revenue kept by the retailer.
The other finalists were:
– Parx Plastics, from the Netherlands who work with innovative biocompatible technology to make antibacterial plastics.
– Triggertrap Ltd, United Kingdom – Trigger your SLR camera from iOS, Android, and Arduino
Just over 400 EU registered startups applied for this competition. To qualify, companies had to be younger than 3 years and have raised less than €1m in external funding.
12 winning teams from the UK, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden were selected. The startups work in different fields such as: 3D printing, cleantech, photography, mobile apps, music, real estate, media content, mHealth and ecommerce.
The 12 came to London on 10-11 June for two days of training, mentoring and a pitching competition in front of top-top-tier investors and venture capitalists including Accel Partners, Index Ventures & Balderton Capital. Three finalists were selected and presented their companies at Founders Forum London in front of tech and web visionaries including Richard Branson, Chad Hurley, Reid Hoffman, Sir Ronald Cohen and Jonnie Goodwin. In addition to priceless exposure, and networking opportunities, each three finalists get 20 000 euros worth of credits on Google Platform services.
