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EmpoWomen Celebrates Innovation as Winners of Second Cohort Demo Day are Announced at How to Web Conference

BUCHAREST, Romania – 3.10.2025 – EmpoWomen successfully concluded its second Demo Day, a landmark event in Bucharest that showcased 14 of Europe’s most promising women-led deep tech startups. The event brought together a dynamic audience of investors, industry leaders, and ecosystem partners to celebrate the culmination of an intensive acceleration programme funded by the European Union.

The 14 participating founders, hailing from Portugal, Greece, Armenia, Estonia, Slovenia, Poland, Turkey, Serbia, and Latvia, presented their groundbreaking solutions to a packed room. 

The excitement climaxed the following day on the main stage of the prestigious How to Web conference, where the top four companies were announced as the winners of the pitching competition.

The winners of the EmpoWomen Cohort 2 Demo Day are:

While four companies received top honours, the EmpoWomen programme considers all 14 participants to be winners. The selection process for the cohort was exceptionally competitive, with the participants chosen from 251 applications—a testament to the high calibre of the participating startups, with nearly 18 applicants for every available spot.

“Every founder who took the stage is a leader in her field,” said Miguel García González, CEO & Co-Founder of Sploro, the coordinating partner at EmpoWomen. “They represent the top tier of European deep tech, and their selection from such a competitive pool is an achievement in itself. We are incredibly proud of them all.” 

The winners were selected by an esteemed panel of judges, including Kristiana Kuneva, Chief Business Development Officer at The Recursive, Cristina Juc, Executive Director at Spherik Accelerator, Raluca Negrea, Founder and Angel Investor at Bravva Angels, Mārtiņš Pjalkovskis, Investor at BADideas.fund, who faced the difficult task of choosing from an exceptionally strong field of contenders.

For those who missed the live pitches or wish to re-experience the event, the full recording is now available.

About EmpoWomen

EmpoWomen is a two-year program (2024-2025) operating within the framework of the HORIZON-CSA action and falling under the call designation HORIZON-EIC-2022-STARTUPEU-01. It is funded under grant agreement number 101120693. This initiative is dedicated to supporting startups led by women in Europe, providing equity-free funding and vouchers for mentorship, business angel investment, and participation in tech summits. The primary goal of EmpoWomen is to promote gender equality and diversity in entrepreneurship, contributing to economic growth and innovation in Europe. 

The project is supporting women-led deep tech startups from Widening Area countries. By providing equity-free funding, world-class mentorship, and access to a broad European network of investors and partners, EmpoWomen aims to level the playing field and empower a new generation of female innovators to solve global challenges. 

The programme is delivered by a consortium of partners including Sploro (Coordinator), TechUkraine (Communications), Startup Wise Guys (Acceleration and Mentorship), and Business Angels Europe (Acceleration and Mentorship).

For more information, visit https://empowomen.eu. 

Contact: 

Natalia Petrova
Communication Specialist, TechUkraine
info@techukraine.org
TechUkraine.org

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