Ostend, Belgium – Sealution, a startup that provides onboard connectivity on ships to enable data collection below decks, captured first prize at the national finals of the Entrepreneurship World Cup competition held recently in Ostend, Belgium. Ruben Verplancke, Co-Founder & CFO of Sealution advances to the next round of the global competition against national winners from 200 countries.
“It is a fantastic honor for us to be nominated for the World Cup in Riyadh” said Verplancke. “It was already an enormous experience and we received many tips from the people around us. We had fantastic opponents and we learned a lot from their pitches, skills and network so now we can perform even better in the global finals.”
Sealution is a B2B hardware enabled software startup that provides connectivity on board of merchant vessels to enable data collection below deck. The collected data is used for preventive maintenance and furthermore for reselling to relevant data aggregators such as insurance companies. Their system significantly reduces areas without connectivity, displays real time location of the crewmembers, connects the ships internal systems to the central module and displays ship status in real life to our users.
In preparation for the EWC Global Finals, Ruben Verplancke will participate in a Bootcamp which features virtual training and mentoring sessions targeted to their company’s current stage and growth trajectory.
Sealution emerged victorious from a pool of 115 contestants who applied – each receiving access to free virtual training services and up to $25,000 in perks to help them take their venture to the next level.
As a Global Finalist, Saelution will compete for a share of USD 1 million in cash prizes. The top 100 Global Finalists will receive $100,000 worth of in-kind services and support from service providers such as AWS, Freshworks, Oracle, Hubspot, Stripe and Segment.
Global finalists also gain automatic entry into the GEN Starters Club, an invitation-only community of talented founders from around the world. Other finalists in the EWC Belgium National Finals included:
- Hay Health (Antwerp), gives people with kidney failure their lives back. Home dialysis treatment as a service.
- Nepture (Tielt), helps people with incontinence by letting them know when their bladder is full. This smart underwear can help people of all ages and genders, from children to adults.
- Tillup (Kortrijk), designs a reusable wrapping cloth that perfectly anchors a load from a pallet. A sustainable alternative to the use of plastic film in the transport sector.
- Make it Mine (Antwerp), helps people with food intolerances by adapting each recipe to their needs.
- Foodm (Gentbrugge), provides a personalized range of fresh and healthy food from local producers with their smart fridge and app.
- Metamaze (Antwerp), automates every document and email workflow through an intelligent document processing platform that uses AI.
- Juunoo (Zwevegem), offers sustainable wall solutions to divide or redistribute workplaces.
- CoMoveIT (Bruges), provides independent mobility for people with complex movement disorders thanks to a unique head-foot steering system for their electric wheelchair.
Judges for the competition were:
- Bruno Delepierre, managing director Global Entrepreneurship Netwerk Belgium, CEO Happonomy
- Conny Vandendriessche, Managing Partner 'The House of HR', ' Stella P', 'We Are Jane'.
- Matias Madou, co-founder CTO Secure Code Warrior.
- Nadine De Weirdt, Account Manager Vlaio
- Jens De Vos, Director Project Voka.
The EWC Belgium National Finals were organized by Voka Chamber of commerce West-Flanders in partnership with GEN Belgium and sponsored by Xerius, Smart presentations and PMV.
Since launching in 2019, the competition has attracted 400,000 registrations from 200 countries and connected founders with over US$3M in cash prizes and another US$256M worth of perks and free support and services.
Global Finalists will face off against one another in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in March 2023.
EWC is an initiative led by the Global Entrepreneurship Network and Monsha’at, with support from a collection of national and global partners including One Valley, The Global Education and Leadership Foundation (tGELF), Entrepreneurs’ Organization, KAUST and Startup Genome.