10 pitches of high quality medical start-ups. Normally taking place in a full room in Delft, but due to corona this was not possible. The alternative: a virtual event, as if it were a television show. An additional advantage: a much wider reach online.
Pitch Day! is the closing event of the EIT Health Medtech Validation Lab of YES! Delft. During 8 weeks, 17 medical start-ups from Europe were intensively coached by a team of experts to prepare their innovation for the market. Pitch Day! is the opportunity for these entrepreneurs to share their innovation with a broad audience. A jury of experts eventually chose a winner.
The same level of professionalism
‘This year we wanted the same level of professionalism as we normally have, the only difference being it would be online’, says program manager of Yes! Delft Claire Visser. ‘We realized that this was a technical matter that you don’t want to underestimate. But it turned out to be never as easy to organize as this year’. Together with Online Seminar, the organization came up with a television-like format. The pitches were recorded in advance and during the two-hour broadcast the participants received real-time questions from the jury.
International reach
The virtual version of Pitch Day! had the added advantage that the program could be viewed all over the world. Claire: ‘Our goal is to achieve the highest possible reach for our start-ups. Because there is also an ondemand version of the program, that reach only increases. In fact, the reach has never been as high as this year. We have succeeded in bringing the start-ups into contact with potential customers and investors. And we see that the conversation on social media continues.’
Another advantage is the data generated by the event: there is much more knowledge about the target audience. ‘The data gives us the opportunity to be in more intensive contact with our community, which is very important right now.’