This challenge aims to:

• Catalyze and promote economically viable sea conservation, climate resilience, marine pollution minimization and blue economy solutions for the protection of marine and coastal ecosystems 
• Give the opportunity to applicants to have their solution reviewed by a Committee of Experts
• Train 10 finalists at the pitching technique in order to develop their presentation skills, and increase their chances to have their solution funded by investors
• Reward the top candidates during a Finals at A'Pelago Initiative 2025, 21.8. in Turku, Finland.
  

Participants and Winners are selected concerning the criteria below:

Business performance 

• Commercial viability: Description of the financial maturity, market demand, potential business cases and time-to-market strategies for technology industrialization. Ensuring practical feasibility, attractiveness to clients, and long-term cost-effectiveness. 
• Fundraising success: Successful fundraising as a marker of the start-up's ability to attract investment across development stages.

Innovation and Potential for disruption Industry applicability: 

• Clear demonstration of how the innovation will generate measurable impact towards the focus areas of this challenge.

• Technology readiness: Current technology readiness level (TRL), favouring higher TRLs, while acknowledging prototypes for novel solutions with longer development cycles. Assessing the time-to-market timeline of the innovations. 

Impact

• Clear impact pathways: Clear narrative towards relevant stakeholders with expected measurable environmental and socio-economic impact linked to the innovation proposed.

• Clear impact metrics: For instance, reduction of energy use, reduced footprints of CO2, water, land, and other environmental impact measures. 

Team

• Team dynamics: Balanced team with visionary leadership and complementary skills across technical, business, and operational areas. Key traits include adaptability, clear vision for the company, resilience in the face of challenges, ethical considerations in technology deployment and ability to raise capital. 

Technical and operational competence: 

• Deep technical expertise in the relevant domain, proven experience in R&D, understanding of the market and customer needs, and the ability to execute projects with efficiency and agility.

Benefits for selected Pitch Challenge winners 

The Best Accelerator Pitch will receive an investment of 25k€ at the A’Pelago Initiative event on 21st August, 2025. The investor will be disclosed at the event. The investment will be executed in the form of a Convertible Capital Loan, that will be converted into equity in the first financing round of the Winning Company. In addition, the winner will benefit from targeted support and visibility.

Challenge Timeline

December 2024: A'Pelago Pitch Challenge launch and announcement of the A'Pelago Pitch Prize.

31 January - 30 May:  Open for submissions via A'Pelago Accelerator programs.

June 3: Finalist selection and invitation to the Final by A'Pelago Investor Panel.

21 August at A'Pelago Initaitive Day 2: Pitch Challenge Finals, winner selection and announcement.

Built in collaboration with

Accelerator Build-Up Programme participants get an invitation to compete of the A'Pelago Pitch Prize: Semi-final rankings of it in June in South Finland. Finals at A'Pelago Initiative 2025 in Turku. The Pitch Challenge shared prize is 25.000 EUR.