The University of Belgrade is, once again, a partner of the student startup competition Danube Cup, open to startup teams from partner universities that are already developing a business opportunity, confirmed at least at the local level.

Danube Cup provides a unique opportunity for young and ambitious entrepreneurs, but it is important to emphasize that this is not a competition of ideas – the business idea must already be validated among potential customers/users, the concept must be innovative and original, and there must be a high growth potential independent of trends in the local market.

Student teams should meet the following criteria:

Validation: teams should have done validation research on their business idea, at least at the local level;
Team size: they must have a minimum of two and a maximum of five team members, and participants can be members of only one team;
Student team: it is allowed to include non-students among the team members, but the majority of members should still be full-time students of the competition’s partner universities, in this case, the University of Belgrade;
Development phase: teams must be in the pre-seed or pre-incubator stage, without previous financial support from independent accelerators, incubators, companies, or VC funds;
Availability: team members must be available to participate in all phases of the competition.

Student teams, therefore, should have a confirmed business concept; should be innovative, with growth potential, in international demand; they should have already gained some market validation and have no accumulated equity capital. An existing prototype is not a prerequisite for participation.

During the competition, student teams are expected to be mentored, connected and cooperated with other student teams, mentors, entrepreneurs, and sponsors, as well as with business angels and VC funds. Valuable cash prizes await the most successful teams.

At the University of Belgrade, a pitch competition will be organized for a maximum of 25 student teams, which are already working on the development of their innovative solutions. After the pitch competition, the two selected student startup teams will be mentored and prepared for the semi-finals (May 10, 2023, Passau), during which one team will advance to the final of the competition (May 12, 2023, Regensburg).

The call for interested student startup teams at the University of Belgrade is open until March 31, 2023, and what you need to do is to contact the following e-mail addresses: ctt@rect.bg.ac.rs and mladen.cudanov@fon.bg.ac.rs (it is necessary to send an e-mail to both addresses) and submit your Pitch deck presentation (up to 20 slides).
As the competition at the University of Belgrade will be organized for a maximum of 25 teams, Pitch deck presentations will help in the process of initial team selection.

Good luck!