A new kid has emerged on the block and it's offering a bag of goodies. HY Berlin aims to be a platform where early-stage startups can present their products to investors, press and the Berlin tech community.

Yes, there are a quite a few pitch events in Berlin already, but HY Berlin promises to have the edge when it comes to rewarding its participants. Let's not beat around the bush and get straight to it: At HY Berlin's first startup competition, the winning team will receive a prize package that will include 10.000 € in cash and a one week trip to Silicon Valley. Cha-Ching! 

The competition will take place on October 16th at Radialsystem, during Axel Springer’s Media Entrepreneurs Day 2012, which aims to be a platform for constructive dialogue on how to use, advance, and disrupt digital media. Next to the HY Berlin startup competition, the Media Entrepreneurs Day will feature deep-diving workshops and a media hack area. You can apply for it here. 

Applications for the competition itself will be accepted until the end of September and from all over the world. A focus is set on startups that are not older than 2 years and have not received more than 1m € in venture capital funding.

Next to the winning team receiving 10.000 €, powered by Deutsche Telekom’s incubator hub:raum, the CEOs of the three best teams will fly to Silicon Valley. As part of the itinerary the founders will get the chance to meet Axel Springer’s Silicon Valley research team comprised of Idealo Founder Martin Sinner, Bild Editor in Chief Kai Diekmann and Axel Springer Chief Marketing Officer Peter Würtenberger.

For more information and to apply for the competition, go visit www.hyberlin.com. 

Wanna enter the pitch zone? Next week you'll get the chance to test your business idea and enhance your pitching skills with two pitch events. 

The first one, PitchSlam, will take place this coming Wednesday, August 1st at Yaam. PitchSlam is hosted by Lutz Villalba-Adorno and David Nagy who co-organized the last TwistBerlin event at Ahoy! Berlin. 

Compete in a series of disciplines to become the "Pitch Master of Berlin" and win 2 tickets to the Tech Open Air Festival. The best pitches will also be invited to take part in the Pitch Clinic at TOA, where you will get the chance to pitch to international VC's. 

No actual startup or prototype is required. Everyone with an idea can participate and compete with each other in a series of disciplines. A jury, together with the audience, will pick the winners.

For more information and to register to pitch or buy your ticket please visit www.pitchslam.eu. 

Just one day after the Founder Institute will host the Startup Pitch Bootcamp, described as a "community workshop-type event" designed to help founders improve their pitching and communication skills and potentially meet a co-founder. There is also the chance to win a scholarship to the upcoming Founder Institute program.

Space is extremely limited so please register here: http://fi.co/e/1374/blog

Happy Pitch'n! 

Berlin's has a new "startup accelerator": The Berlin Startup Academy. It is not your typical accelerator though focusing explicitly on the intersection between the startup and corporate worlds, instigating knowledge exchange and leveraging these increasingly overlapping networks. 

Founded by veteran Christoph Räthke, who can tell you war stories about his time in both the corporate and startup worlds, the academy already has a notable cast of mentors. 

Come meet some of them at the next BSA event on August 8th!

Find our why founding a startup is not just about brilliant ideas, Club Mate, passion, tech blog reading, St Oberholz and much more great-sounding stuff you overhear when buying lunch at the Currywurst joint on Rosenthaler Platz. 

Christian Musfeldt from Osborne Clarke, an international law firm specializing in startup law, and Daniel Frischkorn from Ecovis will explain you why founding a company is not only your entry into the world of potential fortune, but also into the sinister Realm of Legal Constraints and Tax Requirements.

While you can rest assured that Christoph and his crew will make this a fun experience, the subject matter involves hardly exciting, but unquestionably important points of founding a company such as: 

balance sheet setup

employment contracts

Terms & Conditions

Geschäftsführergehalt v Gewinnausschüttung

term sheet clauses

For practical reasons - namely, the sheer density of terms specific to the German tax system that will have to be examined -, keynote and discussion about tax topics will be in German.

You can get your free ticket here: http://taxtorture.eventbrite.com/

TOA Berlin today announces its first "speakers" and satellite events. At TOA we want to focus on formats that boost effective knowledge exchange among the whole audience in multidimensional ways. Like Alex Farcet of Startupbootcamp said in the TOA Berlin crowdfunding campaign video: the value at a "conference" is not on stage, but within the audience.

Talks will be heavy on Q&A and we will have Open Mic sessions that will be announced prior to the festival so that the audience can prepare to engage as well if it wants to. This way anyone who can add value to a certain topic will get the chance to do so. Workshops are obviously another format that leverages this. More to come!

Confirmed "Interaktive Talks" & "Workshops" at Central Location (Kater Holzig): 

Ansgar Oberholz, Proprietor of the world-renowened St.Oberholz 

Ciarán O'Leary, Partner at Early Bird Venture Capital 

Edial Dekker, Founder of Gidsy 

Caitlin Winner, CPO and Co-Founder of Amen

Fabian and Ferdinand Heilemann, Founder of DailyDeal (now part of the Google family) 

Fabian Siegel, CEO at Delivery Hero (Lieferheld)

Felix Petersen, CEO and Co-Founder of Amen 

Holger G. Weiss, CEO of Aupeo 

Ijad Madisch, Founder of ResearchGate

Marcel Duee, Founder of Tweek

Ola Sitarska, Founder of HACKWAW, FashionStyle and Reaktor

Robin "Daddy" Hemingway, Grammy winning musician and Startup Aficionado 

"Satellite-Events" all over town: 

EyeEm

Gidsy

Leanovate

Startupbootcamp

You can find an up-to-date list of our speakers and satellite events as well as ideas on how to get involved here. TOA Berlin is still short of their crowdfunding goal so if you plan on attending this festival, go ahead and buy your early bird ticket today: http://www.kisskissbankbank.com/en/projects/tech-open-air-berlin-festival This way you will not only save money (as Early Bird Tickets are considerably cheaper), but also contribute to making this Festival a reality. If TOA Berlin does not reach its target, you will get your money back! 

If you are an organization that would like to be involved, please get in touch with us. 

If you are in Berlin and want to meet the TOA Berlin team and discuss ways to collaborate on this, please come to the TOA Berlin Townhall Meetup tonight on the rooftop at the Hotel Amano. Just RSVP here: http://www.facebook.com/events/375106269215863/

Eugene Mizin of Mangrove Capital will host office hours this Friday June 8th at Ahoy! Berlin, immediately before the TWiST Berlin vs. London event. Mangrove Capital Partners is one of the world’s top early stage VC firms; its investments include Skype, Brands4Friends, KupiVip, Nimbuzz, Wix, and SohoOS.

Eugene, an experienced product guy (AOL, Skype), will also sit on the judging panel for TWiST Berlin, where he joins Simon Schäfer (The factory), David Knight (Silicon Allee) and Tim Lossen (Developer at Wooga).  In Eugene's words: "There is lots of great talent in Berlin startups today and I am excited to support them in this competition and perhaps more importantly outside of it.  Looking forward to a great event!"

Startup founders, please sign in for a slot with Eugene here: http://ohours.org/officehours/8323. (This is not just for the startups that pitch at TWIST, but open to anyone!)

Thanks for helping young entrepreneurs in such ways, Eugene! 

Here we go, the 15 lucky startups that will get a chance to represent Berlin at the TWIST Berlin vs. London show this coming Friday and that are about to stir things up: 

Advertory

Archify

Bonayou

Ein-fach.de

Elastic.IO

Foundd

JobMatchInn

Klash

Mention

MusicPlayr

WhenAUser

PaperC

Scoopinion

Shakebee

TunedIn

The startups were chosen from all applicants based on the following criteria: market, product innovation and monetization potential.

What's next? The startups will now go through two days of pitch training at Ahoy! Berlin with our TWIST mentors Alex Farcet (Startupbootcamp), Christoph Räthke (Berlin Startup Academy), Christoph Sollich (won best pitch at recent Startup Weekend) and Bianca Praetorius (actriss at Junges dt).

Then on Friday these 15 startups will compete for the coveted 3 spots on the actual TWIST Berlin vs. London live show with Jason Calacanis. The pre-competition will take place from 7pm-9pm with the actual live show starting at 10pm. After that it is party time with Grammy winning DJ Daddy Hemingway.

The tickets are limited, so if you do not have one, get yours today: http://www.twistberlin.com/tickets/

Come on, help a brother out! We are currently looking for sponsors for the next  TWIST Berlin event where startups from Berlin will battle their counterparts from London live on the famous "This Week in Startups Show" by Jason Calacanis in the US. 

This is the second TWIST show that TechBerlin helps organize and that our sister company Ahoy! Berlin will host. The first show was already epic, but this one promises to be even bigger. This is your chance to connect with aspiring startup entrepreneurs and early adopters from around the world and be involved in a memorable Berlin community event! These are the sponsorship possibilities: 

1. Pitch Sponsor

You can pitch your own service and/or company during the jury decision making.

You get 3 min to pitch your service in front of the 100 startup people in the Ahoy! cinema and more people at the Ahoy! lounge upstairs who will watch via live stream. 

Meet up to 400 people afterwards at the after show party.

500€ per sponsor

2. Event Sponsor

Your brand name and slogan will be mentioned during the live show (According to TWIST around 100k people watch/listen to the live web show)!

Your logo will appear on the banner at the Ahoy cinema + on our website + you will be mentioned as an event sponsor in all press work. 

1000€ per sponsor

3. Party Sponsor

The after party will be called after your brand and you sponsor the drinks. 

You can decorate the Ahoy! space with brand material. 

We will organize a kick ass party, but if you want to add some swag, you are welcome to give us input. 

2000€ per sponsor

The program for this event runs over two days and there will be lots of possibilities to connect with aspiring entrepreneurs one-on-one:

Rehearsal with great mentors from the Berlin startup ecosystem to help startups give their best pitches during the live show. This will take place the day before the actual event and mentors include Alex Farcet (StartupBootCamp), Christoph Räthke (Berlin Startup Academy) and last year’s Startup Weekend “best pitch” winner Christoph Sollich. An actor will also be present to help give founder presentations the certain edge. 

Pre-competition three hours before the actual live show, where a jury will end up picking the three best startups that get the chance to pitch at the live show. The jury will consist of Simon Schäfer (Founder of The Factory), Tim Lossen (Developer at Wooga) and David Knight (Editor at Silicon Allee). 

90minute live show which will be streamed at the Ahoy! cinema as well as the Ahoy! lounge upstairs. We expect up to 400 people to attend the event.  

The event will finish with a big after show party. 

Please get in touch with us via Mail or Twitter if you are intersted in the sponosoring aspect of TWIST Berlin or have any questions about it. 

Talking to Gidsy Founder Edial about TOA Berlin 

Check out the short video interview we did with Gidsy founder Edial Dekker. The video is part of a series of videos we did telling the startup community about TOA Berlin and asking them about feedback and what they would expect/hope for.

Thanks to Edial and the whole Gidsy team for their time!

After an electrifying TWIST Berlin show at Ahoy! Berlin in February the show hosts reached out to organize a special London vs. Berlin episode. This time three startups from London will compete with three startups from Berlin and Jason Calacanis and his sidekick Tyler Crowley will pick the best 3. Let's see which startup hub has more to offer!

If you missed the TWIST Berlin show at the beginning of the year, this is your chance to make up for it. The last show was truly magnificent with interesting pitches by passionate entrepreneurs, an audience that supported the Berlin startups like a force and a rant by Jason Calacanis against the Samwer brothers and German copy cats that become legendary. 

SquadMail, one of the finalists of the last TWIST Berlin actually ended up winning the startup competition at the next conference last week.

The event will be held on June 8th at the Ahoy! Berlin co-working space with the actual live stream between Berlin, London and the show hosts in Los Angeles taking place from 21:00-22:00 CET. After the show we will do what we do best at Ahoy! and throw a big party to celebrate the winners and entrepreneurship in general. 

Any startup in Berlin can apply to pitch in the show. A jury will screen the top 15 applicants in a pre-contest one day prior to the actual show and choose their 3 picks. Don't miss the chance to present your product to the world and get valuable feedback by the experienced show duo. The sign up process will start today and you can do so here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dE95THUtVTAwdjA4WTdUQ3ZvRzdWbGc6MQ

To support this great event we are still looking for cooperation partners and sponsors. Please reach out to me or Lutz Villalba if you are interested. 

Fellow Berlin based blogs Gründerszene and VentureVillage have teamed up to host the Heureka Conference during Berlin Web Week today. The conference focus is to emphasize the strength of innovative ideas. More than 30 speakers will talk about nine topics: Founding, Investing, Incubators, Mobile, e-Commerce, Internationalization, Corporate, Social and Games. Everything is being filmed, so i guess the organizers will post the videos of the panels at some point. 

The most controversial statement so far came from VC Jörg Binnenbrücker from DuMont Ventures on stage who argued that founders of incubated startups are not entrepreneurs, but employees in fact. He went on to say that incubators will never come up with a company that disrupts through innovation, because their only competence lies in execution. I wonder whether individual VCs see incubators as a danger to their existence. 

(Fun Fact: Eureka is the official motto of the state of California)