The Creative Business Cup 2024, a competition to support creative start-up businesses, has announced its winner. E-Cafe Bike was selected by an expert jury from the final ten, and announced last week at a gala evening in Kino Warsaw in Liberec. The winner of the competition, organised by the CzechInvest agency, will now proceed to the world finals in Copenhagen. The audience prize went to the Kenka Puppet Game.
“The competition winner, E-Cafe Bike, won the hearts of the jury with a product that connects business and creativity, and we wish them the best of luck at the global finals in Copenhagen,” said Markéta Mentelová, director of the CzechInvest Creative HUB and organiser of the Czech round of the Creative Business Cup.” She added that this year’s competition was supplemented by a rich accompanying program focused on the creative industries, which had seen keen interest from participants and positive feedback.
E-Cafe Bike, which focuses on electric bikes, has developed innovative cargo carts which have their own electric drive and are fully energy self-sufficient thanks to solar panels. Their electrified range of cargo carts will be attachable to most conventional bicycles or e-bikes, offering a load capacity of up to 250 kg and storage space comparable to twice that of a passenger car at 400 litres. The jury was impressed by the overall sophistication of the project and the emphasis on an ecological approach.
“We are very happy with the victory and we are already looking forward to the final round, where world competition awaits us,” said Zuzana Malinová from E-Cafe Bike. “We believe that startups show the direction the world will go in the future. Winning the national round of the competition will not only help us increase our prestige, but we will also get the opportunity to show honest Czech production abroad.”
The jury, consisting of representatives of CzechInvest and competition partners, awarded second place to Kenka Puppet Game, and third place to Younglink, a platform for bullying prevention. The audience favourite award went to the second place winner Kenka Puppet Game. The audience was impressed by the humorous presentation and the enthusiasm of the founder.
The Creative Business Cup aims to support creative startups from all over the world, connect them with each other and help them find investors and access foreign markets. The organiser of the Czech national round of the competition is CzechInvest, the Czech Agency for Business and Investment Support. This year’s main partners include the Liberec Region, the City of Liberec, Lipo.ink, the Liberec Region Smart Accelerator, and Start it @ČSOB.
