An international jury of five blockchain experts then awarded two first and three second places. The winners were chosen on the basis of the criteria timing, team, concept and business model, with social impact being an additional important assessment point.

The following teams received their rewards from the sponsors which were transferred in either Bitcoin or Ether to their crypto currency accounts live on stage:

First places – EUR 5,000 each, transferred in Ether:
• Etherisc from London who are working on a decentralised insurance solution based on Blockchain technology. The first operational application was a fully automated flight delay insurance that directly accesses passenger data and automatically pays compensation in case of a delay. The award was handed over by Mag. Kerber from Steiermärkische Sparkasse and Mag. Niederländer from Erste Group Bank AG.
• Status from Singapur, an Ethereum browser for mobile phones combining messaging, payments and DApp. The transaction was conducted by Mag. Thomas Wiedner from Energie Steiermark.

Second places – EUR 1,670 each, transferred in Bitcoin:
• Bernstein from Munich, making it possible to anonymously document the development history of intellectual properties in terms of both content and time. This allows, for example, to prove the development history of an invention in case of a patent application. This award was transferred by Mag. Grossek from eCounting.
• Minebox from Austria, a decentralised and safe cloud solution in which others’ memory capacities can be used for own backups and own capacities can be offered to others. The accounting is automatically done in the background. This award was handed over by Ms. Langerwisch from eCounting.
• Helperbit from Italy, who are creating a decentralised donation and insurance platform that automatically pays donations and insurance claims based on data from earthquakes or other disasters. This award was transferred by Dr. Kappe from Kapa Ventures.

„As a bank, when we approach the blockchain issue, we do so from the vantage point of finding concrete responses to our clients’ needs and raising customer satisfaction with regard to the speed and availability of digital services,” says Petia Niederländer, Head of Retail and Corporate Operations at Erste Group and one of the banking group’s blockchain experts. “As one of the sponsors of the Blockchain Startup Contest, Erste Group is particularly pleased at the fact that all of the many interesting submissions for this competition have a similarly strong focus on the customer.”

Steiermärkische Sparkasse and Energie Steiermark joined Erste Group in serving as the main sponsors of the financial technology competition’s inaugural edition.

Thomas Zeinzinger, the founder of BlockchainHub Graz and one of the organizers of the Blockchain Startup Contest, also appreciated the Austrian participation in the competition: “We were, of course, very excited to receive submissions from all over the world. But we are also particularly proud to see some very interesting ideas from the Austrian participants in the competition.”