What is EVA?
The Eurostart Venture Awards (EVA) celebrate the most promising university start-ups and spin-offs from Belgium, Luxembourg, and the UK. The event recognises innovation, entrepreneurship, and forward-thinking business ideas, highlighting ventures with the potential to make a real and lasting impact.
The EVA brings together talented student founders, university spin-offs, potential investors and industry leaders in a dynamic, cross-border competition. Participants range from those at the earliest stages of developing their idea to more established ventures generating revenue and scaling their operations.
This two-day event provides a respected platform for founders at all stages to showcase their ventures, present their journey, and engage with expert judges and industry professionals. Through this, participants gain valuable exposure and access to curated networks that can support their continued growth.
At its core, the EVA champions creativity, ambition and entrepreneurial spirit. Our mission is simple: to support the next generation of innovators by giving them the visibility, connections, and encouragement they need to thrive.
The Event
The Eurostart Venture Awards take place as a two-day programme, structured to support ventures at different stages of development. This format brings together a broad spectrum of entrepreneurial talent from Belgium, Luxembourg and the UK while ensuring targeted opportunities for both early-stage founders and more established spin-offs.
The opening event of the EVA 2027 programme brings together investors, universities, entrepreneur organisations, strategic partners and the wider business community for an evening of high-level networking, building the connections that carry through the rest of the programme.
The evening will also feature a keynote address from Joris Van Der Gucht, who will share the story behind one of Belgium’s most successful technology scale-ups, Silverfin. He previously co-founded Silverfin, helping grow the company into one of Europe’s leading cloud accounting platforms before its acquisition by European software company Visma in a landmark €300 million deal
2026
The Student & Start-up Pitch Competition forms one of the core stages of the Eurostart Venture Awards 2027, providing early-stage founders with the opportunity to showcase their ventures before an experienced panel of judges.
Working in partnership with leading Belgian, Luxembourgish and UK universities, the competition highlights some of the most innovative student-led businesses and emerging start-ups from across the three countries. Each selected team will deliver a concise business presentation before answering questions from an expert jury, offering participants invaluable exposure, constructive feedback and opportunities to develop their venture further.
2026
The flagship day of EVA 2027 opens with the announcement of the Early-Stage Start-up Competition winners, before a curated group of scale-ups and spin-offs with proven traction pitch to an audience of investors, VCs and industry leaders
Following the presentations, guests are invited to an exclusive networking reception where founders, investors, universities and industry leaders can continue conversations in a relaxed setting, creating opportunities for future collaboration and investment.
“Being part of the EVA Awards was truly a remarkable experience for us. Not only did we have the chance to showcase Sustainow, but we also gained valuable insights and connections through learning and networking opportunities. Your support throughout was greatly appreciated.”
Anne Githu | SUSTAINOW from Lancaster University
“Our entrepreneurs enjoyed it very much, it was an amazing experience for them”
Sven Jacobs | Mentor at KdG University
