At SiGMA Central Europe 2025, I joined the judging panel for the AIBC Startup Pitch — the competition that has become one of the more credible filters for early-stage AI and Web3 companies in the gaming space. The panel included investors and Google's CEE gaming lead. Vitalentum took the top prize.
What I Look For
Having been on the other side of a startup pitch competition — XGENIA won the SiGMA Europe Startup Pitch a year earlier — I brought a specific perspective to the judging table. The questions I care about: does the team understand their regulatory environment, does the AI actually do something the market cannot already buy, and is the go-to-market thesis realistic for the industry's procurement cycles? The strongest pitches in the competition answered all three.