L59 Pitch Competition 2025

Latitude59's Pitch Competition is highlighting bold & promising startups who are shifting paradigms & changing the world for the better.

“Even though we’re industry-agnostic, a key quality that all L59 Pitch Competition winners share is impact. They provide solutions to a multitude of problems, ranging from new materials and green tech to business-disrupting SaaS solutions. They are the brightest stars among the 2,000+ startups that have applied to the L59 Pitch Competition—we’re happy to offer them a springboard. In 2023 and 2024, companies such as AskToSellFlowstep, and ÄIO secured over €2 million in investments through the competition. We’re eager to see what 2025 brings and who’s next!

— Triin Ilves, Head of Startup Relations at L59

€1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000 €1,000,000

L59 PITCH COMPETITION 2025 UNITES LITBAN, LATBAN & ESTBAN

Meet the Investors: The Baltic Business Angels

ROBERTA RUDOKIENE
Managing Director at
LitBAN

“For startups, this is an incredible opportunity to gain not just funding but access to a network of experienced angels.”

EMILS KRAGIS
Managing Director at
LatBAN

“This joint collaborative investment for Latitude59 pitching competition is a milestone moment.”

KARIN KÜNNAPAS
Managing Director at
EstBAN

“I am excited to see what joint investments and pan-Baltic startups will emerge from our region.”

Latitude59 2025: The Roadshow

Latitude59 hit the road for community meetups in Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw, Tiranё, and Hamburg to scout the most promising startups for the L59 Pitch Competition 2025 and provide a platform for networking, idea exchange, and collaboration opportunities. 

March 12
Riga, Latvia
March 19
Vilnius, Lithuania
March 19
Tiranë, Albania
March 26
Warsaw, Poland
April 3
Hamburg, Germany

If you’re an early-stage startup with a proven traction, L59 Pitch Competition awaits!

We are looking for founding teams with a solid mission, a scalable business model, and a functioning product with proven traction/feedback. But most of all, you should have a strong core team, ready to take your idea to the moon and back.

Early-stage

Depending on the vertical, early-stage can mean many things, but your business activities should date back less than 4 years.

Actively fundraising

Applying startups should be in an active fundraising process or about/ready to start with it.

Proven traction

Ideas are great but we want solid proof that people get excited about your product and love what you've got.

Impactful

You have potential to grow global and change the world for the better.

A shared prize pool of €500,000+

In 2025, for the first time ever, the Baltics are coming together with a joint prize pool at Latitude59. The Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian business angel networks — EstBAN, LatBAN, and LitBAN — are commiting €500,000 to the best startups participating at Latitude59 Pitch Competition.

Any questions? Problem-solving is our superpower – please contact our team at info@latitude59.ee

Prizes & perks of Latitude59 Pitch Competition 2025

  • A syndicate investment by Baltic Business Angels – EstBAN, LatBAN, LitBAN – and venture capital funds
  • Represent Estonia at the Startup World Cup finals (arranged by Pegasus Ventures and SWC) held in October 2025 in San Francisco, USA
  • Mentoring and pitch training, including a special session from our in-house pitch trainer, Gleb Maltsev
  • Amazon Web Services offers credits for the top teams
  • Google offers Cloud Credits to the top teams
  • Infobip offers “Walk the Talk” prize for the services, for the amount of €10,000
  • SEB offers private banking perks and exclusive opportunities to a chosen team
  • Widen Legal offers legal services for the top 3 teams
  • Workland offers co-working membership for the top 3 teams
  • ..plus more partner awards – TBA!

L59 Pitch Competition 2025 timeline

April 5
Application deadline
April 15
Announcing the TOP 30 teams

Pitch training for the TOP 30 of 2025

May 5 - May 6
Pre-Finals (Day 1 / Day 2)
May 9
Announcing finalists

Investor meetings, mentoring sessions

May 10-20
1-1 interviews, Due Diligence process

Final pitch training

May 23
Final pitches on the Latitude59 main stage

Meet L59 Official Pitch Coach

Each year, the TOP 30 teams get pitch training from our official Pitch Coach, Gleb Maltsev, who brings 13 years of experience to the table. He listens to around 1,000 speeches annually —everything from 60-second pitches to 45-minute keynotes. Over the years, he’s helped top founders prepare for the finals of the Latitude59 Pitch Competition in Estonia.

“I’ve been coaching top founders to pitch at Estonia’s flagship startup conference. It’s a big deal—the prize pool can reach up to €1 million from leading investors, and hundreds of founders are competing for a shot at the stage. My job is to help them deliver real impact through real stories.”

– Gleb Maltsev, Official Pitch Coach at Latitude59

Do you have what it takes?

Join the life-changing opportunity that opens doors around the world.

"It has been such an empowering experience & brought us so much visibility that we have been able to pitch in a lot of cool places such as Brazil, Singapore, Japan."

– Nemailla Bonturi, Co-Founder of ÄIO & a winner of L59 Pitch Competition 2023

"To everybody grinding: there will be hundreds of moments when you think about giving up, but it never really ends until you say these three words—‘I AM DONE!’ So you have just one job: don’t say those words, and eventually, it will pay off."

— Kalev Kärpuk, CEO of Adact (L59 Pitch Competition Winner who exited in 2025)

L59 Pitch Competition 2025 FAQ

Main criteria

In general, we are looking for founding teams with a solid mission, a scalable business model, and a functioning product/service with proven traction/feedback.

The applying company:

  • Should be in an active fundraising process,
  • We look for teams who are passionate and committed to the business,
  • The market opportunity is essential – providing a solution to a problem with a large potential market,
  • Innovative and novel technological components, we prefer to invest in first-of-a-kind new ideas. Also, great science projects that demonstrate a clear path to commercialization,
  • Clear unique value – competitive advantage includes intellectual property protection, exclusive licenses, exclusive marketing and distribution relationships, strong brands, and scarce human resources (i.e. knowledge and skills),
  • Good match between the valuation of the company and the capital need,
  • Preferably practicing novel technologies and unique business models.

Topics and verticals

L59 Pitch Competition is industry-agnostic, with some preferences based on our previous experience and the background of lead investors. 

In 2025, the Latitude59 conference follows areas such as deep tech and impact, which is why we welcome these companies to apply. However, this does not give any particular bonus points in the evaluation, and the selection will be based on the best fit with lead investors.

Countries

Startups from all around the world are invited to apply. 

However, it is important to note that Latitude59 stands with Ukraine, which is why startups with strong connections to Russia, Belarus, and North Korea will not be included in the evaluation process.

Lead investors have joined the L59 Pitch Competition as partners who will make the investment offers to the most promising startup(s). Together, these partners can give away one or more investments. Ideally, all partners would like to select one startup whose current phase and investment-readiness would meet this goal. However, it is possible that the final choice will be different, which can also result in multiple investment offers to more than one startup.

Investments can, but don’t necessarily have to go to the same company. This also means that more than one investment decision can be made. The VC fund and the lead investor of the business angels syndicate leave the right to make the investment offer to 1–3 startups.

Concerning the investment size, we take into account previous experience. Thus, most broadly the investment can be named as a seed stage.

  • Eligible startups are invited to apply before April 5, 2025.
  • After that, all startups will be sorted to broad categories (internally).
  • Each startup will be evaluated by two separate people. Evaluators are chosen based on their experience and background to guarantee clarity. 
  • Each evaluator will share their top recommendations (based on grades and personal recommendations) with the lead investors. Based on these shortlists and grades, lead investors will agree on the TOP 30 startups who will pitch in semi-finals.
  • Pre-finals will take place on April 29 – April 30, 2025. The Pre-finals will be held in hybrid format.
  • Finalists are asked to sign the general term sheet with the investors.
  • There will be one internal pitch for the investors that will take place in May 2025.
  • The lead investors will conduct due diligence with top startups. Based on the results, investment decisions, and offers will be made. 
  • The TOP 5 startups will pitch on the Latitude59 Main stage on May 23, 2025. Winners will be announced on the stage