Winning a pitch competition is great. Getting the trophy photo is also great. But what everyone really wants to know a year later is: what happened after the applause?

In 2025, the Latitude59 Pitch Competition ended in a three-way win, with Luna Robotics, Adventum Tech and MarkeDroid securing investments between €175,000 and €250,000 from LitBAN, LatBAN and EstBAN-backed syndicate.

Now, with 2026 well underway, it is safe to say those teams did not take the “celebrate and disappear” route. From defence tech and infrastructure monitoring to distributed energy, the trio has spent the past year doing what good startups are supposed to do: shipping, piloting, raising and expanding. In other words, staying busy in the most startup way possible.

Luna Robotics: from the Latitude59 stage to defence market traction

Luna Robotics, the Lithuanian defence tech startup that secured a €250,000 investment through LitBAN at Latitude59 2025, has had a particularly eventful year. In October 2025, the company announced a €1.08 million investment from Coinvest Capital, Plug & Play EMEA Ventures GmbH and international business angels to strengthen the market position of its tactical FPV drone camera and expand sales, partnerships and production capacity in the EU and U.S. markets.

Commercial and market progress followed. The drone manufacturers using LunaCam in the U.S. Drone Dominance program reached the Top 11 in Gauntlet 1 and will now move forward toward significant orders from the U.S. Department of Defense. The company also shared that several manufacturers in the program had integrated LunaCam into their drones, with U.S. troops reportedly giving positive feedback on the system’s night performance.

Luna Robotics was shortlisted for the regional competition of the Global Startup Awards in the Nordics, earned an official NATO Stock Number, and its products carry NATO Stock Number certification. Founder Elvinas Kukys recently shared that the company had been ranked #4 among defence startups in the Baltics.

These milestones point to a company moving with purpose in a highly demanding sector. From investment and international exposure to product validation in real-use settings, Luna Robotics seems to be building the kind of credibility that matters in defence markets.

Adventum Tech: making infrastructure smarter and a less guesswork-driven

Latvia’s Adventum Tech, which also secured a €250,000 investment through LatBAN, has been steadily building in a category that may not always make headlines but certainly matters: critical infrastructure.

One of the company’s most visible steps has been a pilot in Riga. In collaboration with the Riga Municipality’s Department of Public Outdoor Space and Mobility, Adventum Tech is implementing its real-time structural performance monitoring system, Digital Bridge, on the Vanšu Bridge. The goal is to improve the stability and safety of critically important civil transport infrastructure by bringing continuous monitoring into the picture.

That kind of progress matches the company’s broader positioning: less reactive maintenance, more real-time data, and fewer unpleasant surprises for the people responsible for keeping infrastructure standing where it should. Adventum Tech also made it into the Top 30 of sTARTUp Day’s pitching competition, adding another regional milestone to its year.

For a startup working in infrastructure, this kind of progress carries real weight. Adventum Tech is not just describing a future of smarter monitoring, it is already showing how that future can work in practice.

MarkeDroid: scaling distributed energy across Europe

Estonia’s MarkeDroid, which received up to €175,000 from EstBAN through the Latitude59 Pitch Competition, has spent the year turning early momentum into wider European reach.

In October 2025, the company announced a €300,000 raise to expand its distributed energy platform. According to Tech.eu, the plan included expanding beyond residential energy management into solutions for energy retailers in partnership with Enefit, as well as moving into microgrid flexibility projects with national transmission operators.

By January 2026, MarkeDroid was named one of ten Estonian startups to keep an eye on in 2026. They reported that the company was already active in more than 12 European countries and had raised €920,000 to date to expand its technology, partnerships and geographic footprint as decentralised energy systems continue to scale.

That is a fairly strong trajectory for a startup working in one of Europe’s more urgent problem spaces. Energy systems are getting more decentralised, more dynamic and more complicated. MarkeDroid is focusing on how better coordination can help turn growing energy complexity into a real advantage. So far, that approach seems to be paying off.

So, what does this tell us?

A year after winning the Latitude59 Pitch Competition, the 2025 winners offer three very different examples of post-competition progress.

Luna Robotics is stacking up defence-market credibility, investment and international traction. Adventum Tech is putting its infrastructure technology into real-world public-sector use. MarkeDroid is expanding across Europe in step with the growth of distributed energy systems. Different sectors, different tempos, different markets, yet all recognisably in motion.

Which is, in many ways, the whole point.

Pitch competitions are fun. Winning them is even better. But the best outcome is when the story continues well beyond the stage lights. Based on what these three teams have been up to since Latitude59 2025, that is exactly what happened.

And yes, we’ll be watching what they do next.

Make sure to send in your application for this year’s Pitch Competition before April 15!