The world’s first dedicated software-as-a-service (SaaS) start-up competition is to take place in Dublin later this year as part of SaaStock.
More than 100 fledgling companies are set to go head-to-head to become "Best SaaS start-up for 2018" with the winner walking away with $25,000 (€21,400), as well as free licences and support from SaaStock's partners, which include Zendesk and Dublin-based venture capital firm Frontline.
The competition is open to SaaS start-ups with less than $1 million annual recurring revenues (ARR) or less than $1 million in investment that offers a subscription-based product.
SaaStock chief executive and co-founder Alex Theuma said while the title should bring plenty of publicity for competitors and put start-ups in front of 400 attending investors, it serves a greater role.
“Most start-up competitions are industry and vertical agnostic and only help start-ups with general advice on their pitch and value proposition. It’s a title that doesn’t come with much more support. We on the other hand, are well positioned to offer SaaS start-ups tailored assistance. Starting with educational support and adding hands-on advice and guidance from our community of SaaS trailblazers can make all the difference for these upstarts,” he said.
Market strategies
Selected start-ups will pitch throughout the duration of the conference on a designated stage, receiving real-time feedback from a judging panel to help them refine their go-to market strategies. Six finalists will then be selected to present at the final, which will take place on the main stage at the end of SaaStock.
The main event, which commenced in 2016, returns to the RDS on October 16th and 17th with 3,000 attendees expected. More than 100 speakers from SaaS-focused companies such as Slack, Salesforce, Intercom and MongoDB, will be at the conference.
Ahead of the event, the organisers will be running a number of other programmes across Dublin, including a one-day accelerator called Saas.City, an investor-only event known as Investock, and Start-up Program Day, a one-day bootcamp for start-ups.
“With three years under our belt of running SaaStock and SaaStock on Tour events, we have shaped the 2018 agenda into what will be the best yet for our audience,” said Mr Theuma.
