Estonian startup Vocal Image App wins TechChill pitch competition Fifty Founders Battle and receives €160K

Estonian startup Vocal Image App has won the “Fifty Founders Battle” at TechChill 2022, an event dedicated to startups and technologies that took place on the Hanseatic platform in Riga, Latvia, from April 27 to April 29. The “Fifty Founders Battle” is an annual pitch competition for early-stage startups.

The pitch includes fifty of the ‘most’ promising startups from across the Baltics, Nordics, Central and Western European regions, as well as the rest of the world selected among all participants. The semi-finalist presented their business idea on TechChill’s stage in front of over 200 investors and other attendees.

Vocal Image App took €150K funding from Depo Ventures and a €10K cash prize from TechChill.

What is Vocal Image?

17.9 million US adults report having a problem with their voice. People don’t like their voices. Their only choice is voice training with a coach, but it is expensive and time-consuming. This is where Vocal Image wants to make a difference. It is a speech training and voice therapy app for speakers and singers.

With the App, users can improve their voice, empower speaking skills, and heal speech disorders. The company uses AI to set up a personal training plan and help users practice anytime, anywhere, at an affordable price.

The company says, “We discovered that people who transferred their gender from male to female use our app to feminise their voices without surgery. So we built a special programme for them and are still developing new programmes to increase social impact. We are going to solve speech disorders in early childhood. Our plan is to build solutions for wellbeing, accent reduction, and self-perception. And solve any voice problem.”

“Leading tech and startup events platform in the Baltics”

Founded in 2012, TechChill is a startup community non-profit that claims to host the largest tech event in Latvia. It is a two-day event across two stages that usually include more than 100 speakers, including experienced founders, innovators, startup community leaders, tech media, investors, and top experts in their field, with several opportunities for formal and informal networking.

Promising startups from the Baltic Sea region, Nordics, and Central Eastern European countries meet and match with global investors and business angels.

TechChill  was the last tech and startup event in the region to happen on-site before the pandemic and the first one after pandemic restrictions were removed.

Everything about the event

The 2022 edition of the competition saw more than 200 startups from all over the world apply for the “TechChill” pitch competition “Fifty Founders Battle”. An international jury of experts chose 50 startups by taking into account criteria such as the seriousness of the problem being solved, team, results to date as well as scalability. They got the opportunity to pitch on a “TechChill” stage in the semifinals during the first day of the event. 

Five finalists were chosen:

Terrawaste (Latvia): next-generation waste remediation that turns non-recyclable waste into value.

HeyBooster (Estonia): a platform driven by artificial intelligence that gives you full control over a campaign’s marketing performance while helping to plan the next important step.

Codigy (Lithuania): a collaboration platform for software engineering teams.

Vocal Image App (Estonia): a voice coach.

MissionSpace (Latvia, Luxembourg): a network of innovative detectors and dedicated analytics that form the infrastructure capable of providing unique space weather services on-demand.

The finalists were judged by representatives of different venture capital funds. Both money prizes, a €150K investment from Depo Ventures and a €10K cash prize from TechChill, were given to Vocal Image App. The representative of this company, along with one from Codigy, will get full tuition covered for Hero Training – a five-week entrepreneurship programme in Silicon Valley, CA. Their alumni from 100+ countries have raised $450M+ in investment.

Besides, Latvian startup MissionSpace has received 1 Ethereum from the local cryptocurrency company Gravity, which offers its services globally. 

All finalists received credits worth $1000 to be used for the visual collaboration platform for team Miro (first place got additional credits worth $500). Another $10K worth of AWS credits was given to the semi-finalist Video Bit.