Winners of Women Startup Competition, powered by Avon 2019 revealed

Genetika+ and Beauty Despite Cancer crowned winners of the tech and beauty start-up accelerator programmes for 2019

Genetika+, led by Talia Cohen Solal, has developed cutting edge technology to determine which drug to treat depression will be best suited to each patient, making treatment more effective, more quickly. The start-up from Jerusalem was crowned the winner of the Women Startup Competition 2019 during the final event in London, followed in second and third place by planA.earth and AMB-Technology.AI. 

Sponsored by Avon, Women Startup Competition (WSC) brought together the nine winners of the local semi-finals and the three top start-ups from the new-for-2019 online beauty accelerator programme to pitch their start-up to the panel of judges.

The first ever winner of the beauty accelerator programme was Jennifer Young, founder of Beauty Despite Cancer who has created specialist beauty products for cancer patients.  Following the winner announcements all start-ups got the opportunity to meet with investors and Avon executives to help them grow their business.  

The judging panel comprised investors, WSC’s CEO Alexandra Veidner, Mintel’s EMEA President Steve Charlton, Louise Scott, Avon’s Chief Scientific Officer and Millie Kendal MBE, founder of the British Beauty Council.

Louise Scott said: “We are really excited to partner with Women Startup Competition.  There is a great deal of alignment in our missions - fostering entrepreneurialism among women and encouraging innovation that benefits society.  I’m a scientist at heart, so am passionate about new and exciting innovation so I’d like to congratulate all of the inspiring, courageous finalists.”

“The winners are us, the world, having these amazing women solving huge problems with the help of technology and R&D,” explains Alexandra Veidner, CEO Women Startup Competition, a not-for-profit organization set up to inspire, educate and unite female entrepreneurs. “Access to knowledge, experts, distribution channels, pricing and data is a huge help for start-ups at an early stage; on the other hand, engaging with innovative start-ups is a great route for big companies to achieve their own innovation goals.”

Congratulations to all of the other finalists: Grason, work.buzz, Viewst, UberPixel, Chatbotize, Etoshi, PiperWai and YA.BE.