Winddle wins fourth European Supply Chain Start-up Contest

French start-up Winddle emerged as the winner of the fourth European Supply Chain Start-up Contest during the inNOWvate Supply Chain Event, which was held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on 18 May. During this hybrid event, Winddle won over the jury and the attendees both on-site and online with its platform to track purchase orders and their estimated delivery dates worldwide. The prestigious contest has annually been organized by Supply Chain Media since 2018.

Besides Winddle, the fourth edition of the European Supply Chain Start-up Contest featured three other finalists: Germany-based AFTS, Hedyla from Spain and the Belgian start-up Garvis. The jury assessed each of the finalists based on four criteria: commercial potential, disruptive nature, usability and the clarity of their presentation.

After the public votes had been counted and following much deliberation by the jury, Winddle was unanimously chosen as the winner, not least because of the start-up’s in-depth knowledge of global logistics order fulfilment and its success in achieving profitability within the space of just two years.

Emilia Jevakhoff, CEO and founder of Winddle (photo, on screen), was pleasantly surprised to have won and thanked the organizers of the inNOWvate Supply Chain Event and the contest for putting start-ups in the spotlight. Winddle’s prize is a marketing campaign worth €20,000 across Supply Chain Media’s various media channels.

Thorough selection process

During the inNOWvate Supply Chain Event, each of the four finalists held an online pitch for the on-site visitors and online attendees. They were then interviewed separately by the jury, who grilled the founders of the start-ups about their business model, solution and team structure. The results from the 351 public votes were factored into the jury’s final decision.

The five-strong jury consisted of Aike Festini (CEO and founder of LuckaBox, winner of the 2018 contest), Thijs Gitmans (Fund Manager Mainport at NBI Investors), Mathias Bosse (investor at Seed+Speed Ventures and author of The Supply Chain Management Startups Handbook), Jeroen van Weesep (Vice President Innovation for Supply Chain at Lego) and Martijn Lofvers (CEO & Chief Trendwatcher at Supply Chain Media, photo).

BigMile chosen as most promising supply chain scale-up

In a separate contest held in parallel during the inNOWvate Supply Chain Event, the most promising supply chain scale-up was announced. One of the main criteria for a business to be considered a scale-up is that it is a young company that has raised more than €2 million in capital.

The Dutch scale-up BigMile received the most votes from the online audience for its independent solution to measure supply chain-related carbon emissions, thus defeating fellow finalists BuyCo from France, Germany-based doks.innovation and the Norwegian scale-up Mixmove. BigMile won a media campaign worth €10,000 across the various media channels of  Supply Chain Media.

Maturity Matrix

Supply Chain Media has been publishing the annual Maturity Matrix of European supply chain start-ups since 2018, for which it analyses more than 160 start-ups from across Europe and positions them in the matrix comprising ten different categories of supply chain solutions. Supply Chain Media regards the start-ups and scale-ups in the matrix as being qualified to enter the annual contest.