The top ten Georgian startups competed in a national edition of the Startup World Cup held in Batumi on September 10. International judges granted a spot in the Startup World Cup semi-finals in Silicon Valley to Theneo, a company which explores ways of generating high-quality, interactive API docs.
The representatives of the best Georgian startup will climb onto the big stage to showcase in front of 100+ potential investors and compete for a grand prize of $1,000,000 in investment.
Supported by the European Union, UNDP, the USAID Economic Security Program, Georgia’s Innovation and Technology Agency (GITA) and Batumi City Hall, the Startup World Cup Georgia was held by Startup Connect and USMAC as part of the Mayors for Economic Growth/M4EG initiative, an EU-UNDP regional partnership with municipalities. The award ceremony was also supported by the private sector, with Chelti Vinery and MediaLab contributing to the event.
The award ceremony in Batumi was attended by Georgia’s Deputy Minister of Economy, Irakli Nadareishvili; Batumi Mayor Archil Chikovani; M4EG Project Manager at the UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub, Tina Stoum; the USAID Georgia Economic Growth Office Director, Marika Olson; and the USAID Economic Security Program Chief of Party, Mark McCord.
The Georgian startup will go on the big stage to showcase in front of 100+ potential investors and compete for a grand prize of $1,000,000 in investment
The event was part of the ‘Bridge to Silicon Valley’ conference that gathered over 150 speakers from the US, UK and the EU. International experts shared their unique expertise in high-growth potential startups, venture capital, commercialization of innovation, and new financial solutions for development.
The jury of the Georgian edition of the Startup World Cup included such renowned figures as Nina Levchuk, a Startup and Venture Capital Lead at Google Germany, with vast experience in business development, sales, marketing, cross-functional teams and strategy for leading world organizations, and Levan Shalamberidze, a senior investment professional at the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) of the World Bank Group.
The final stage of the world’s biggest startup competition will take place on 30 September, in Los Angeles, US, with top venture capital representatives and businesses from over 70 countries gathering in Silicon Valley to reveal the winner.
UNDP Georgia congratulated Georgian startup Theneo and its creator, Anna Robakidze.
“Congratulations to Georgian startup Theneo and its creator, Anna Robakidze, on winning the national edition of the Startup World Cup held in Batumi on 10 September.
Although we’ve already won several competitions, the biggest success for us is feedback from satisfied customers
“International judges granted Theneo a spot in the Startup World Cup semi-finals at Silicon Valley. The Georgian startup will go on the big stage to showcase in front of 100+ potential investors and compete for a grand prize of $1,000,000 in investment.”
To find out more details about the winning startup, the inspiration behind it, and future plans, GEORGIA TODAY spoke to Anna Robakidze.
First of all, congratulations on winning the Startup World Cup national competition. How do you feel after winning?
Obviously, the entire Theneo team is very happy with this win. We’re very grateful to everyone who contributed to Theneo’s victory. We’ve already started preparations for the final stage and we hope to represent Georgia well.
How did you get to this stage?
Although Theneo was founded just last year, we’ve come a long way in development. The first successful step was winning a GITA grant competition, followed by successful participation in the TBC Apps Challenge 2021, getting into YCombinator, etc. Although we’ve already won several competitions, the biggest success for us is feedback from satisfied customers.
What was the inspiration behind your startup?
In the process of working as the head of the engineering department in an American company, I had to work on a lot of API integrations, and the vast majority of API documentation was outdated, unorganized and inconvenient, which delayed the integration process and wasn’t much fun for the team. Theneo was originally a solution to my problem. I wanted to be able to get API documentation like the tech giants had. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one with this problem, and Theneo, fortunately, is already being used by thousands of developers.
What are your future plans for Theneo?
Our ultimate goal is to make Theneo a platform millions of developers love and use every day. We want Theneo to be the leader in API management and to cover the full cycle of API development. As for short-term plans, we’ll be attending TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco a few weeks after the Silicon Valley finals, and then we’ll be off to WebSummit 2022 in Lisbon. A very busy but interesting autumn awaits our team.
By Ana Dumbadze
