Startup competitions
Source: FundingWatcher. Data as of 4 September 2026.
218
Startup competitions
38
Countries
1
Location pages
100
Rows shown
Most active startup competitions
By recorded investments
100 rows
| # | Name | Location | Investments | Lead | Exits | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Backing Small Businesses | Chicago, United States | 303 | 302 | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | Arch Grants | St Louis, United States | 236 | 184 | 13 | 0 |
| 3 | Hackquarters | London, United Kingdom | 209 | 56 | 7 | 0 |
| 4 | Seedstars | Geneva, Switzerland | 168 | 41 | 11 | 0 |
| 5 | IIMA Ventures | Ahmedabad, India | 156 | 26 | 6 | 0 |
| 6 | TechRise Chicago | Chicago, United States | 137 | 94 | 1 | 0 |
| 7 | 43North | Buffalo, United States | 93 | 60 | 8 | 0 |
| 8 | FedEx Small Business Grant | Memphis, United States | 81 | 78 | 1 | 0 |
| 9 | SevenVentures | Unterföhring, Germany | 64 | 14 | 17 | 0 |
| 10 | Grow-NY | Ithaca, United States | 49 | 34 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | ic@3401 | Philadelphia, United States | 49 | 1 | 12 | 0 |
| 12 | Venture | Zürich, Switzerland | 45 | 38 | 1 | 0 |
| 13 | Koala Fund | Haidian, China | 44 | 14 | 0 | 0 |
| 14 | Outlander VC | Atlanta, United States | 40 | 16 | 2 | 6 |
| 15 | Rising Stars | London, United Kingdom | 35 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| 16 | MYStartup | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | 34 | 33 | 0 | 0 |
| 17 | Strategic Innovation Fund | Canada, United States | 32 | 29 | 12 | 0 |
| 18 | FINCA Ventures | Washington, United States | 31 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| 19 | GxPartners | Fukuoka, Japan | 31 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| 20 | DivInc | Austin, United States | 30 | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| 21 | IMD Startup Competition | Lausanne, Switzerland | 28 | 28 | 0 | 0 |
| 22 | Farming Innovation Programme | Swindon, United Kingdom | 28 | 27 | 0 | 0 |
| 23 | DuPage Foundation | Grove, United States | 26 | 26 | 0 | 0 |
| 24 | GLOCAL LatAm | Rosario, Argentina | 26 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 25 | Start Co. | Memphis, United States | 26 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 26 | e-Fest | Minneapolis, United States | 20 | 19 | 0 | 0 |
| 27 | The Scotland Start-Up Awards | Cardiff, United Kingdom | 19 | 18 | 0 | 0 |
| 28 | Geekdom | San Antonio, United States | 18 | 13 | 0 | 0 |
| 29 | Bourse+ | Montréal, Canada | 17 | 17 | 0 | 0 |
| 30 | BlockFi | Jersey City, United States | 17 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| 31 | Silicon Roundabout Ventures | London, United Kingdom | 17 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 32 | Startup302 | Wilmington, United States | 15 | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| 33 | Impacta VC | Santiago, Chile | 14 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| 34 | OOE Hightechfonds GmbH | Linz, Austria | 14 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 35 | EthAum Venture Partners | Singapore, Singapore | 13 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| 36 | Dempsey Startup Competition | Seattle, United States | 13 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | Taiwan Tech Arena | Taipei, Taiwan | 12 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| 38 | Flots | Rimouski, Canada | 12 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 39 | Spark Nova Scotia | Halifax, Canada | 11 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| 40 | Swachhata Startup Challenge | Chennai, India | 11 | 11 | 0 | 0 |
| 41 | SXSW Pitch | Austin, United States | 11 | 9 | 1 | 0 |
| 42 | PARP | Warsaw, Poland | 11 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| 43 | Strive Community Innovation Fund | London, United Kingdom | 10 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 44 | Sunderland Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G accelerator | Sunderland, United Kingdom | 9 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| 45 | UMMAH1 | Toronto, Canada | 9 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 46 | SEW Capital | London, United Kingdom | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 47 | Dutch 4TU Startups | Helsinki, Finland | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 48 | Greater Colorado Pitch Series | Durango, United States | 8 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
| 49 | TechAlliance of Southwestern Ontario | London, Canada | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| 50 | AB PLUS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES | Kadikoy, Turkey | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 51 | Venture for America | New York, United States | 8 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 52 | Zhongguancun Science-Tech Leasing | Haidian, China | 7 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 53 | Boise Entrepreneur Week pitch competition | Boise, United States | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 54 | SisBerdaya | Jakarta, Indonesia | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 55 | Summit Foundation | Summit, United States | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 56 | Visa Everywhere Initiative | Foster City, United States | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 57 | Women4Climate Toronto | Toronto, Canada | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| 58 | D-Prize | San Francisco, United States | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| 59 | Xcel Next Ventures | Taipei, Taiwan | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 60 | The Venture Center | Little Rock, United States | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 61 | CBK Ventures Pitch Competition | Philadelphia, United States | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 62 | Cup of ideas | Riga, Latvia | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 63 | EBRD AgVenture | London, United Kingdom | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| 64 | Pitch Deck Jamaica | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| 65 | Spring Activator - Impact Investor Challenge | Vancouver, Canada | 5 | 5 | 0 | 20 |
| 66 | Hello Tomorrow | Paris, France | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 67 | UpPrize | Pittsburgh, United States | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 68 | HiiL Justice Accelerator | The Hague, The Netherlands | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 69 | Seedstars World | Carouge, Switzerland | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 70 | UCL Entrepreneurs | London, United Kingdom | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 71 | Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition | London, United Kingdom | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 72 | Kahlert Foundation | Sykesville, United States | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 73 | NASA Orbital Alchemy Challenge | Austin, United States | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 74 | Smart Future Lab | Budapest, Hungary | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 75 | T Challenge | Bonn, Germany | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 76 | The Minnesota Cup | Minneapolis, United States | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 77 | TriVent | Chapel Hill, United States | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 78 | Vanilla Solutions | São Paulo, Brazil | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 79 | Vanish | Brasil, Brazil | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 80 | VentureCat | Evanston, United States | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 81 | Verizon Climate Resilience Prize | Oakland, United States | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 82 | WK Venture Capital | São Paulo, Brazil | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 83 | 20V | Rome, Italy | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 84 | Entrepreneurship World Cup | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 85 | Green Challenge Fund | Amsterdam, The Netherlands | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 86 | Pear Competition | San Francisco, United States | 4 | 3 | 0 | 17 |
| 87 | Project Pitch It | Milwaukee, United States | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 88 | InnMind | Barcelona, Spain | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 89 | Black Girl Magic | Dallas, United States | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 90 | M&T Bank’s Multicultural Small Business lab | Buffalo, United States | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 91 | Next Innov Prize | Neuilly-sur-seine, France | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 92 | Pitch2Win | Lagos, Nigeria | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 93 | She’s Next competition | Foster City, United States | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 94 | The Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition | Singapore, Singapore | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 95 | TiE Women | Sunnyvale, United States | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 96 | X-PITCH | Songshan, China | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 97 | 72 Ventures | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | |
| 98 | Advaya | Bangalore, India | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 99 | Assam Startup | Guwahati, India | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 100 | Sprout BioVentures | Cambridge, United States | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
Table 1. The 100 startup competitions with the most recorded investments. Source: FundingWatcher. Data as of 4 September 2026. Base: 218.
By location
1 pages, 1 shownBy country
| United States | 79 |
| United Kingdom | 17 |
| Canada | 12 |
| India | 10 |
| Switzerland | 8 |
| Germany | 5 |
| China | 5 |
| Singapore | 4 |
| Brazil | 4 |
| Spain | 4 |
| Taiwan | 3 |
| Finland | 3 |
| France | 3 |
| The Netherlands | 3 |
| Pakistan | 3 |
Table 2. Startup competitions by country, 15 largest. Source: FundingWatcher. Data as of 4 September 2026. Base: 218.
By city
| London | 8 |
| San Francisco | 6 |
| Singapore | 4 |
| Chicago | 3 |
| Philadelphia | 3 |
| Washington | 3 |
| Austin | 3 |
| Taipei | 3 |
| Toronto | 3 |
| New York | 3 |
| Vancouver | 3 |
| São Paulo | 3 |
| Barcelona | 3 |
| Geneva | 2 |
| Buffalo | 2 |
Table 3. Startup competitions by city, 15 largest. Source: FundingWatcher. Data as of 4 September 2026. Base: 218.
Investment stages
Cite: FundingWatcher, 218 startup competitions, 4 September 2026. https://fundingwatcher.com/investors/startup-competitions/