Lab to Market Pitch Competition Awards €50,000 to Athens Innovators
15 teams pitched bold ideas at the Athens Conservatoire, with Wastechain, Pharos Maritime AI, and MedivaRX taking top honors
Growing tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, the Columbia Global Center Athens, in partnership with Columbia Engineering, the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Endeavor Greece, and HIAS, hosted the Lab to Market Pitch Competition on July 16, 2026, at the Athens Conservatoire, bringing together 15 early-stage teams to compete for a €50,000 prize pool and pro bono support from BCG and Karatzas & Partners Law Firm.
The competition marked the culmination of the inaugural cohort of the Lab to Market Initiative, an intensive program combining months of training and mentorship with a week-long immersion in New York's innovation ecosystem, before teams returned to Athens to pitch for funding and support.
The 15 teams pitched in front of a panel of five judges — drawn from Greece's investment, banking, and entrepreneurship community — and a live audience, presenting ideas spanning maritime technology, sustainability, healthcare diagnostics, and more.
At the end of the evening, Wastechain took first place and €12,000, Pharos Maritime AI placed second and received €10,000, and MedivaRX placed third, earning €8,000. CalmaPulse won the Audience Choice Award, voted on by attendees. DiagnAll, Vima, Kerberos, and Draco were recognized as runners-up.
In addition to cash prizes, three winning teams received pro bono consulting and legal services from BCG and Karatza & Partners Law Firm, respectively, to support their continued growth.
Alex Eleftheriadis, the head judge of the competition and Founding Partner at Big Pi Ventures, shared the following: “What is unique about the Lab to Market program is the focus on customer interviews. All teams are asked to conduct more than 50 interviews with potential customers, which closes the loop between what an engineering team wants to build and what prospective customers actually need. Just building software or hardware standalone is like doing art - you only have a company when you start selling it to customers."
Maria Bakouli, Co-Founder and Market Lead for Wastechain from the winning team also shared, "Six months of hard work turned into the most rewarding experience of my academic years. Sharing the stage with such inspiring professionals and promising young entrepreneurs pushed me to exceed my own limits — thank you all for setting the bar so high.”
The Lab to Market Pitch Competition is part of an ongoing effort to support entrepreneurship and innovation across Greece, connecting early-stage founders with mentorship, funding, and global networks.