Founders Battle is the pitch competition run at TechChill in Riga. It is open to sector-agnostic teams from the Baltics, Nordics and CEE that have raised no more than EUR 700k in prior equity, with grants excluded from that cap. In-person attendance is required and applications from Russia and Belarus are not accepted.
Twenty startups pitch through semi-finals to a final on the TechChill stage. The 2026 edition carried a prize pool of over EUR 1,000,000 mixing investment commitments and services: up to EUR 350,000 from BADideas.fund, up to EUR 200,000 from Outlast Fund, up to EUR 150,000 each from PurposeTech and Buildit 5G Fund, up to EUR 100,000 each from the Latvian Business Angels Network and FIRSTPICK VC, EUR 10,000 unrestricted from eazyBI, a full Draper University scholarship for up to two founders, EUR 6,000 of Pipedrive services and up to EUR 5,000 of legal services from Sorainen. Entering costs no equity; several prizes are investment offers made on each backing fund's own terms.
The 2026 cycle opened on 8 December and closed on 1 February, with the Top 20 announced on 3 March and the semi-finals and final on 26-27 March. No dates have been published yet for the 18-19 March 2027 edition.
What it actually costs you
Founders Battle is TechChill’s Riga pitch competition for sector-agnostic teams from the Baltics, Nordics and CEE that have raised no more than EUR 700k in prior equity, grants excluded. In-person attendance is required and applications from Russia and Belarus are not accepted. Twenty startups pitch through semi-finals to a final; the prize pool mixes service packages with investment offers made on each backing fund’s own terms, so entry itself costs no equity.