HumanX Amsterdam 2026: Meet The Pitch Competition Winner
Europe’s first HumanX produced a startup competition worth watching. Here’s who won, and how to get on stage in Las Vegas in 2027.
HumanX came to Europe for the first time this September, and the startup pitch competition was one of the most-watched parts of the show.
It started with thousands of applications. Every entry got a technical review from developers, venture partners and enterprise CTOs. Only 24 made the cut.
The Semi-finalists
On September 23, the cohort pitched live in Amsterdam to more than 300 growth-equity investors, global GPs and Fortune 500 decision-makers:
8wave · AIRA Systems · Avatia · Avendar · Bosun · Catapult · Constat · Diep Cloud · Earthian · Frayme · Fynex · GreenCompute · Hola AI · In Parallel · Kju.ai · LangWatch · Lettria · Mia · Methodino · Playables.ai · Sophic Labs · Socialtrait · Twinshape · Weeve
The Grand Finals
Five startups went through to the Cube Stage on 24 September: Weeve, Playables.ai, Socialtrait, kju.ai and Avendar.
They pitched to a panel of judges (Anke Huiskes - NP-Hard Ventures, Victoria Slivkoff - Alchemi Ventures, CVC of Chemonics, Andy Lürling - LUMO Labs, Vivek Sodera - Superhuman / Supercharge.vc, Sebastiaan Vaessen - Prosus Ventures) for the top prize: a package built to take a European startup straight into the US enterprise and venture market.
The judges picked Avendar, a full-stack AI platform for European defence, civil security and enterprise. As first-place winner, Avendar wins a fully funded trip to HumanX Las Vegas 2027, taking European AI to the US stage.
Our two runners-up were kju.ai and Socialtrait. Both teams receive a free startup kiosk at a HumanX edition of their choice in 2027, to help them raise growth capital and win enterprise deals on both sides of the Atlantic.
Congratulations to Avendar, and to every startup in the cohort. Winning the competition is one outcome. The investor and buyer conversations that started in Amsterdam matter just as much, and we expect to hear more from many of these teams.
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Entries Now Open for HumanX Las Vegas 2027
The next stage is in Las Vegas, March 8–10. If you’re building something real in AI and want to put it in front of the investors, operators and press who attend HumanX, now is the time to apply.
Deadline: January 15, 2027
Who Should Apply
To be eligible, your startup must meet the following criteria:
- AI is a core feature of your product or solution.
- Founded in 2021 or later.
- Less than $10M in external funding raised.
- Bootstrapped to Series A, with a live MVP, beta or commercially available product.
- Company size is fewer than 25 full-time employees.
- Not a subsidiary, joint venture, spin-off of a pre-2021 company or white-label agency.
- Applicant must be a founder or senior executive in a non-sales role
See you on stage in Las Vegas.