The rules : who can apply?
The European Commission defines Web entrepreneurship as being on the supply side of the businesses. Web entrepreneurs constitute a specific category who create new digital services and products that use the web as an indispensable component.
Your main product and/or service should also be innovative in the Europe region. The company should be based in one of the EU member states, and at least, 50% of founders should be citizens or permanent residents of the EU member states.
Those eligible as per the European Commission “Web Entrepreneur” definition : Web entrepreneurs constitute a specific category who create new digital services and products that use the web as an indispensable component. The company should be based in one of the EU member states, and at least, 50% of founders should be citizens or permanent residents of the EU member states.
Web Entrepreneur must be
< 30 years old
Company must not be a spin-off of an existing companybr
> A scalable business modelbr
> Company should demonstrate a promising track-record of early achievements
Company should be not be more than 3 years old
Initial size of minimum 19 employees at start of reference period
Average yearly growth of 20% over a period of 3 years – growth can be in terms of revenue and or employees
*Gazelle criteria based on OECD definition – OECD Eurostat – OECD Manuel on Business Demography Statistics
Executive chair should be female
At least 50% of the founders of the company should be female
Anybody can vote. Your votes will only count one time per voting medium (email, twitter, facebook). The organization will keep a sharp eye on possible fraud and has the right to disqualify a nominee at any time when fraud is suspected.
Nominees can apply via the site and a hand picked jury of tech illuminati will pick a short list. There will be a public voting round to select the five final nominees from that short list (based on most votes). The jury will select the winner of the Europioneers Award from those final five nominees.
To get to the winner of The Europioneers award there are three stages. A nomination round, a public voting round and at the end the jury will decide on the actual winner.