Billon wins SME pitching contest backed by European Commission

Billon, the company reinventing the technology behind money, has won the title of ‘most disruptive pitch’ at the exclusive SME Instrument and Innovate UK event designed to allow SMEs to meet and pitch in front of investors and big corporates.

(London/Warsaw, March 9, 2018) Robert Kaluza, co-founder and COO of Billon, delivered the pitch that won over 13 other EIC SME Instrument companies from across Europe. It impressed judges from DN Capital, Eight Roads Ventures (Fidelity), Fintech Circle, Legal and General, Liberum, London Stock Exchange, Omnes Capital, Orange Digital Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank and Tim Rule – Business angel.

The event was held in London, organised in collaboration with Innovate UK and was backed by the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME), set up by the European Commission. Billon entered the award as part of the €2m Horizon 2020 grant it secured in July 2017. 

“On behalf of Billon, we’re delighted to have won this prestigious pitching award,” said Robert Kaluza, co-founder and COO of Billon. “We stood out from already strong crowd of Horizon 2020 winners and were applauded by VCs who hear so many different pitches day after day. This is yet another proof that we’re disrupting the existing financial ecosystem in a way that – rather than butting heads with the existing regulatory system – works with it. Our civilised blockchain finds a disruptive yet feasible solution to modern day banking issues working with real currencies – and an exciting road lays ahead!”

"It was one of the rare events where you can see a good mixture of interesting European companies. It was very exciting to be in the jury and have the opportunity to assess their pitches and interact with them.", said Bilal Djelassi, Investment Associate Orange Digital Ventures.

" I really enjoyed seeing the broad spectrum of pitches reflecting the diverse European Fintech eco-system", added Ben Brabyn, Head of Level 39. "Congrats to SME Instrument for bringing them to London!".

About Billon

Billon’s distributed ledger engine powers solutions that reimagine the flow of regulated money and data. Built using a revolutionary new decentralized, light-weight architecture that shifts control to the user, the distributed ledger engine provides the scalability and technical capability to encrypt and process any real currency, deliver instant payments at ultra-low costs and power new business models. Founded in 2012, Billon is an FCA registered eMoney institution with a global team of more than 100 professionals across its offices in the UK, US and Poland. Last year, Billon was granted EUR 2M funding by Horizon 2020, the EU’s biggest research and innovation programme.

For more information, please visit www.billongroup.com