Become the startup of the year at World Football Summit

The StartCup by World Football Summit, LaSource, and EBAN Sports is the official startup competition held as part of the WFS Madrid 2025 event. Its main goal is to identify, promote, and provide visibility to startups that are developing innovative solutions with the potential to transform the football ecosystem. These solutions may address key areas such as technology, sustainability, data analytics, sports performance, fan experience, or new ways of consuming football. The StartCup aims to act as a launch platform for early-stage or growth-stage startups by facilitating connections with investors, clubs, federations, and other key stakeholders in the industry.

Participation Process

Participation
Process

Interested startups must complete a registration form available on the official competition landing page. The form will request essential information about the proposed solution, the founding team, the product development stage, its viability, business model, and potential impact on the football industry. The application period opens on June 23, 2025, and closes on July 30, 2025. Projects with a clear focus, initial validation, and a distinctive value proposition are especially encouraged to apply.

After the application period ends, an evaluation committee will review all submitted proposals. This review will be conducted through a digital platform that enables the evaluation of each entry based on criteria previously defined by EBAN Sports (the sports committee of the European Business Angel Network), a strategic partner of the event. Evaluation criteria will include the level of innovation, scalability, alignment with current sports industry challenges, strength of the founding team, and market traction. The top 6 rated projects will be selected as semifinalists and publicly announced on September 5, 2025.

Judges on pre-selection are either business angels or VCs members of EBAN Sports.
A wider judge panel will be announced soon for the final round of the competition.

Regardless the success of your application, all applicants will be invited to two webinars by EBAN Sports investors to get your project investment ready in the sports industry (date & time TBC).

Selected semifinalists will be invited to present their projects at the in-person StartCup Final, which will take place during WFS Madrid 2025, scheduled for October 15 and 16, 2025. Each startup will be given 6 minutes to deliver a live pitch in front of a jury composed of investors, club executives, and representatives from the sports ecosystem. The jury will evaluate both the quality of the presentation and the startup’s ability to respond during the Q&A session. Winners will be announced at the end of the session.

Key Information

Key
Information

Startups eligible to participate must meet the following criteria:

Prizes

Winners:

Top 10:

June 23, 2025

Application opens

July 30, 2025

Application deadline

September 5, 2025

Semifinalist announcement

October 15 – 16, 2025

Final at WFS Madrid

June 23, 2025

Application opens

July 30, 2025

Application deadline

September 5, 2025

Semifinalist announcement

October 15 – 16, 2025

Final at WFS Madrid

StartCup Competion Experience

StartCup Competion
Experience

In partnership with

In partnership
with

Be the first to know.

Subscribe to
WFS updates.