
The summer finals format is finally BACK from the pandemic slumber – completely sold out in Düsseldorf!
And the Rheinland Pitch Summer Finals 2024 winners were…
Climate Tech: Regascold
Digital Health: skinsure
Generative KI: comdaily

The summer finals format is finally BACK from the pandemic slumber – completely sold out in Düsseldorf!
And the Rheinland Pitch Summer Finals 2024 winners were…
Climate Tech: Regascold
Digital Health: skinsure
Generative KI: comdaily
As you may or may not already know, as the co-founder of the Rheinland Pitch, Germany’s largest startup pitching event founded back in 2013, I’ve been preparing and training the applying startups how to pitch investors.
And with training how to pitch, I don’t mean how to put on a song and dance in front of investors – I mean how to actually find investors, how to contact investors, what investors are looking for, how the funding game works, and the contents of what and how to actually pitch investors successfully – with my in-person Pitching Masterclass.
So far I’ve trained over 3.000 startups how to successfully pitch in person.
Over the years I’ve also been booked by companies, events, organisations, startup programs (like incubators and accelerators), and universities and colleges, to help their employees, members, startups, and students improve their pitching skills.
Happy customers include KIT ( Karlsruher Institut für Technologie), Cologne Business School, Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, RTL Journalistenschule, Bertelsmann, Budapest Enterprise Agency, USAID, DMEXCO, Web Summit, Pirate Summit, Medien Gruppe RTL, ottobock, Zentis, Founders Foundation, 0-1 Booster (Japan), Startup Nano (Portugal), Startup Braga (Portugal), IHK, DigitalHUB Aachen, DigitalHUB Düsseldorf, DigitalHUB Bonn, DigitalHUB Cologne, Reifenhäuser, etc.
But until now, you’d have to be able to attend an in-person Pitching Masterclass to enjoy the benefits.
As the Pitching Masterclass has been evolving and updating – and the aggregated collective wisdom of the thousands of startups I’ve been working with for over the last 11 years – I thought it was a damned shame that you could only access the knowledge if you were somehow able to attend an in-person Masterclass.
So to be able to help as many people as possible to pitch investors for raising funds, I’ve now created and released a 100% digital version of the Pitching Masterclass open for anyone, anywhere, anytime!
So, got startup? Get smart, get funded: Enroll today.
And that’s not all; I’ve also created a different version for employees wanting to secure buy-in from stakeholders for their innovation ideas and for companies wanting to train their employees to be better at pitching new innovations internally. Spoiler alert: corporate innovation ventures are not startups and they need a different approach to securing funding and support. This version includes a framework for getting to yes, for securing buy-in from stakeholders and an additional very useful alternative pitch format to the classic pitch deck just for corporates. Here’s how to learn more about this corporate edition.
Both versions of my Pitching Masterclass are available either as a single user for startups and employees AND as an subscription edition with unlimited users for companies, organisations, startup support programs, and educational institutions who want to make it available to all of their employees, members, startups, or students on-demand. Here’s how to learn more about the unlimited users options.
What you can expect is +2 hours of video and +370 slides with these topics and contents in a user friendly web-based learning interface:
INTRO
BEFORE YOU START PITCHING
HOW TO RAISE MONEY
PITCHING
ADDENDUM
20.1 Startup metrics
20.2 Pitching Tricks
20.3 Further Resources
20.4 AirBnB’s first (successful) pitch deck
20.5 Acknowledgements
DOWNLOAD
+370 slides as PDF
AFTER THE PITCHING MASTERCLASS
What’s next?
Yesterday I was back with FI Cameroon, helping their next batch of startups with pitching investors and giving feedback on their pitches.
Thank you to Bertrand Fotsing and FI Cameroon for inviting me again. It was an exciting mix of different markets in this batch – from DTC health products to fintech!
Today, I was honored to be back helping the startups walking the plank at this year’s (and also the final one – RIP 2011 – 2023) Pirate Summit prepare giving feedback on their pitches – one week out before they walk the plank!
I’m also moderating the Walk The Plank pitch competition, so see you there!
And if you haven’t gotten a ticket yet, have a look at the ticket page – there should be tickets available for most kinds of budgets (if they are not sold out yet!).
Honored and excited to be invited by the Center for Entrepreneurship Düsseldorf (CEDUS) to teach my “Pitching Masterclass” for their “Startup Werkstatt” program at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU)!