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The Greek finals were held at SuiHub in Athens, drawing a packed audience of founders, investors, ecosystem leaders for an evening with talks and strategic networking connecting the dots. The regional competition is part of the global Startup World Cup series organized by Pegasus Tech Ventures, with local operations led by Aivitam Ventures and Panis Media, supported by Areti Charidemou as a law partner, the amazing SuiHub as host partner and Startup Greece as an ecosystem partner. The event was moderated by Artem Rodichev, Head of Business Development at Aivitam Ventures.
The evening started with a welcome note from the co-founder of SUI Foundation and Mysten Labs, Kostas Chalkias. Kostas said that hackathons and innovation contests were instrumental in his career, helping him move from Greece to Silicon Valley. He urged finalists to view participation and feedback as key steps toward global success.
Alex Lubnevskiy, Regional Ambassador of Pegasus Tech Ventures, welcomed the audience by highlighting the scale of the Startup World Cup, a global competition with over 100 regional events in more than 80 countries, culminating in the Grand Finale in San Francisco with a $1 million investment prize. He underlined Pegasus Tech Ventures’ track record of backing companies like SpaceX, Airbnb, and Coinbase, and stressed the mission of the Startup World Cup: to uncover visionary startups and connect the global entrepreneurial community.
Ioannis Alvanopoulos, Global Head of Solutions Engineering at Mysten Labs, introduced Sui’s decentralized stack, explaining how the blockchain was designed for speed, security, and real-world applications. He highlighted that Sui achieves high throughput and low latency through its novel data model and programming language, Move, making it possible to scale blockchain technology beyond experiments into everyday use cases. Alvanopoulos also noted that the newly opened Sui Hub in Athens is open to all, aiming to foster collaboration and support the growth of Greece’s role in the global blockchain ecosystem.
