Level Up Awards — Pitch Transcript
Five finalists pitch for a trip to CES 2027 — verbatim transcript and critique
Verbatim transcript of the Level Up Awards finalist pitches (source: `Evoluon 4.m4a`). Wording is exactly as spoken — only line breaks and speaker labels have been added for readability, and the unrelated mingling/chatter that continued after the moderator's closing remarks (from roughly the 22-minute mark onward) has been cut. Speaker labels are inferred from context; the source audio has no diarization, so jury questions are labeled generically as Jury unless the content made the specific juror identifiable.
Jury for this round: Gilbert (co-founder, CM.com), a juror from the Netherlands Patent Office, and Hubert (2025 Level Up Award winner).
Moderator — rules of the round
Moderator: Two minutes for a Q&A with our jury.
So, I'm going to... this is where my rich accent comes in, and I'm going to mix it with a Dutch directness that I've learned from six years of living in the Netherlands now.
So, where do our fighters come from, say, in a pitch? If you go over time, I'm going to cut you off. OK? That's what needs to happen. And the same for our jury as well, for the two-minute Q&A. If you go on too much, you're going to get cut off. Because we have to keep this sharp and snappy. And you are all involved in that as well.
So what we're going to do to ensure we run on time is that when the five nominees are up here on stage, one of them will walk forward and do their pitch. No applause for them at that moment. We will go straight to doing the Q&A. And then we will applaud, and then we'll move on to the next finalist.
Please raise your hand if that makes sense. Amazing. Now raise your hand if you're going to do what I say. Amazing. I guess I'll give you all my eye bands if you can transfer me all the money. That will be the next command. No it won't.
Okay, let's get into the competition. So let's please welcome up our five nominees onto the stage.
Pitch 1 — Mo, Atamute
Moderator: And I believe we are going to start with... with Muhammad. Are you ready? Yeah, amazing. Let's do like I said, one minute to pitch — if you're over, I will cut you off, and then we're gonna go straight to Q&A. So please take center stage. One minute on the clock. Let's go.
Mo (Atamute): Hi, I'm Mo from Atamute. We are developing noise reduction solution — an acoustic product from natural fiber, glass fiber, carbon fiber — to reduce 75 to 95% of the noise from HVAC systems, like heat pumps or cooling systems of data centers.
We have two customers for mass production. We have done more than 15 proof-of-concept projects and we signed NDA with more than 100 companies — I mean even large companies in Asia and Europe.
We have a strong patent portfolio: six patent applications, the first one is granted, three industrial designs, and one trademark.
We are eight members — three professors of the university, and investors from both. Our technology is at TRL 6-7. We have pilot production and now we are developing.
Moderator: You are out of time.
Mo: Thank you so much.
Moderator: You handled that really well. Let's go straight — can you come a bit more forward for us? Let's go straight into our Q&A jury.
Jury: So for me it actually resonated well, because my neighbors were actually complaining about the noise from my HVAC, so I understand the problem. But can you expand a little bit — to me this sounds like a very big and diversified market. So what is your strategy to enter that as a small player?
Mo: Thank you, good question. To be honest, first we developed the technology for reducing the noise. Then the first market was for the heat pump. For the heat pump, there are two noise sources, which is compressor and fan. For the compressor, we make the compressor jacket — they call it acoustic jacket. For the fan, we are developing a silencer, let's say, and also developing a new generation of fan which is like laminating our acoustic tape on top of the blade itself to become a silent fan.
So this is how we started with the technology. Then we find the customer, then based on their requirement we develop further — such as using sustainable material, which is natural fiber, homemade material, being light and compact so we can put it inside the heat pump or other systems. So we use the feedback of the customer and develop.
Jury: Can you tell us a bit more about the competitive landscape?
Mo: Oh yeah, for now we have — let's say — a lot of competing products that you can see here, acoustic panels, but the problem is that most of them are thick. If you want to absorb low-frequency noise — which we have at the heat pump, below 200 hertz, we call it low-frequency noise — then you need 30-centimeter foam, like this one, to absorb it. And now we are doing it with one millimeter, and from this one-millimeter panel it becomes like a three-centimeter mat that you can put inside the heat pump. Then you don't need the acoustic enclosure around the unit.
Moderator: Great. Thank you very much. Round of applause.
Pitch 2 — Jeroen, AIO
Moderator: Next up we have Jeroen. One minute on the clock, let's go.
Jeroen (AIO): Physical AI, smartphones, smart city, AR, VR, medical imaging, autonomous driving — what do these trillion-dollar markets all have in common? They have a camera that is 70% blind, because they have to filter light to see color. And that is what our nanophotonic color-splitting sensors finally solve. We have three times the performance for the smallest possible footprint.
We are AIO. We started two years ago. We raised $55 million. And our team of talented people — 30 today — is scaling fast, all to serve some of the biggest companies on the planet, who we already have as a customer.
So we are on a mission to build a leading global image sensor company out of Europe, with a vision to advance humanity with perfect visual intelligence. Thank you.
Moderator: Let's go straight to the Q&A.
Jury: You're very dependent on other companies for integrating your technology. Do you already have a manufacturer in place who is willing to do so — not just verbally?
Jeroen: Yeah, of course. In this sector, you have to work with partners, so we are a capital-light company in that sense. And from the beginning, we immediately transferred the technology into a commercial foundry, indeed, to be ready to scale up. Currently we already have a prototype, and the first product is running through the line. But for us it was crucial to work with a partner that immediately can scale, because we have to cover the customer demand.
Jury: Can you give an everyday, simple use case for this?
Jeroen: Well, the one that I think you have in your pocket every day. So if you look at the smartphone, over the last 10 years the camera only became bigger. If you remember, 10 years ago this thing was not yet sticking out. Essentially, because the only way to make a better picture is by increasing the size — if you have a bigger camera, you just collect more light.
And now what we do is we actually collect three times more light, three times more efficiency — so this can shrink again, become smaller, and then it means different things, even up to the level that you consume three times less material, three times less cost in the bill of materials. That's a huge impact.
But next to that, it goes across the board. Even in medical imaging, you can start seeing things that you couldn't see before. In physical AI, you can understand the world better. So it's really across the board that it's relevant.
Jury: And can you tell us something about the business model? Do you sell the technology or the chip?
Jeroen: No, so we deliberately made the choice to sell the chip. So we sell the sensor as a product, because there is actually a lot of IP that we can put into it. And also, in the last year, we have the ambition to build a company out of Europe that is competing against the Sonys of the world selling these components.
Moderator: Thank you so much, Jeroen.
Pitch 3 — Merrick, programmable haptic material (Heptal Tech)
Moderator: Next up, we have Merrick. One minute on the clock, let's go.
Merrick: Hello everybody. Haptic tech wants to bring the sense of touch into the virtual world. Some contestants might find it a pain today that we have no slides. But what if I told you, without technology, you could feel what I wanted to show you?
Our material can be programmed to change shape, texture, even secrete and absorb liquids. And I actually have the very first demo with me today that shows some of these functions, put into a compact package. That's the reason why we don't have these technologies in our devices nowadays — it's not suitable for devices. And this is what we want to bring, because our world is rapidly digitalizing.
And the impact of this is broad. We can make devices ranging from braille screens that are 50 times cheaper than what is expected, but also our future vision — that you can put it into devices so that you don't just see things, you can feel them. Say you want to buy some clothes online, you don't just see them, you can feel them. And if that interests you, we're looking for partners. Thank you.
Moderator: We already had a short conversation — this feels like, touch is very personal, right? So did you do some user research on this, and what's the feedback there?
Merrick: Definitely. We originated from the University of Eindhoven, so we were a spin-up from the university, and we did perception studies there with the professors, to see what people can feel, how they feel things, enjoying what they don't enjoy. And this is what we want to bring into our devices — not just because it's a nice app. In the future, there's a lot of digitalization occurring, and our success in our daily tasks is dependent on how well we interact with our devices, our human-machine interface. And this is what we want to address.
Jury: Your technology spans quite a range — haptic screens, wearable braille coatings. If you had to focus on just one, where do you think you're going to get most customer pull from?
Merrick: We have some major conversations with consumer electronics producers, for things like tablets, mobile phones, mobile devices. In our everyday lives we use them all the time. We believe there we can make a pretty huge impact on how we use these devices interactively.
Jury: I have one burning question — can I try it?
Merrick: Of course you can. I need to hook it up to power.
Jury: Because I'm very curious — how many different types of touch are there, like just a bit of resistance compared to no resistance?
Merrick: Well, in this version we have two different types you can try, so I'd like to talk you through that later on, for sure.
Jury: Looking forward to it. Any more questions? No, I'm fascinated, I'll say.
Moderator: Thank you so much.
Pitch 4 — Paul, Cairo / Chiron
Moderator: Paul is up next. Paul, take it away. One minute on the clock.
Paul (Cairo/Chiron): Thank you. In today's world, the most advanced technology is being used on ASML machines and on NVIDIA chips. These chips require 10,000 interconnections — that means 10,000 solder joints in a PCB board. That means the PCB manufacturers get ten times more complexity today. All investments were gone to semiconductors. Hardly, since 50 years, there were no fundamental changes in the PCB industry.
Chips don't float. They need to be interconnected. Chiron is patching a problem from 50 years old. Today it's done by a stencil — the stencil was designed for the textile industry. Chiron is replacing this by light. We can deposit in any place, anywhere, any volume, on the spot. And that's what the perfect solder joint needs, to enable next-gen advanced electronics and make Europe more sovereign. Chiron is there.
Jury: I'm a very big fan of your pitch. So — there's been a long time with limited innovation in this space. So what gives you the confidence that now people are ready to pick up this technology?
Paul: That's all — all verticals, from defense, medical, consumer, are placing orders with Cairo, because they know this gives them the next step to miniaturization and advanced electronics.
Jury: If there's one application where stencil printing simply cannot do the job, where is that, and is that market big enough to carry you through?
Paul: It's a very good question. When you have an AI component from Nvidia, from 10 by 10 centimeters, it's 10,000 interconnects — there they fail the yield. At the moment, the yield from the ultra-advanced iPhone board is 30%. When you put a Cairo machine in front of that, your yield goes up to 80-90%.
Jury: Can you tell us a bit more about the team? How did you find the people that work with you, and how big is the team?
Paul: The team today is 45 people. We will expand to 60 by the end of the year. We started the operation in 2024. Earlier investments were done with a smaller team, but we found the people in this region. And the reason people work for Cairo is that this mission is so big — it's changing the world.
Jury: Same question for you — what is your business model? How are you going to make money with it?
Paul: We work with a parallel business model. We go to the market direct when we go to the top-tier one and two players. And when we go to tier three, tier four players, we work with distribution and with reps.
Jury: So how big can this be?
Paul: This is very big. The addressable market is up to 15 to 20 billion worldwide. And today we have a pipeline of 1.5 billion.
Pitch 5 — Marwitz Kapteijn, Keebu
Moderator: Let's go.
Marwitz Kapteijn (Keebu): Hi, I'm Marwitz Kapteijn. I'm CTO and co-founder of Keebu. And with Keebu we secure AI agents.
So AI agents are kind of this next step in LLMs, where now they don't just produce text, but they actually take actions. And companies use them to write code, to deal with transactions, to deal with customers. Maybe some of you already use agents — raise your hands, who's working with AI agents nowadays? See, that's coming up.
Now that these agents can take actions, they can obviously also make mistakes. And it's more than just a hallucination — now they can actually delete a database, or cause a data breach, or execute a wrong transaction. With Keebu, we tackle exactly that problem. We track what an agent is doing step by step, and we intervene in real time when it's trying to make a mistake. So with Keebu, we secure AI agents. Thank you very much.
Jury: I guess everybody knows this is a very relevant topic, right — just follow the news. How do you envision that you can stand out or survive, and not be crushed by Silicon Valley, by fully-funded companies?
Marwitz Kapteijn: Well — get some more funding and grow ourselves quite aggressively.
I think there's a more serious answer to this. I think there's space for companies that actually effectively provide the service of building the security layer outside of those people that are building the core models — because it's not just the model provider self-attesting, it's actually somebody externally checking the API that's running. And I also think there's a large movement in Europe to actually govern these things the way we want them to be governed, and to build tech to support it.
Jury: We actually had quite a lot of discussion around this topic — I'm part of a school's teaching staff, and the question that came back is: yes, okay, agents — this is obviously not my area of expertise, but from a school perspective, the fix is not necessarily smarter software, it's something institutional, like a clear rule as to who clicks publish. So where does your product end, and where should institutional governance really begin?
Marwitz Kapteijn: Well, it's an interesting question, and an interesting bridge to the core of what we do. Because I'd say — yes, it starts with governance. How do you want these agents to behave, and, for example, who clicks publish. But then who's going to check that publish was actually clicked? Who's going to actually enforce that, the moment this thing runs, it asks for the actual permission it needs — and that you block it if it tries to run without those permissions? And that's exactly the software we built.
Jury: What does Keebu stand for?
Marwitz Kapteijn: Oh, it was just a short URL, and the dot-com was still available.
Jury: I understand. Super, and sweet. Thank you so much.
Closing — all five finalists, before the winner reveal
Moderator: Thank you to our five panelists — if I could just have you right here. We are so thankful that you have joined us today and that you've done your pitches, and also thank you very much to our jury as well.
While we have you here, I'd love to get an idea — what was your motivation for applying for the Level Up Awards this year? Does anyone want to share that?
A finalist: Meeting a lot of people — people reach out to me because our material has so much [overlap with what they're doing]. Actually, funny — [another finalist] and I were in the same environment for many years but we didn't know about each other, and that's why we could potentially collaborate on something. If we had known about each other before, that would have happened sooner. So I'm just hoping that we can make such connections here.
Moderator: Brilliant, yes — that is what we are all about.
And in terms of the prize — because one of you is going to win a chance for yourself and a colleague to go to CES in Las Vegas — what does that opportunity mean to you? Would anyone like to share?
A finalist: I think first it's safe to say that CES is basically where it happens. So it's something we have to be at.
Moderator: Apart from here, where your customers are — everything happens here but...
A finalist: Exactly, exactly.
Moderator: A little misstep there, but it's cool — no, please continue. In terms of your customers, what does that mean for you and your organization?
A finalist: Yeah, so being at CES is a lot of exposure, right? It's the way we can demonstrate — it's even where we will do product launches in the future. It's the key event. If you miss that one, then you're out for a year.
Moderator: This is true, this is true. Cool — I hope, well, we will definitely see one of you there this year, so we're excited to find out.
And I'm also curious, everyone here — because you have been a great audience helping us put this pitch competition together — but I would love to know, and don't name any names, by a show of hands, who already has an idea of who they think should win?
Oh, okay, we have some opinionated people in the audience. I love this — well, you all have to be back here at 4pm to see if your prediction comes true. But for now, let's give a huge round of applause to our finalists and to our jury. Thank you for having us.
I know everyone's heading off right now, but very quickly — we have our tracks happening, the second round of our tracks, that's happening at the far end of this building. And we also have our investor cafe happening as well. We will see you back here at 4pm.
(Recording continues for several minutes after this point with unrelated attendee conversation during the break — not transcribed here as it is not part of the event programming.)