SimplyPill and Syndesis win the UT Entrepreneurial Challenge

Monday 16 June 2025

On Thursday, June 12th, it was time for the Grande Finale of the UT Entrepreneurial Challenge. This year, the finale took place in the Waaier of the UT Campus and started off with an inspiring Showcase Fair. After months of preparation, SimplyPill took home the win for Best Advanced Startup, and Syndesis bagged the win for the Ideation category. TutorMe was the winner of the audience award.

The UT Challenge is a yearly challenge in which entrepreneurial-minded people from the University of Twente take on the challenge to work on their innovative idea, prototype or startup. During the Grande Finale, 20 finalists get the opportunity to pitch. A lucky few continue to the showdown, after which the winners are picked from the ideation and advanced category, as well as the audience award, the ASML young makers award, the Urenco Net Zero award, and the ETCA Future Talent award. New this year was the Showcase Fair prior to the award show, where the top 20 teams got the opportunity to showcase their ideas and prototypes to the audience.

Words of encouragement

The show kicked off with some encouraging words from Novel-T CEO Roy Spit: “I saw some pitches during the dry run, and I was already really impressed. These were ideas that can make the world a better place. So I’m sure that there are people in this room who will make it big someday.” With those words, the afternoon continued with the introduction of the jury and the five pitches in the ideation category. The audience grew increasingly enthusiastic with every pitch, providing a great atmosphere for the five pitches of the Advanced category.

Showdown

To give time to the judges to deliberate, it was time for a panel talk with UT Challenge alumn and CEO of Flawless Workflow Geanny Amor dos Santos, Cottonwood Technology Fund Alain le Loux, last year’s winner of the UT Challenge and 4TU Impact Challenge Gabriel Costa of J58, and Roy Spit. The panel discussed navigating the process of raising funds and building a company, as well as answering some tricky dilemmas about risk-taking and doing good.

Afterwards, it was time for the showdown in which two selected startups from each category had 5 minutes to answer questions from the judges. For Ideation, it was Syndesis and Mixxit who were up for the rapid fire session. In the Advanced category, SimplyPill and Piano Lites took the stage. During the judges’ deliberation, the audience participated in a quiz to see how entrepreneurial they are, bringing back the energy in the room for the big reveal of the winners.

And the winner is…

Syndesis and SimplyPill took home the wins, after the other winners (below) were announced. The two winners of the Ideation and Advanced categories will continue to the 4TU Impact Challenge during Enschede Slush’D on August 28^th. We look back on a successful afternoon filled with ideas, innovation, and entrepreneurship.