Musikki is this year's winner of ISCTE-IUL MIT Portugal Venture Competition - the most important of its kind in Portugal. - The Start-up awarded with the 200.000 Euros in financial support. - The founders will now have the opportunity to double the financial support through the execution of the business plan. - Announcement of the 3rd edition of the ISCTE-IUL MIT Portugal Venture Competition Musikki - presentation Video.  Musikki has won the 2nd edition of ICTE-IUL MIT Portugal Venture Competition. The specialized motor search founded by João Afonso, Juliana Teixeira e Pedro Almeida, provides users with all the information related to an artist/band, and all is just a click away. The competition is promoted by ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon- and Caixa Capital, in partnership with MIT-Portugal and MIT entities - Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation and the Sloan Business School. The winner was announced by Walter Palma, Managing Director Caixa Empreender+ Fund representing the Caixa Geral de Depósitos Group, at a ceremony held at ISCTE-IUL. The Grand Finale also counted with the participation of Carlos Nuno Oliveira, Deputy Minister for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Competitiveness at Portuguese Government; and Graça Fonseca, Deputy Mayor of Lisbon for Economy, Innovation, Modernization and Decentralization. Both representatives were supportive of the competing startups and of this initiative, recognizing it as part of the strategic plan for the development of the entrepreneurship in Portugal. Musikki will benefit from an extra financial support of 100.00 euros in addition to the previous award received last September, when it was selected as finalist at “Consumer Products and Services” track. This amount can be doubled during the next 3 to 5 years, according to the agreed milestones. The promoters of the winning team will also have the opportunity to pitch for a restricted international investor groups at one of the main entrepreneurship events at MIT –the Ideastream - at May 4th, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The four finalist start-ups already received 400.000 euros, destined to the implementation of “Go to Market” strategies developed in collaboration with the organization during the six months of the competition. Furthermore, these teams will be granted direct access to Caixa Capital - the venture capital partner- to whom they will present and discuss their projects in a privilege way . Besides the financial support of up to 1 million euros from the Caixa Empreender+ Awards of the Venture Competition, the promoters of the four finalist startups received over 500+ hours of training and coaching with seasoned entrepreneurs in Portugal and the US (Catalysts), were provided with opportunities to pitch to Angels and VCs in Portugal and at MIT’s IdeaStream, support by specialized Portuguese and MIIT mentors and catalyst, and further support at incubators in Portugal (Startup Lisboa) and at the US (Cambridge Innovation Center e Plug & Play Tech Center). Musikki, together with the other track finalists– MediaOmics, IS Green e All Desk – are, form now onwards, entering a new intensive stage, comprising 1 to 3 years and not more than 5, with a ultimate goal to validate their value proposals with global clients (B2B) and will be provided with tools to raiser their value at international round of investments (series A and B). The organization hopes that during the first 5 post-award years, the promoters will be able to successful complete investment rounds in the order of 2-5 million euros. By this time they will still be in a position to benefit from the option right of the financial partner Caixa Capital, which can subscribe up to 20% of the added capital value of the companies. The audience was also able to participate and vote through an application developed by Around Knowledge, one of the last year’s finalists. Musikki was the startup elected by the public. The Ceremony was closed by Gonçalo Amorim, Director of the MPP -IEI, with the commitment to continue the competition and the beginning of the 3rd Edition by March 15th, 2012. Until May 1st, several information sessions will be occurring trough out the country and internationally, the calendar for these events will be announced soon at www.mitportugal-iei.org The competition promotes entrepreneurship and innovation in Portugal. So far the 155 start ups submitted their projects to the ISCTE-IUL MIT-Portugal Venture Competition during the past two editions. The applications came from young start-ups, less than five years, that are exclusively dedicate to the development of international technology based projects, either of products or services. Students, researchers and profession of any area, Polytechnics institutes, Universities and other public and private institutions, can apply. For Luís Reto, ISCTE-IUL's Dean, “we believe that ISCTE-IUL, Caixa Capital and MIT-Portugal can be pioneers, creating the foundations of an international technological hub in Portugal, from this major entrepreneurship & innovation competition, international in scope. Through the first edition in 2010, we validated the model. Since then we met highly entrepreneurial, qualified people, with the right ambition, as showed by the results attained thus far. In the current scenario of tough financial and economic constraints that we are facing, this initiative unleashes knowledge-driven innovation that converts into economic value such as highly qualified jobs, welfare and competitiveness for our nations. We now have the challenge of scaling even more this initiative beyond our horizons that was only possible due to the combined work of all stakeholders involved”. The competition is part of the ongoing cooperation established in 2010 between the ISCTE- IUL, Caixa Capital and the MIT-Portugal Program, in cooperation with MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation and the Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. 
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Michaela Simcikova, a MIT Portugal Program PhD student in bioengineering at Instituto Superior Técnico, has just been selected as semifinalist for the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition business plan contest in emerging markets. The 
