Bitstamp Wins Best Virtual Currency Startup Award at The Europas

Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp was named the Best Virtual Currency Startup at the 2014 Europas last night.

Held in the Old Billingsgate venue on the bank of London's River Thames, the event was attended by the top startup companies currently involved in the European tech scene.

Bitstamp beat stiff competition from Coinfloor, Elliptic, GoCoin, Localbitcoins and Safello to claim the Best Virtual Currency Startup award.

Nejc Kodric, CEO of Bitstamp and CTO Damijan Merlak collected the trophy, which was presented by Firestartr's Cécile Baird.

.@Bitstamp collect the award for 'Best Virtual Currency Startup' at #TheEuropas pic.twitter.com/GYlipNqSVZ





— CoinDesk (@coindesk) June 10, 2014

Bitstamp, which is based in Slovenia and has a presence in the UK, is one of the world’s most popular bitcoin exchanges. It recently underwent its second proof of reserves procedure, which was overseen by BitcoinJ developer Mike Hearn.

Kodric said: "Day by day, in every way, bitcoin is winning. Bitstamp got the Europas award this year, someone else will get it the next year. As long as bitcoin continues to thrive, we all win."

This was Kodric and Merlak's first time at the Europas, which was founded in 2009 by Mike Butcher, editor at large of TechCrunch. The panel of judges who decided on the night's winners included Ben Holmes, of Index Ventures; Olivia Solon, associate editor of Wired.co.uk; Kathryn Parsons, founder of Decoded and Eze Vidra, head of Google for Entrepreneurs Europe and Campus London.

Click below to see a gallery of pictures from the event.

Other winners at the event included:

Best Entertainment or Media Startup - Soundcloud





Best E-Commerce Startup - FoodPanda SLASH Hellofood



Best Education Startup - Babbel



Best Startup Accelerator or Incubator - Startupbootcamp



Best Advertising Marketing Startup - Brainient



Best Gaming or Social Games Startup - Supercell



Best Social Mobile Startup - EyeEm



Best FinTech Startup - GoCardless



Best Enterprise, Software as a Service or B2B Startup - DataSift



Best Hardware Startup - Petcube



Best Sharing or Crowd Sourcing Economy Startup - BlaBlaCar



Best Health Startup - Big Health with Sleep.io



Best Security or Privacy Startup - ZenMate



Best Travel or Transport Startup - Hailo



Best Internet of Things Startup - Evrythng



Coolest Technology Innovation - Swiftkey



Best Fashion Startup - FarFetch



Best Angel or Seed Investor of the Year - Xavier Niel & Jeremie Berrebi of Kima Ventures



Greatest Tech Influence On Society - CodeClub



Best VC Investor of the Year - Index Ventures



Best Startup Founder or Co-founders - Peter Arvai, Péter Halácsy and Ádám Somlai-Fischer from Prezi



Fastest Rising Startup Of The Year - Telegram



The Europas Grand Prix Award - Swiftkey

Images via CoinDesk