Two Startups Emerge Victorious at Proof of Pitch in Paris

Proof of Pitch returned to the Louvre Palace in Paris for its fourth edition on June 2-3, 2026. Two startups emerged as winners from among fifteen finalists: ReplyCorp and Parthenon.

ReplyCorp won the General Track with a product that turns social replies into storefronts, allowing users to track sales without links or discount codes. The company is live on Base with its REPLY token in market through Virtuals Protocol and closed $200,000 from three strategic angel investors during the event.

Parthenon won the Canton Track with a credit product built for institutions, offering undercollateralized, fixed-rate lending for digital assets with custody-native collateral and privacy-preserving execution. The founding team comes from private credit, Big Law, commodities, and DeFi, having completed a Quantstamp audit and onboarding more than $230 million in institutional commitments and 9,000 BTC on its private mainnet.

The winners each received a portion of the $1 million prize package, which included Spectrum Nodes infrastructure support, AWS cloud credits, OVHcloud credits, a Softstack audit, go-to-market mentorship from Simplicity Group, and media support from Cointelegraph. Past winners have gone on to raise significant rounds, including Redstone's $15 million Series A in 2023.