The tens of thousands of votes from our readers have been counted, and here’s our impressive group of Europe’s best young entrepreneurs

By Andy Reinhardt

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Winning an entrepreneurship contest is a feather in the cap, but it takes a lot other than that to occasion a business grow. As the nominees in this year’s BusinessWeek Best Young European Entrepreneurs competition can attest, edifice a auspicious startup requires passion, focus, constant act, and sometimes a bit of luck.

Still, recognition is a welcome reward for young businesspeople struggling to hit the pregnant time. That’s wherefore it’s to such a degree gratifying each year to disturb nominations from our readers for the greatest in quantity promising European startups and then seek information regarding the public to cast votes for the best. This year, we widened our criteria to include entrepreneurs under the age of 30 (it was previously 25 or younger). As you can see from a reflect upon through the nominees, they’re an impressive hunch.

Now, tens of thousands of votes have been cast and it’session time to reveal the winners. The top vote-getter in our enroll, which ran as antidote to the uninjured month of December, was Tal Chalozin, 27, the chief technology officer and co-founder of Tel Aviv-based startup Innovid. (Though labeled "European," the contest was open as correctly to entrepreneurs from the Middle East and Africa.) Founded in 2006, Innovid has developed groundbreaking advertising technology that lets producers insert live, clickable objects into digital videos. Its system could provide a trying answer to the riddle of how to "monetize" online video—such as clips on YouTube (GOOG)—by dint of. giving advertisers a way to turn objects in the videos into live launch pads to online ads or Web sites. Innovid true kicked off a major new conduct one’s self with MSN (MSFT) in Canada and is poised to launch a new Web location to highlight its technology.

Finding a Clever Niche

Close behind came Therese Albrechtson, a Swedish entrepreneur who has equal now launched three companies at the tender age of 23. Ranging from a constructor of personal security products (a startup she has already sold) to her latest company, iBoards, which sells interactive whiteboards, Albrechtson’s startups exploit sly place of traffic niches.

The nearest three runners-up: The seven founders, ranging in age from 21 to 24, of Artisjok, a Dutch designer of eco-friendly furniture; Kristoffer Kumar, the 22-year-old founder of Norwegian video production visitor Kumar Media; and Maikel van Heugten and Luc Prijt, ages 23 and 20 respectively, whose startup Money Tree makes novelty items based on money themes for the corporate gift market. For a more detailed look at the winners, see our slide show.

Needless to say, there were plenty of other suitable ideas among the nominees who didn’t make the top five vote-getters. BusinessWeek doesn’t play favorites, but we were admittedly surprised not to see near the top of the list Sweden’s Erik Fjellborg, whose startup Calnet sells a work-shift management software tool that has already been adopted by means of McDonald’sitting (MCD) franchises in four European countries.

Special mention also goes to Stig Bloch Milfeldt and Lars Pedersen of Denmark, who have invented an eco-friendlier march to heat outdoor café tables; Felix Fidelsberger and Michael Glöss of Toksta, who have developed a instrument for adding instant messaging to social networking sites; and Jeremy Silverman, an American living in Berlin whose company, Retail Refugees, helps local shops reach a wider hearing via the Internet.

Of course, good ideas—coupled with flawless execution—carry the day even without entrepreneurship awards. But it’s also true that attractive the BusinessWeek contest can offer a lift to young businesspeople. Last year’s top vote-getter, Aodhan Cullen of Dublin-based Web analytics company StatCounter, saw a big roller in business (not to mention media attention) subsequent to he clinched the contest. He and other top-ranked companies reported inspiring advance a year later when we contacted them again.

The same goes beneficial to Ben Woldring, the winner in 2006. He and most of the other nominees from that year stuck to their dreams long after the contest was by, reporting new successes and occasional setbacks whenever we tracked them down.

Please unite us in congratulating the top vote-getters and totally the nominees from 2008 for their enterprise, persistence, and imagination. When it comes to entrepreneurialism, all of them are winners.

Original text: http://rss.businessweek.com/~r/bw_rss/europeindex/~3/514487383/gb20090116_191247.htm