Bitwala, a Netherlands-based digital currency payments solutions firm, and Ledger, a French blockchain startup, have been selected among the top 70 startups at the Pioneers Festival 2016, a major event for future technologies and entrepreneurship in Europe.

The two-day event will be held on 24th and 25th May in Vienna and Austria. Key speakers include Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, along with Jason Ball of Qualcomm Ventures Europe, Frédéric Mazzella of BlaBlaCar, and Valentin Stalf of Number26. The event’s official partners count the likes of PwC, Cisco, Konica Minolta and Austria Wirtschafts Service.

In a blog post, Andrea Hesler of Bitwala said that CEO Jörg von Minckwitz will showcase Bitwala on May 23rd at the Pioneers Challenge Day, under the financial services category. In addition, the company will also have a stand open during the festival where anyone curious or interested about Bitcoin or Bitwala can drop by during the event.

“My co-founders Jan Goslicki, Benjamin Jones and I are very proud and extremely excited to be in the top 70 in one of the biggest startup festivals in the world. This is an incredible opportunity for us to share what we do and share the joy of using Bitcoin to our peers in the industry”, said Jörg von Minckwitz.

In addition, Ledger has also made it to the top 70 list. Founded in January 2015, Ledger combines the strong expertise of its co-founders in security, smartcard, cryptography, and embedded hardware. It provides Trusted Hardware solution for Blockchain private key management. Ledger's APIs (BOLOS) lets users leverage secure hardware such a Android's phone TEE, HSM or personal security devices like the Ledger Blue.

The event has categorized the startups into 7 ecosystems: Financial Services, Business & Productivity, Lifestyle & Entertainment, Mobility & Transportation, Materials & Manufacturing, Energy & Utilities, Life Sciences & Agriculture.

The 70 selected startups will showcase their business to 300 international investors on May 23 at the Challenge Day in Vienna where one Champion per Ecosystem will be nominated. Each Ecosystem Champion will make it to the finals on May 25 and the best one out of the 7 finalists will be awarded as “Pioneer of the Year”.