In the world of startups, winning a hackathon once is impressive. Winning twice at a global event like the Raise Summit Hackathon is something else entirely.

We’re proud to say Vortex IQ walked away with two first-place wins at Raise Summit Paris 2025, the premier hackathon for AI, agents, and LLM innovation. In this post, we’re pulling back the curtain on how we did it — from concept to code to recognition — and why this matters beyond the trophies.

What is Raise Summit?

Raise Summit is Europe’s leading AI innovation showcase — where top VCs, enterprises, and startups gather to explore agentic infrastructure, LLM applications, and the future of autonomous workflows.

Their hackathon brings together the best builders from across the globe. Teams are challenged to create working AI agent solutions that:

• Push the boundaries of reasoning and autonomy
• Deliver practical business outcomes
• Integrate real-world APIs
• Run live within 24–48 hours

It’s fast. It’s competitive. And it’s judged by leading investors and technical leaders.

Our Winning Projects

Win #1: Best Use of Agentic Workflow

Project: “MCP Agent Studio”
We built a real-time interface where users could:

• Type natural language prompts like “Update all out-of-stock items to hidden”
• Watch as the AI agent parsed the intent, mapped it to structured API schema, and executed the action securely
• Review a sandboxed output log before pushing live

Judges praised:

• The deep integration with BigCommerce and Shopify APIs
• The MCP Server’s logic layer for prompt-to-action translation
• The ability to build and deploy new agents in under 10 minutes

Live, working agentic infra. Not just a demo.

Win #2: Best AI Developer Tool

Project: “Agent Builder SDK + Marketplace Preview”
In less than 36 hours, we:

• Exposed our Agent Builder as an SDK
• Let developers define custom agent “skills” using YAML or JSON
• Demonstrated a working preview of an Agent Marketplace where apps could be monetised and installed

This wasn’t theory — this was a plug-and-play agent layer with end-to-end visibility, versioning, and audit logging.

Judges highlighted:

• The clean modular architecture
• Real-world API support (GA4, Stripe, Contentful, etc.)
• Immediate potential for SaaS extensibility

What Set Us Apart

Most teams focused on front-end demos. We focused on:

• Infrastructure – Our Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a true abstraction for agents to safely understand and use APIs
• Execution – Our agents don’t hallucinate; they act with schema awareness, auth handling, and error logging
• Speed to Value – From prompt to production-ready agent in <10 mins

We were the only team that combined:

• Agentic reasoning
• Reusable skill-based execution
• Marketplace-ready monetisation in one demo

Why It Matters

This isn’t just about winning a hackathon. It’s about proving:

• We can ship at startup speed
• Our tech is defensible, modular, and enterprise-ready
• We can operate at the intersection of infrastructure, UX, and applied AI

The Raise Summit wins brought us:

• Direct intros to European VCs, including those focused on deep tech
• Global visibility in the AI and agentic space
• Product validation from engineers, founders, and investors alike

What’s Next

We’re building on that momentum:

• Launching the Agent Builder Studio to beta users
• Publishing 100+ production-ready agents for BigCommerce and Shopify
• Opening the Agent Marketplace to partners, devs, and system integrators
• Scaling agent deployment across e-commerce, analytics, and DevOps

Final Thought

Winning twice at Raise Summit was validation — but it’s just the beginning. The real win is having a platform that makes agentic automation real, usable, and valuable for any company.

And we’re just getting started.

👀 Want early access to the Agent Builder or a live demo?
Contact: [email protected]
Visit: vortexiq.ai