Ahead of the Pioneer Awards on Friday 24 April, we spoke to Dominik Stiftinger-Lang, CEO of ChainBrain, the sponsor of the ‘Scale-up of the year’ category at the awards.
The award shines a spotlight on growth-stage firms expanding their impact across digital finance and infrastructure. On the shortlist are: Archax, BCB Group, Blockdaemon, BPX and Fireblocks.
CP: Why did you decide to sponsor the Pioneer Awards 2026?
DL: This is really a great opportunity for businesses to represent themselves, and we really wanted to honour that and give support to the Capital Pioneer Awards, and recognise those people that move the industry forward.
Additionally, it’s a really good opportunity for us to increase visibility for ChainBrain and make meaningful connections at the event itself.
CP: Why do you think events like this are important?
DL: These events bring together big industry players with young founders that are going to be honoured, and that helps the industry mature. It’s really important to have all these people in the room together.
Some other events are more in a bubble, you see these typical blockchain events, but this one is really helping the industry move forward.
CP: What made you choose the Scale-up of the year category to sponsor?
DL: For us, this category is at the very heart of what we do, because our platform helps companies to scale, giving them repeatable, reliable and operational ways to manage their portfolios.
CP: What are you most looking forward to at the event?
DL: The people in the room. I’m looking forward to having very fruitful conversations and getting to know a lot of new people.
CP: How do you celebrate success?
DL: As a company, we usually do most of our celebrating at our annual Christmas party. For startups, you rarely have time to celebrate victories, you have to keep going on to get the next one all the time, so our main focus is taking the opportunity to celebrate when it comes along.
The winner of Scale-up of the year and all other categories will be announced at a gala dinner on Friday 24 April at the Underglobe. Find out more here.
