The STARTUP3 Ecosystem Discovery Mission Latvia & Baltics was organised by Latvian ICT Cluster in the form of a webinar on June 16th, bringing a wide range of professionals on the topics together. The aims for the webinar were to introduce the startup and cluster environment in the Baltic states, to share experience stories and the knowledge between speakers, participants, organizations and to give networking opportunities for the attendees.

This webinar was divided into two sessions and started off with the startups. The startups in the Baltic countries are very similar and they are fast-paced businesses with a strong will to develop themselves even faster. The speakers from Latvia revealed the latest statistics about the startup ecosystem in Latvia – the growing speed of the ecosystem, collaboration opportunities, and other valuable statistics.

As per participants, the webinar gave a broader understanding of the Baltic countries and their working structure. and that information will be useful for future business opportunities with people from the Baltics.

The second session was dedicated to clusters in the Baltics. The clusters are encouraging the cross-industry collaboration, therefore they are very interested in new partnerships and opportunities.

This webinar reached approximately 70 participants from all around the world. Nevertheless, the participants were active in the whole webinar and wanted to share their experience. This was useful not only to strengthen the community but also for raising awareness for different kinds of topics which could highlight the future webinars. The participants outline various benefits of such events, new ideas and collaboration opportunities to name a few. Asked to rate this webinar in a 5-star range, most of the survey members said it was somewhere between 4 and 5 stars.  

STARTUP3 encourages you to apply for the Block.IS Acceleration Programme and catalyse your blockchain innovation!

Block.IS is an acceleration programme that aims to build an open and collaborative cross-border, cross-sectoral innovation ecosystem that fosters the use of blockchain technology in three vital sectors for the European economy: agrifood, logistics and finance.

Block.IS accelerator supports SMEs and startups from the ICT sector all the way from ideation to commercialisation offering them tailored business and technical support as well as direct funding. To help founders build high-tech venture-backable enterprises, Block.IS offers €2.8 M of total funding through 2 open calls.

Block.IS aims to provide competitive and market-oriented European SMEs access to knowledge, technology, capital, and markets with the aim to place new products/services in the market targeting blockchain technology.

Second Open Call

Submission to the 2^nd Open Call were enabled on the 22^nd of April 2020 and will end on the 22^nd of July 2020 at 17:00 CEST (Brussels time).

Block.IS is looking for Innovative Startups & SMEs ready to catalyse their blockchain-based ideas within agrifood, logistics and finance sectors. The accelerator offers up to €60,000 of equity-free funding, tailor-made technical support, extensive business support and 1-on-1 mentorship.

More information about the Open Call, Eligibility Criteria and the Acceleration Programme can be found within the Block.IS Guidelines for Applicants (page 15).

Block.IS Virtual Challenges

Block.IS will organise 4 challenges. The winners of each challenge (in total 8 SMEs) will enter the Block.IS INNOVATE phase. The procedures and selection process of the challenges are described in the the Block.IS Guidelines for Applicants (page 29). It should be underlined that SMEs that participate at the challenges but are not selected, may submit proposals via the Open Call submission procedure. For each challenge there will be one external organization, the challenger, that will define a theme and the problem to be addressed. The theme will be announced with the challenge, the problem will only be announced during challenge kick-off.

Deadline for each Block.IS Challenge application submission is July 3^rd, 17:00 CEST (Brussels Time). Block.IS Challenges Information Pack provides a set of information regarding Block.IS Challenges – such as Context, Eligibility Criteria, Agenda, as well as Motivation and Theme of each Challenge.

STARTUP3 encourages you to virtually join the Launch of the New TWIIN Subscription Programme – organised by TWI Innovation Network, a STARTUP3 Corporate Pool member!

The new TWI Innovation Network (TWIIN) subscription programme offers the opportunity to embark on mutual collaborations which will help your company/organisation to enable engineering advances in specialist areas, across a wide range of industry sectors in response to commercial needs.

TWIIN has a demonstrable track record in nurturing and coordinating partnerships to develop novel ideas and project concepts with industrial engagement. Working in collaboration – from concept formulation and prototype validation, through to technology demonstration and qualification, and system scale-up – near market ideas are turned into successful applications in the form of new technologies for industrial systems and solutions.

The TWIIN subscription programme will enable you to take your company’s technology development to the next level through tailored support including 1-2-1 innovation management consultations, bespoke workshops and opportunities for forging new partnerships.

Join us for this webinar which will bring you all the details of the new TWI Innovation Network (TWIIN) subscription programme, what you can expect from the different levels of engagement and the benefits of collaborating with us.

STARTUP3 Open Call brought us 250 top-notch deep-tech startups and SMEs from 36 European and H2020 eligible countries – get to know the Top 25 Best Potentials!

After the closure of a quite successful STARTUP3 Open Call that attracted applicants from 36 different countries, including 23 out of 27 countries of the European Union (EU) and most of the eligible countries outside the EU, applicants have passed through an interesting peer-to-peer evaluation process where they were at the same time participants as well as the evaluators. Participants of the STARTUP3 Peer-to-Peer Evaluation had a great journey through different industries and interesting solutions, but after 1 month of evaluations – the top 25 Best Potentials have emerged!

Get to know the 25 startups & scaleups embarking on the STARTUP3 Journey – STARTUP3 Business and Growth Accelerator – where they will be provided with dedicated pan-European support for business growth that aims to boost them to become major dominant companies in their respective markets!

Within the first phase of the Acceleration Programme, STARTUP3 supports innovators to challenge their concepts and ideas, identify market problems, estimate the MVP and overall product effort, as well as also to identify their competitors from the deep-tech sphere.

STARTUP3 Top 25 Best potentials come from different deep-tech industries, such as Robotics, IoT, AI, Agritech, Biotech, Smart City as well as Medtech and Earth Observation. STARTUP3 Team wishes them luck in the next phases, to find solutions for their problems, get the best corporate match as well as to find a perfect investor for their company!

STARTUP3 encourages you to virtually join the Tech Days Munich – a hotspot for founders, entrepreneurs and creatives in cyberspace – organised by Security Network Munich, a STARTUP3 Corporate Pool member!

On June 15, 2020,  TechDays will bring virtually together tech experts, founders, digital and technology officers, researchers and developers, senior and junior officers from the tech community working in different industries to present their showcases, innovation projects and latest applications for digital technologies. TechDays is a cross-industry forum for digital innovation to foster exchange and cooperation between young and established companies.

TechDays 2020 will be presented as a virtual event making it possible to have speakers and participants joining the event no matter where they are located in the world.

This year’s Leitmotiv is Clean Tech. The programme includes specific tracks on Health and Biotech, Smart City and Mobility, Energy and Smart Farming as well as  New Work, Cybersecurity and Innovation Management.

Join us for inspiring keynotes, exciting panels, and interactive workshops!

Startups from around the world will also present their innovations in an online exhibition.

Further information and free registration at: www.techdaysmunich.com.

Organised by Center Digitization.Bavaria and Security Network Munich in cooperation with tech-hubs, innovation clusters, incubators and national and international trade agencies TechDays are supported by the Government of Bavaria.

Special offer for Startups

Startups can apply for a spot in the online exhibition and will be placed on the landing page of the live event with their logo, company profile and a pitch video. After the live event, the profiles and pitches will remain available on the website.

STARTUP3 encourages European fast-growing startups in digital technologies to take part in the 2020 edition of the flagship competition to win international growth support!

Brussels, 23 April 2020 – The EIT Digital Challenge, the competition for European digital deep tech companies, is now accepting applications. Fast-growing startups with existing customers – so-called scale-ups – are invited to apply in one of the following five thematic areas: Digital Tech, Digital Cities, Digital Industry, Digital Wellbeing and Digital Finance. The best five companies will receive prizes totalling €350,000 in cash and in kind. The application deadline is 7 June 2020.

“Among all applicants to the competition, we will select 20 companies and invite them to an exclusive event in November where they will pitch to a jury of high-profile corporates and investors,” says Dolf Wittkamper, Head of the EIT Digital Accelerator. “A total of 5 winners will be announced during this event, one Challenge winner and four runners-up; they all will receive a full year of tailored support from the EIT Digital Accelerator, valued at €50,000. On top of that, the Challenge winner will receive a cash prize of €100,000.” The competition is focusing on ‘deep tech’ scale-ups, broadly defined as technology companies with a differentiating product offering, leveraging sophisticated technology which is often protected or hard to reproduce. “To overcome the current crisis, we need the imagination and the execution of the best entrepreneurs out there. With the EIT Digital Challenge, we are determined to identify the best European deep tech entrepreneurs and support them in building major companies that will tackle the world’s major challenges,” EIT Digital’s Chief Innovation Officer, Chahab Nastar, says.

Being awarded by the EIT Digital Challenge represents a significant milestone for scaleups willing to grow and expand internationally. “Winning the EIT Digital Challenge helped us seize a couple of major deals for which we were waiting for the clients’ final decisions. In less than 6 months, EIT Digital has already proved to provide us huge media coverage, some welcome financial support as well as numerous sales opportunities in Europe for which we are very grateful”- says Lucas Le Bell, CEO and Co-Founder of CerbAir, who was awarded in 2019 and joined the EIT Digital Accelerator shortly after. The EIT Digital Accelerator consists of a pan-European team of business developers and fundraising experts operating from 17 cities across Europe, along with a hub in Silicon Valley. Since 2012, the EIT Digital Accelerator has supported over 300 fast-growing startups to sign up customers and raise capital. In 2019, the EIT Digital Accelerator was ranked among the World’s Top 5 Public Business Accelerators by UBI Global, and one of the top Accelerator brands in Europe, according to a survey by the European Startup Initiative.

Application criteria

To apply for the EIT Digital Challenge, companies must fulfil the following criteria: they must be based in one of the member states of the European Union, United Kingdom, or in one of the Horizon 2020 associated countries, they have to be in the growth stage (to be proven by showing annual revenue of over €300,000 or at least €2m in total funding), and they should be in their first ten years of existence. Since its launch in 2014, the competition has attracted more than 2000 entries from all over Europe. Most of the winning scaleups have gone on to become internationally successful companies. Now it’s your turn!

The STARTUP3 Open Call is now officially closed! In the past two months, the resilience and the spirit of innovation have prevailed, and we are proud to announce that 250 applications from 36 countries have arrived.

You have had 2 months to shoot a 2-minute video and you did it, we thank you for believing in your idea, engaging your creativity and trusting us with recognizing your potential!

STARTUP3 Open Call attracted applicants from 36 different countries, including 23 out of 27 countries of the European Union (EU) and most of the eligible countries outside the EU. Out of all Horizon 2020 Eligible Countries and Territories, only 7 of them are marked as “white spots” – Croatia, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Lithuania, Malta, Montenegro and Slovakia – and given this wide geographical spread, we are thrilled to note the great potential for cross-border deep-tech development. The highest numbers of applications are coming from Serbia, Greece, France and Italy, while the number of covered countries showcases the impact created outside of the consortium-based countries and relevance and importance of the project’s offerings to the whole European ecosystem.

The STARTUP3 has adopted a sector-agnostic approach, calling for the deep-tech startups and SMEs which dare to branch out of their comfort zone and impact areas intertwined with many aspects of our daily lives. There are at least* 17 industries covered by the applicants and this success is yours as much as ours, as we pave the way for better tomorrow together and discover how deep technology can be a solid base and support where an unexpected turn of events is no crisis, but rather the opportunity to showcase its versatility and various fields of application.

*those where industries that participants have marked. 87 participants have marked “other” implying that the scope of coverage is even wider than showcased.

STARTUP3 Project has decided to face the current crisis prompting new opportunities, of which the possibilty to give this event a broader European dimension as it is now accessible by anyone in Europe!

If you are an innovative startup willing to accelerate your business and looking for collaboration opportunities with big players or if you are a cluster interested in deep tech innovation and digital technologies, if you are seeking for cross-border and cross-sectoral innovation opportunities for your startups members, if you want to give them an occasion to apply and follow a tailor-made acceleration programme from home, you might want to join STARTUP3 Discovery Mission Webinar!

The STARTUP3 partners (business accelerators, clusters, DIH) will present you their deep tech ecosytems, will give you more details about the STARTUP3 acceleration programme, and big players of SCS Cluster’s ecosytem, (Symag, Amadeus, INRIA,) will present among others their innovation challenges.

Each session will be interspersed with 10-minutes questions-answers sessions to allow you to interact with the speakers.

Currently, the whole world is facing a crisis caused by Coronavirus (COVID-19). Many people have been personally affected by it and many are in quarantine in order to contribute to a halt of its spreading. We salute the medical workers and those that put the safety of others first, and we divert from regular means to promote an Open Call for the STARTUP3.

Nevertheless, we aim to disrupt the state of crisis and market barriers which are now shifting, we will maintain active and encourage deep-tech startups to apply to our call – now more than ever. Not only markets but standards and lifestyles are reconfiguring, showing the gaps amidst which the opportunities for improvement lie. People are rediscovering true values, and innovation and communication are the keys to overcoming the current state of events and what might come out of it.

Innovation, creativity and strive to make changes do not know limitations, they thrive under them. STARTUP3 is encouraging your online applications, videos made from the safety of your own home – because we believe in your idea. This is the time to separate from the culture that rewards hitting goals for the sake of performance metrics, time to reinvent or enhance yourself and your team and to map out action steps towards the goal you want to reach.
We look forward to your applications and challenge you to get creative in these newly created conditions!

Author: Tajana Medaković