Startup Scaleup – Startup Europe’s IoT Accelerator
A 6-month acceleration programme, launched in 2015 aimed to find European startups developing cutting-edge IoT innovation. During the past two years, programme ran 2 batches in 4 European locations simultaneously and supported 133 startups. “We have achieved and exceeded expected number of companies, that we wanted to support. This is what happens, when there is so much IoT potential in Europe”, – said Andres Iborra, Startup Scaleup project coordinator.
Both batches started with a IoT’ers week simultaneous in the four different hubs of Startup Scaleup programme: Vilnius – Lithuania, Zoetermeer – the Netherlands, Dublin – Ireland and Cartagena – Spain. Andres Iborra continues – “Because of a great variety in the expertise of Startup Scaleup partners, we managed to offer very high quality support in the technical field of IoT, business management and fundraising.”
Each 6-month journey finished with a Demo Day, where the top startups of each batch were selected to pitch and demonstrate their products at a major event. In May 2016, top 12 startups from the first batch presented their products during the Connected Conference, in Paris. From the second batch, the top 16 were selected to demonstrate their products on November 2016, during Internet of Thing World Europe in Dublin.
From both batches, comprised of 133 companies, more than €10M were raised. “We are very happy to witness rapid growth of our incubated startups and help them raise funds. We are also very happy with the variety of available capital for innovative IoTstartups. Our companies raised money from the government, angels and VC’s simultaneously.” – said Andres Iborra.
He continues – “The funded part of the project is about to end, however having seen such tremendous success and a market opportunity we are looking forward to transform this initiative into a sustainable programme that can further support IoT companies Europe-wide”.
Startup Scaleup in numbers:
About the Startup-Scaleup Project
Startup Scaleup is the 6 month IoT accelerator of Startup Europe powered by the European Commission which is combining physical and virtual acceleration, and looking for talented startups aspiring to take their business to the next level and expanding to international markets.
Startup Scaleup is building a European ecosystem connecting the players of four consolidated entrepreneurial hubs (Cartagena, Dublin, Vilnius and Zoetermeer) in order to provide a greater range and quality services to ambitious entrepreneurs who want to launch and grow companies focused on the Internet of Things (IoT).
Startup Scaleup is run by the Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena, Crosspring LABs, Open Coffee Club Lithuania, the Ryan Academy, F6S and BluSpecs.
About Startup Europe
Startup Europe is a European Commission initiative that aims to strengthen the business environment for web and ICT entrepreneurs so that their ideas and business can start and grow in the EU.
Uniting European startup ecosystems is its value proposition. Some of its concrete activities are:
- Connecting startup ecosystems throughout Europe.
- Bridging the gap between investors, corporates and startups.
- Creating a bottom-up movement across Europe.
- Giving voice to startups to influence new policies (capital markets union, digital single market).
- Celebrating entrepreneurship.
More information at:
https://www.f6s.com/startup-scaleup
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