Soft-Landing calls are now open: apply to explore a new startup market in 2019!
The Soft-Landing open calls are now open!
MY-GATEWAY project wants 22 CEE and Western Balkan startups to attend Startup Europe Summit!
In total twenty-two startups, twelve from Central and Eastern Europe and ten from the Western Balkans, will be selected to attend this year’s edition of ‘The European Startup Event’. A committee comprised of leading startup support organizations from the CEE and Western Balkan countries will select the startups through specific criteria.
Selected startups will be given the possibility to meet high-profile people such as Prime Ministers and European Commission policymakers to discuss European entrepreneurship and new opportunities. The one-day Summit will be filled with workshops on how to access venture capital, business angel funding, EU funding and panel talks on how to scale-up. Travel and accommodation expenses of one representative per selected startup selected will be reimbursed by the European Commission.
Take a look at the Summit’s agenda here.
Would you like to apply? Click here.
‘We need to create programs and policies to connect ecosystems, founders and startups at European level.’
Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, and also key-note speaker at the Summit, said at her speech on Masters of Digital.
‘This is with a view to accelerate growth, cooperation and diversity.’
In order to be considered for the application process and be eventually selected to attend Startup Europe Summit, startups need to have a high growth potential, a prototype or viable business plan and a unique business idea.
What is Startup Europe Summit?
Startup Europe Summit is a European Commission event which aims to bring together startup founders and policy makers. More than 400 people will attend this year’s Bulgarian edition to learn about new funding opportunities, meet entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders and benefit from the possibility of closing a business deal.
Check out the agenda here.
What is MY-GATEWAY?
MY-GATEWAY is an initiative of Startup Europe that aims to strengthen the capacities of high-tech start-ups and innovative SMEs in the CEE region to become better connected, gain higher market exposure, and have improved streamlined access to funding opportunities and talents.
European Innovation Day (EID), part of SEC2SV mission
The IV edition of EID – European Innovation Day, the European Digital Conference in Silicon Valley organized by Mind the Bridge, is planned for September 11th.
Central event of the SEC2SV Week (9-15 of September), EID-European Innovation Day is a thought-provoking, inspiring conference at Computer History Museum (almost 700 attendees registered in the 2017 edition) that brings together the current/future EU Unicorns and EU policy makers to meet the Silicon Valley digital economy stakeholders.
The SEC2SV Week will continue with follow-up meetings and parallel agenda for the different stakeholders. Silicon Valley counterparts for the meetings/events usually include government officials, senior execs from Facebook, Google, Uber, Airbnb, GE, representatives from the investors (Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis, Greylock, Social Capital, SoftechVC, USV, Y Combinator, RocketSpace, 500 Startups) and academic (Stanford, Berkeley, Singularity University) community.
Registrations are available HERE.
Hot topics of 2018 edition will include:
- GDPR: Privacy and Data Storage/Transfer
- ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and its and CryptoCurrencies Regulations
- European Economy of Innovation in Silicon Valley
- Startup M&A
First confirmed speakers unveiled:
- Peter Arvai, CEO and co-founder, Prezi
- Pēteris Zilgalvis, Head of unit, DG Connect, European Commission
- Kristin Schreiber, Director COSME programme, DG Grow, European Commission
- Tim Draper, partner, Draper Associates
- Sorin Moisa, MEP, European Parliament
- Adam Sterling, executive director of the Berkeley Center for law and business
- Sabrina Ross, international privacy and security expert
- Martin Rauchbauer, co-director, Open Austria
- Georg Fuerlinger, co-director, Open Austria
Looking for the next Unicorns!
Top European scaleups aiming at expanding operations to the US market will be selected to join the event.
Minimum requirements to be considered as a Scaleup:
- to have at least 10 employees as of 3 years ago in the last 3 years
- to be growing more than 20% year-over-year in revenue, employees, or user-base.
Applications end on July 1st.
MY-GATEWAY AWARDS 10 STARTUPS WITH WEB SUMMIT TICKETS
July 24, 2018 – MY-GATEWAY holds an open application to give away free Web Summit tickets to ten startups based in or focused on Central Eastern European countries until July 27th.
MY-GATEWAY is searching for the 10 most innovative and disruptive startups to join the MY-GATEWAY delegation at this year’s Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal from November 5th to the 8th. A committee comprised of leading startup support organisations from Romania, Slovenia and Czech Republic will select the 10 startups through specific criteria.Some of the criteria include:having a developed idea, a financial plan and being based in or having a strong interest to work in the CEE region.
Would you like to apply? Click here.
As the largest tech conference in the world, with over 70,000 attendees, 1,200 speakers and 170 countries represented, Web Summit is the perfect event to gain exposure. The affair will consist of 3 full days of keynotes, workshops, and networking opportunities. In attendance will be a vast investor ecosystem,as well as over 2,500 international media outlets.
Krisztina Tóth, Director of MY-GATEWAY, explains, “We´re trying to create connections for these startups with other major ecosystems from within and outside of Europe by introducing them to investors, accelerators and mentors. This is one of the most important parts of MY-GATEWAY…. to create connections and provide access to networks that these stakeholders have in Romania, Slovenia, and Czech Republic.”
MY-GATEWAY is an initiative created by a team of experts who are passionate about improving the startup industry in Europe, specifically in the CEE region. With the aid of Startup Europe, MY-GATEWAY is helping startups gain insight into growth opportunities, access a vast stakeholder database and be represented at major startup related events. Additionally, this project will contribute to the expansion of Startup Europe to the Balkan region as well. This will be done through collaboration with leading startup support organisations in Serbia, Macedonia and Bosnia by analyzing how to adapt to the needs of the Balkan ecosystems.
“The driving force behind MY-GATEWAY is to make them connected, to let them learn from each other and to come up with meaningful activities that will help them support their startups”, says Tóth.
MY-GATEWAY is an initiative of Startup Europe that aims to strengthen the capacities of high-tech start-ups and innovative SMEs in the CEE region to become better connected, gain higher market exposure, and have improved, streamlined access to funding opportunities and talents. For more information visit us at http://mygatewayproject.eu/ .
SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup 100 – The ranking unveiled!
The first 100 European tech scaleups have been unveiled today, during the second SEP Scaleup Summit taking place at London Stock Exchange Group in London. Mind the Bridge in collaboration with ELITE, London Stock Exchange Group’s business support and capital raising programme, as part of Startup Europe Partnership (SEP), launched the “SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup 100” a ranking of the top 100 tech European scaleups.
Inclusion in the ranking is based on an algorithm that factors capital raised by the company since inception and qualitative parameters (such as employee growth, competitive position, IP and trademarks, traffic growth, sentiment analysis and M&A activity), analyzed in partnership with AI startup Zirra (*). The weight of the qualitative component will be increased over time, as more parameters are added and data is collected, increasing the accuracy and training of the AI models.
Announced three month ago, on the occasion of the first SEP Scaleup Summit hosted by Borsa Italiana in Milan, today is the unveiling of the first SEP ELITE Tech Scaleups 100 names.
Download the SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup 100 infographic
Top 3 EU tech scaleups are Spotify, Delivery Hero, and IHS Markit.
Out of the top 100, 32 are from the UK, 17 from Germany and 11 from France. 18 countries represented in total. Fintech is the dominant industry (19 scaleups out of the top 100), followed by E-Commerce (10) and FashionTech and Enterprise Software (8 scaleups each).
“In Europe, but above all outside of Europe, we don’t have a clear perception of what’s happening at the forefront of innovation on the Continent. Actually, the truth is that in Europe we are able to produce fast-growing startups”, Alberto Onetti, SEP Coordinator and Mind the Bridge Chairman commented. “Through this new Index we aim to provide international visibility to the best European tech companies by tapping into the analytical methodology we have developed in these last few years with Startup Europe Partnership.”
Luca Peyrano, CEO of ELITE, added “Scaleups are companies with great ambitions and high growth potential. They are the future of tomorrow’s economic prosperity. We are pleased to support the first edition of the Scaleup Summit together with Mind The Bridge, EBAN, the European Startup Network, The ScaleUp Institute and the support of the European Commission. Together we are committed to creating a dynamic European ecosystem that is conducive to growth, innovation, and where entrepreneurs can access the appropriate support and tools they need to thrive. ELITE’s mission is to support dynamic fast-growing companies because of their unique ability to innovative, create jobs and because they represent an extraordinary driving force for economic development in Europe.”
The ranking is to be issued on a quarterly basis with the goal of regularly providing a snapshot of Europe’s high-tech industry and to showcase the most innovative European startups that are scaling up. The ranking is not an indicator of investment or business quality, rather a way to highlight some of the most active tech scaleups in Europe, raising awareness on one of the most important segments for Europe’s future prosperity.
“Today the ranking of the top 100 European tech scaleups has been unveiled. We plan to issue the SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup 250, SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup 500, SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup 1000 in the coming months.” – continued Alberto Onetti – And the algorithm will be adjusted to better factor in the quality of the companies and to go beyond quantitative proxies.”
“Our technology ingests and makes sense of news articles, websites, social media posts, legal and regulatory filings – all types of publicly accessible data on the web – said Aner Ravon, co-founder and CRO of Zirra – Using a suite of domain-customized Natural Language Processing techniques together with a variety of Machine Learning algorithms, we identify companies, people, acquisitions, product launches and many other events. We sift through the millions of inputs to assemble an accurate company fingerprint. Beyond just the facts, Zirra identifies insights, signals, relationships and trends. The SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup index presented here is created using scoring built from some of the signals that Zirra continuously tracks on all companies in our database. Future plans include utilizing Recurrent Neural Networks for processing, analysis and scoring. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute with our technology to support the European scaleup ecosystem”.
Companies interested in getting a more comprehensive valuation can provide further information by completing the digital self-assessment tool ELITE Growth Compass, whose score will be included in the algorithm. A link to the tool can be found here: https://etinerary.elite-growth.com/en
(*) The qualitative analysis – produced in partnership with Zirra – currently factors in the following eight parameters: employee growth rate over the past 12 months, years active, funding trajectory, competitive position, IP and trademarks, traffic growth (current month vs. past six months), M&A activity, and Google sentiment analysis. The algorithm will be adjusted to factor in revenue and revenue growth plus other indicators. For private companies, revenue will be considered only if disclosed by companies.
STARTUP CAMP 2018
SHARE EXPERIENCE. CREATE FUTURE.
Mission.
Bringing together founders, entrepreneurs, investors, and selected students, the Startup Camp serves as the largest early stage startup event in Berlin.
Share Experience.
Conference | The conference features keynote speeches with insights and knowledge-sharing from startup veterans and industry experts. Office Hours | Offers individual lounge areas within the camp for participants to meet with experts for one-on-one Q & A time.
Create Future.
Pitch Marathon | A serious and interactive startup competition helping you to raise your first round of money. Expo | Showcase your product at the Startup Expo and reach out to a much wider audience of students, entrepreneurs, founders, customers, investors, and potential future partners.
We know Startups.
The organizers are serial entrepreneurs themselves who have started, grown, sold or shut down their own companies. Since 2005 we have organized more than 200 events & Meetups. Our goals are to help you start smarter and grow faster.
STARTUP EUROPE 2018-2020 BOOTCAMP
Presentation of Startup Europe
- Introducing some communication tools
- Presenting vision
- Getting the projects partners to meet
Lunch Networking
- Meeting per consortium
In partnership with Startup Europe and Paris&Co.
Startup Europe: leading partner for Entrepreneurs and their ecosystems
STARTUP EUROPE CAMPFIRE PARIS
Paris CAMPFIRE will be the first of a series of events piloted by the Startup Europe initiative of European Commission Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology through consortium leaders, to highlight the opportunities and network the community partners.
Thus the Campfire will be advertised throughout Europe – by setting the first one in Paris, DG Connect and Startup Europe initiative is encouraging Paris area and France for the leading role these ecosystems are taking in the support of start-ups & their ecosystems, and the shift France makes to become a startup nation.
OBJECTIVES OF THE CAMPFIRE OPENING EVENT:
The event gathers several objectives among which:
- Promote Entrepreneurship culture – The European Startup Continent
- Promote the Startup Europe Initiative and tools @overall European level
- Reinforce links between Startup Europe Initiative and national/local initiatives
- Promote opportunities for startups and ecosystems to participate in the 10 running and financed programs
- Discuss potential areas for further implications for next calls
- Showcase Paris Area as a leading hub for start-ups and build bridges with the CEE and Balkans
- Better connect French Tech & Paris Ecosystem players to Startup Europe
PARTICIPANTS AND COVERAGE:
Expected participants: 200 +
- Entrepreneurs and perspective entrepreneurs
- Venture Capital Organization
- Incubators, accelerators, clusters
- Innovation funding organization
- Government representatives
Coverage: National and European media
PROGRAMME:
- Introduction words
- Session 1: Initiative for Entrepreneurs
- Session 2: Presentation of the 10 ongoing StartUp Europe Projects
- Session 3: Supporting Startup Culture
- Session 4: Startup Founders Entering into International Markets
- Session 5: Connecting Balkan and Central East Europe with leading EU hubs
- Session 6: Lead fields for tomorrow
Event in partnership with Startup Europe and the Île-de-France Region
Eight startups will represent Belgium at StartUp Europe Awards in 2017
- Creative, Cybersecurity, Fintech, Gastronomy, Green, Smart Cities, Social and Tourism categories are going to be represent at SEUA17
Brussels, 13 of February of 2018. StartUp Europe Awards is promoted by the European Commission and supported by the President of the Committee of the Regions, several members of the European Parliament as Ambassador and it is implemented by Finnova Foundation in collaboration with StartUp Europe.
Digital African Woman is the responsible for Belgium. They are a social enterprise dedicated to the innovation and support for female-led tech business ideation. The Digital African Woman provides our best Master trainers to help startups develop their product and identify investor. We provide the opportunities for these women-led businesses to move from pitching their ideas to pitching a product.
Eight startups will represented Belgium in Startup Europe Awards.
In Creative category Ochola.asbl is the winner. Ochola is a friendly place where you can discover all that Africa has to offer, is also the ideal place to discover new people in love with Africa, and to think together about a better future for this continent. Open to all and in a vision of cultural cohesion, we welcome you around a café to better reflect on the development of the African Continent and the promotion of the know-how of its descendants.
Cyberber Way Finder is going to represent Belgium in Cybersecurity category. This startup helps to create a community of women cybersecurity experts and build up a network of companies that have a need for qualified professionals. Cybersecurity is a social issue. It has the responsibility of keeping our online data safe, and of preventing cyber-attacks from threatening our safety, and critical public infrastructure that provide basic needs such as healthcare and mobility.
In Fintech category, Ewala is the winner. Ewala allows you to send airtime credit to your friends’ and families’ prepaid mobile phone abroad.
Chocolat Guérin Boutron is the Gastronomy representant. They are a prestigious enterprise that today fosters a global awareness where the identity, individuality and cultural diversity of itspartners are not only respected but celebrated.
In Green category the winner is Robin Food. Robin Food store is an application that aims to reduce the food waste of distribution by referencing products close to the final date of sale.
For Smart Cities category Parcify is going to represent Belgium. This startup helps you with your packages, delivering in just a few simple clicks. Parcify connects private senders and businesses to independent couriers that are heading in the right direction, through a crowdsourced delivery platform, to ensure a sustainable, cost effective and convenient delivery of goods.
We Love BXL is the winner in Social category. WeLoveBXL is a brewery of talent. Our mission is to co-create a diverse, dynamic and positive community-driven environment where youngsters can be teased, inspired and stimulated in their personal development process. A physical hotspot to connect in the heart of Molenbeek providing access to a variety of core and hosted recreational and professional activities. Investing in talent and potential by setting up valuable partnerships with relevant stakeholders. Aiming to reach as many youngsters, focused on creating a lasting impact by empowering youth in their socio-economic challenges.
In Tourism, Vindr is the winner. This startup is an online platform where you can choose different Belgian cities and the shops most used by tourists and thus be able to locate them on the map.
Scale-EUp² – ecoSystems Connected to AcceLerate and Encourage European Union start-uPs with high Potential
Scale-EUp2 is a market driven project aiming to scale-up 30 IoT/deeptech start-up through the connection of 4 hubs (Paris area, Barcelona area, Stuttgart/Karlsruhe area, Styria & Carinthia area). The market focus is on 4 emerging application domains of the Internet of Things (IoT)/deeptech: Smart Cities, Mobility, Industry 4.0 and Health and Well-Being.
Six events (called Deeptech4good) will be organized during the project in the 4 hubs to help start-up raise funds (fundraising pitch contests), meet large corporates from the areas (business to business meetings) and get involved in public-funded innovation and R&D collaborative projects (open innovation workshops).
Key actions
- Screening and mapping high-potential start-up:
The objective is to identify the start-ups with high growth potential, learn how to help them individually, organize coaching sessions to help the start-up fine-tune their strategy and identify the most relevant actions to connect them with strategic partners in the value chain, access emerging markets and attract investment. Meetings with the start-up’s management team will be organized and an online “platform” will be implemented to facilitate the identification of skilled employees and recruitments at both the local and European scale.
- Facilitating market access:
A methodology will be developed to analyze the value chain taking into account the characteristics of the players targeted in the project, their development strategies, the diversity of technological bricks in the emerging field of “Internet of Things” and the specificities of the 4 applicative domains in the scope of the project to develop concrete, business oriented collaborations between the high-tech start-up. The value chains analysis will allow to organize open innovation workshops and matchmaking sessions, attracting stakeholders beyond the technological perimeter: public authorities, students, researchers, insurance companies, legal representatives…
- Attracting private and public finance:
After a benchmarking phase at each regional level, a board of private investors will participate in start-up fundraising challenges to evaluate the applications and the pitch sessions during the 6 events organized throughout the project. Moreover start-up will be informed, during the open innovation workshops, of every public funding opportunities at the regional, national and the European level to transform the emerging ideas into collaborative projects.
- Organizing Deeptech4good events to foster collaborations:
Six events (called Deeptech4good) composed of 4 main parts will be organized throughout the project:
- fundraising pitch: 5 start-ups selected by the investors’ board in each of the 4 categories will pitch their project in front of the audience and get feedback from the investors,
- a matchmaking event with corporate players will focus on providing start-up market access,
- an open innovation workshop, relying on the needs of the targeted markets and on the results of the value chain analysis, will be organized to facilitate the emergence of collaboration projects between the different stakeholders.
The events will be organized according to the following provisional agenda: 11th July 2018 (Paris – France), October 2018 (Germany), January 2019 (Austria), March 2019 (Spain) June 2019 (France), October 2018 (Germany). We will try to link our events with other major existing events to lower costs and acquire higher exposure.
Key contacts
| Organization | Contacts | Title | |
| Opticsvalley | Karl GEDDA | General Manager | |
| Opticsvalley | Paul STEFANUT | Business and Innovation Manager |