Innovation

DeepTech4Good: Start-ups Coming to the Fore

Samantha Michaux March 12, 2019

It’s all in a name. Deep tech start-up is the new term for a start-up founded on the basis of a breakthrough technology or science. The start-up’s product or service often revolves around a disruptive innovation. The development cycles they are involved in are often longer and more capital-intensive than with the products found in other sectors of industry. The European Union has spotted this and is now funding a European accelerator programme called DeepTech4Good. The initiative is part of Horizon 2020, the European Union Research Framework Programme, and the aim is to help start-ups raise their market profile and become a driving force in the Internet of Things (IoT) market. Five European start-up events will be organized under the programme, each resulting in the selection of eight start-ups to receive coaching on growing their business from the project partners of DeepTech4Good. The first finalists have already been chosen at the first two events called DeepTech4Good#Paris and DeepTech4Good#Stuttgart. DeepTech4Good#Stuttgart was organized by the project partners, S2i and Photonics BW.

DeepTech4Good is being coordinated by Cluster Systematic. Under the initiative, eight partners from Germany, France, Austria, and Spain will receive approximately €1.5 million from the EU and will be charged with acting as official EU ambassadors for the Startup Europe initiative. Based on a vision that deep tech is good for society, the program focuses closely on four IoT sectors: Smart Cities, Smart Mobility (modern travel solutions), Industry 4.0, and Health & Well-being. In total, 200 high-potential start-ups from four European hubs will be helped to forge networks with relevant stakeholders with the aim of initiating innovation projects. This should make it easier for them to access funding and gain further support in raising their profile. One of the overarching aims of the programme is to network and connect up hubs within Europe.

Eight start-ups receive awards at the pitch in Stuttgart

The DeepTech4Good#Stuttgart event in late 2018 was an opportunity for 23 young European enterprises to make a 5-minute pitch and inspire investors with their ideas. Eight winners were chosen after winning over the jury: Adlatus Robotics, AScon Systems, HD Vision Systems, INERATEC, skinmade, and vialytics (all from Germany), Mobility Work from France, and EET from Austria. The winners are now eligible to receive personal coaching and may progress to the accelerator programme. Gaining access to a Europe-wide network and receiving input from experts will help the start-ups scale up their business and provide welcome support with innovation initiatives – ideal prerequisites for evolving into future deep tech unicorns in Europe.

The role of Baden-Wuerttemberg as a start-up hub

“Deep tech start-ups will increase in significance for Baden-Wuerttemberg in the coming years. It’s particularly important to recognize and promote the scale-up potential. Events like DeepTech4Good#Stuttgart make a crucial contribution in this respect. With powerful sponsors like bwcon, Start-up BW, Agorize, VentureZphere, the Stuttgart stock exchange, and the StartupEurope initiative organized by the European Commission, the event provides an ideal network and it’s sponsors like these that will secure Baden-Wuerttemberg’s position as a future hub for start-ups,” says Dr. Petra Püchner, Commissioner for Europe of the Minister of Economic Affairs, Labour, and Housing Baden-Wuerttemberg, summarizing the exceptional importance of the event. “This support already starts on the doorstep at our events. For example, the start-ups receive specific training on the best way to sell themselves and different ways to network and embark on a collaboration with partners from industry,” adds Samantha Michaux, who as a project manager and Startup Europe Ambassador at S2i is responsible for supervising the project.

The next DeepTech4Good Business Event will take place in Graz in Austria on March 26, 2019.

Contact: Samantha Michaux, [email protected]

www.deeptechforgood.eu | www.facebook.com/DeepTech4Good/ | https://twitter.com/DeepTech4Good | www.linkedin.com/in/deeptech-4good-126140158/ |

Data Natives 2018

admin November 22, 2018

Data is part of our new cultural identity, transforming the way we communicate, learn and interact.

Data Natives is the meeting point for industry experts, entrepreneurs, tech and business professionals to inspire each other and disrupt the status quo.

Last year we brought together 1295 attendees, 70+ speakers, 20+ media partners, 30+ startups, and 20 partners. We raised the bar with cutting edge technology from innovators, influencers and industry leaders as well as the best of Berlin’s tech scene, from rising and promising European startups.

The third edition of Data Natives will welcome over 2,000 attendees and more than 110 speakers across the spectrum of the most exciting of technology today. Be a part of the most inspiring conference for the data-driven generation.

Innovation Fund awards grant to MY-GATEWAY advisor to promote young ideas!

admin October 9, 2018

4th September 2018 – MY-GATEWAY project is very pleased to announce that Seavus Incubator, together with Business-Technological Accelerator “UKIM” DOO Skopje and the Company for Business, Technical Support and Education “ICS Factor” received a total of 1.5 million Euros from the Innovation Fund to establish business accelerators for young people.

Seavus Educational and Development Center is one of MY-GATEWAY’s advisors, prividing counsel on how MY-GATEWAY activities can be adapted to the Balkan region.

The aim of those business accelerators is to provide young, creative people with the tools needed to start and develop specific businesses that will profit and participate in the progress of the Macedonian economy.

After signing the agreement, Vesna Ivanovska, general manager of Seavus Educational and Development Center, one of the three companies that received help to form a business accelerator, said she expects this project to have a big social impact.

“This project will encourage young businesses in Macedonia when they need it the most”

said Vesna.

It is thanks to those initiatives and projects that the efforts made by the Government of the Republic of Macedonia to catch up with the European standars of work are undeniable. Young people represent the country’s future and potential to grow. It makes a lot of sense to invest in them.

To read the full article in Macedonian, click here.

Original article by: Maja Илиевска-Пачемска

Scaleup Finland: A key scaleup ecosystem for Europe with a (still) unexploited potential

Serena Orizi September 5, 2018

Brussels, September 5th, 2018 – Finland is a key scaleup ecosystem for Europe, but still shows an unexploited potential, according to the last “Tech Scaleup Finland” Report presented today by Mind the Bridge and Startup Europe Partnership with the support of Business Finland.

219 scaleups have been in fact identified in Finland (equivalent to about 4% of the total amount tracked in Europe), totally raising $1.9B in funding since inception (2.3% of the total capital raised by European scaleups to date).

In addition, Finland ranks 9th in the Scaleup Country Index 2017*, between The Netherlands and Denmark, with only Sweden, among the five Nordic countries, outperforming it both in capital raised and scaleup population. In these terms, the gap with larger ecosystems such as the UK, Germany or France is likely far too wide to be bridged: UK scaleups raised, alone, 15 times more capital, the German about 8 times more, the French 5 times more.

“Though absolute numbers suggest that Finland is really far from UK, Germany, France, and Sweden, the conversation changes in relative terms – commented Alberto Onetti, Mind the Bridge Chairman and Startup Europe Partnership Coordinator – Starting this year we introduced two indicators to better understand the efficiency of a scaleup economy as it relates to the size of the country in question. Finland outperforms the rest of the continent for what we labeled the ‘Scaleup Density Ratio’ by producing an average of 4 scaleups per 100,000 people, compared to 2.5 in UK, 0.6 in Germany and 1.0 in France. And it scores well also against the ‘Scaleup Investing Ratio’, with 0.75% of GDP dedicated to scaleup innovation, 1.7x more than the European average, doubling the European powerhouses Germany (0.40%) and France (0.34%), being substantially aligned with the Nordics average of 0.82%.”

“Finland is definitively a key scaleup ecosystem for Europe with a still unexploited potential.” added Isidro Laso Ballesteros, Head of Startup Europe European Commission.

“The startup ecosystem is already now effective and flourishing in Finland. One can see an upward trend in the share of foreign VC investments and the growth in exit valuation levels.There is always room to improve. We are constantly building the Finnish startup community to the next level together startups, accelerators and investors. High-growth, scaleup companies create jobs and exports and thus are crucial for our national economy.” commented Marjo Ilmari, Executive Director, Startup & Fast Growth Business Finland.

Growth – Scaleup Population and Capital
The Finnish scaleup ecosystem increased its size in 2017 with 16% growth in scaleup population (+34 new scaleups) and raised $0.3B more capital, with a YoY increase of 17%. These numbers place it behind Sweden in the growth charts (35% increase in population, 30% in capital), but Finland still runs faster than its other Nordic siblings Denmark (13% increase in population, 6% in capital), and Norway (11% growth in population, 15% in capital).
Since 2013 the scaleup population of Finland has been growing a consistent 15-17% without any fluctuation, up to 10 point less behind the European average of 28% for the years 2016-2017. 2018 will be not different with a 18% YoY growth figure. Also on the capital raised side, despite the fact that in 2017 the country had a YoY loss of 20%, the $318M that the scaleups raised was good enough to add another 34 scaleups to the count. A constant growing trend is expected this year.

Capital Raised: 96% comes from VC, a few IPOs, no ICOs.
When it comes to capital raised, 96% comes from Venture Capital, while only 4% (about $0.1B) comes from the IPO channel. In 2017, 2 more companies joined the IPO club: Next Games and Rovio, not surprisingly reinforcing the impression that Finland remains the “land of gaming”. Both IPOs were around $40M, below the European average ($120M). Surprisingly Finnish scaleups have not jumped on the ICO train yet, as we didn’t track a single company which has launched a crypto offering the previous few years.

Scaleup Migration to the US
There are 33 (15% of total) companies in Finland that moved their headquarters abroad (typically to have access to capital) and we can classify as “Dual Companies”. These 33 raised $552M altogether, amounting to 29% of the total capital raised by Finnish scaleups. They mostly moved to the US (19 of them, 11 to Silicon Valley) and outperform in terms of capital raised, having attracted an average of $16.7M, compared to the $7.3M average of companies that choose a domestic growth path.

Founding vs Funding
Despite a recent story of the scaleup ecosystem in Finland, only 25% of the scaleups have been founded in the last 3 years. Finnish scaleups are very active in raising capital constantly: 52% had a funding event in the past 2 years. In 2017 56 scaleups registered a funding event.

Sizes don’t matter
The scaleup scene in Finland is dominated by “small” scaleups: the ones that raised between $1 and $10M, represent in fact the large majority (79%) of the population. Only the 3% raised above $50M (tech giants). However, in Finland size doesn’t seem to be that relevant in the Finnish ecosystem: the Scalers (companies attracting over $100M in financing) account only for the 13% of the total funding, while the “middle class” segment ($20-$50M) attract the most funding among the cohorts. The smaller ones raised 27% of the total.

Geography of fundings
Of all capital poured into Finnish scaleups, one third (34%) comes from Finnish funds, while US funds account for slightly less than one third of investments (27%) and British for a little minority (6%). Investments coming from the rest of the world are relevant as well, accounting for a consistent 10% of capital (coming mostly from Chinese and Singaporean investors).

“Startups ecosystems in Europe start to be connected among themselves. But we need to do still more – added Isidro Laso Ballesteros, Head of Startup Europe European Commission– Our competitive advantage is to be united in diversity. Advantage that can only be realised by working at ecosystems level to be a Startup Europe: a startup continent.”

To Game or not to Game?
Finnish companies operating in the Gaming industry are only 13% of the population and have attracted almost $400M, 21% of all capital made available to scaleups to date. But if we remove the 2 IPOs by Rovio and Next Games, investments in Gaming are actually slightly declining over that period. YoY growth (2017/2016) is anyway the highest, 3.7x.
Medtech (11% of the population) attracted 8% of the total capital ($142M) with a YoY of 1.5, Cleantech the 10% ($190M) with a YoY of 2.0, while traditional industries such Hardware and Software collected respectively 8% ($153M) and 9% ($161M), covering the 9% of the population each.

Scaleup Helsinki
The capital city of Helsinki hosts 131 scaleups, which raised altogether almost $1.2B. This concentration is 60% of the total population, and contains 63% of the capital raised. If we add Espoo, home of other 33 scaleups, concentration rates go up to 75% and 82%. Outside of the capital, Oulu is the largest scaleup hotspot, followed by Tampere and Turku.

M&A Momentum
The Finnish ecosystem is definitely seeing momentum in M&A activity. With a total of 112 acquisitions of Finnish startups and scaleups since 2010, after a relatively stale M&A activity, each year since 2013, 2017 signed a turning point with 45 M&A transactions, 3.5x compared to 2016. Nevertheless, they are still a domestic business, since the 38% of Finnish startups are acquired by Finnish companies. 28% belongs to US, 16% other countries, 13% to other Nordics and 5% to other countries (mostly Chinese and Japanese companies).

Not surprisingly, the Gaming startups get the third spot in the industry ranking of Finnish startup M&As with 11 deals (the 10% of all), right behind Software Solutions (first at 18 deals, the 16%) and Enterprise Software (14 deals, the 13%).

___

* Notes on Methodology
Scaleup Density Ratio: number of scaleups per 100K inhabitants. A measure of density of scaleups in a given ecosystem.
Scaleup Investing Ratio: capital raised by Scaleups as a percentage of GDP. A measure meant to measure the capital invested in scaleups in a given ecosystem, compared to the size of the overall economy of that country.
Scaleup Country Index: country ranking built upon Scaleup Density Ratio and Scaleup Investing Ratio. A measure of the overall innovation commitment of a given ecosystem and its ability to produce significant tech players.
The indicators above are produced and monitored by Mind the Bridge.

SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup 100 – The ranking unveiled!

Serena Orizi June 29, 2018

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.

“Tech Scaleup Europe 2018” SEP Monitor presented in London. All the data!

Serena Orizi June 29, 2018

In 2017 Scaleup Europe experienced a year of growth which can be described as sustainable: more than 1,200 scaleups were born in Europe (+22% of the total, +28% YoY growth from 2016) reaching a total of 5,596 that have cumulatively raised $83.2B (+36 growth in capital raised). But the gap with other ecosystems remains hug.

This is what emerged from the last “Tech Scaleup Europe 2018” SEP Monitor presented today in London on the occasion of the second SEP Scaleup Summit organized by Mind the Bridge and hosted by the London Stock Exchange.

“Let me share some good news: Scaleup Europe is growing, finally – commented Alberto Onetti, Chairman of Mind the Bridge and SEP Coordinator, while opening the event – We’ve measured good progress, but there is still of course a lot of work ahead of us. We know that the innovation is not a plant that gives you harvest quickly, you have to continuously seed and work to bear fruits. And we are seeing the initial European crops.”

The research highlighted that the strongest economies continue to produce the most scaleups: UK, France, Germany and Sweden top the Scaleup Europe Country Index, by contributing to almost 70% of that growth in absolute terms. The UK continues to lead the pack with a 28% growth rate, adding 368 scaleups to its population for a total of 1,668 as of end of 2017 (30% of the Europe’s total), clearly unhindered by Brexit talks in the meantime. France and Germany follow with a 32% growth rate each: France added 165 scaleups for a new total of 681 (12% of total), and Germany added 129 for a total of 530 (10% of the total). Sweden ranks 4th in the Scaleup Europe Country Index with a 35% growth rate, adding 126 scaleups in the past year for a new total of 489.
The regional averages show a similar story with Northern Europe (24%) performing the strongest and Southern Europe once again dragging their feet in the innovation wave, with a lower growth rate of only 16%.

“2017 was an amazing year for the startups in the growth phase. The glass is half full. Startups ecosystems in Europe are starting to be connected among themselves – added Isidro Laso Ballesteros, Head of Startups and Scaleups at the European Commission – This high level of connectivity contributes significantly to help startups in their growth phase. We still need to do more. Beyond US, Asia is growing at high rate. Ecosystems in Asian countries have unique characteristics that are helping with their high growth rates. Our competitive advantage is to be united in diversity. An advantage that can only be realised by working at ecosystems level to be a Startup Europe: a startup continent.”

On average, Europe nowadays registers approximately 1 scaleup for every 100,000 inhabitants, slightly up from 0.9 in the previous year. The Nordic countries outperform the other areas by producing on average over 3.7 scaleups every 100K people. In particular, Sweden (with 4.9 scaleups per 100K inhabitants), and Finland are definitely leading the way in terms of scaleup density. Among the larger countries, the UK leads with a 2.5 density ratio.

London has been confirmed to be by far the largest scaleup “hub” in Europe with over 1,100 scaleups based there. Paris follows (453 scaleups), Berlin and Stockholm are behind with slightly less than 300 scaleups. Other relevant emerging tech hubs (over 100 scaleups each) are Dublin, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, and Madrid.

“Beyond these main scaleup hubs, there is another Europe comprised of “tier-two” cities and municipalities whose role cannot be neglected – said Alberto Onetti – We will publish after the summer a dedicated study focused on these minor hubs that are key for Europe.”

CAPITAL RAISED
As mentioned, in 2017 $22B of new capital (average growth +36%) was invested in Europe for total $83.2B.
In terms of growth, large countries stay close to the European average: UK outperformed with a solid +40%, Germany registered a +36% average growth, while France a +30%. Northern countries are running faster, while Belgium and Netherlands reporting respectively +44% and +38% growth rates. In the Southern Europe, Italy is 2 point below the average (+34%) ,while Spain is slowing down (half than European average, +17%).
In absolute terms, the UK still dominates with $27.5B (33% of the total capital raised) and Germany ($14.6B, 18%) precedes France ($8.9B, 11%), this last change being the most noticeable since last year: in relative terms, Germany is home to “only” 10% of scaleups, but those scaleups took in 18% of the total funding in Europe. France by comparison accounts for 12% of the scaleup population, and 11% of the funding. Following, the Scaleup Europe Country Index finds Sweden with $7.3B (9%), Switzerland with $3.6B (4%) and Spain with $3.3B (4%).

EUROPE vs SILICON VALLEY/ISRAEL
Despite the growth, the gap with other ecosystems remains huge. In terms of number of scaleups, the Silicon Valley is worth, alone, a little more than the entire European continent, while in terms of capital raised it accounts for almost 3 times the entire amount raised by all European scaleups. Considering all the United States as a whole, scaleups there have raised $657.5B since inception, 8 times more than the $83.2B raised by their European counterparts. Israel scores better than all European ecosystems – apart from the UK – per number of scaleups and is second only to Germany and the UK per capital raised.

ACCESS TO CAPITAL: NOT (YET) A SINGLE WAY TO SCALE-UP
There’s not (or not yet) a single European way to scale-up for tech companies: while some are pursuing the venture capital funding path, other are leveraging private investors and family offices. One large and recently emerged group in particular is exploring crowdfunding and fundraising through cryptos (ICOs).

Venture Capital: data shows that $70.7B of capital poured into European scaleups comes from venture capital and private investors, by far the large majority (85%) of the total capital. European scaleups are still mostly depending on venture capital.
IPOs only represent 12% of the capital raised by scaleups ($9.7B) comes from stock markets through IPOs (losing 10 points compared to last year when it was 15%). Only the 1% of the European tech scaleups have gone public. And not all of the IPO money comes from Europe: 25% of the capital has been raised on US stock markets. On average, European scaleups collect about $120M in new funding when they start trading on stock markets. However, it takes time to plan and implement large IPOs: on average, European scaleups go public 8.7 years after inception.
ICOs: the main point of discontinuity compared to the recent past is that $2.8B was raised through ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), where Europe seems to have a competitive advantage over the United States. This is about 3% of the total capital raised.
3% of European scaleups have completed an ICO. Central States (driven by Switzerland rather than Germany and France) play a dominant role ($1.3B raised, 50% of the total), followed by Eastern Europe and the Baltics (that cumulatively raised over $0.5B, 19% of the total). Less than 15% ($395M) of the ICO capital total was raised in the British Isles.
An interesting example is the Swiss canton (province) of Zug, becoming more and more known as the European Crypto Valley. 27 scaleups that made an ICO – raising $1B+ – are headquartered there.

ICO’s have proven to be a very interesting substitute for the first round of financing of tech scaleups. On average, the ICO channel provides 4 times more capital (an average of $17.6M), than the generic series A raised with traditional VCs ($4.5M on average). Another benefit scaleups are leveraging from ICO’s is speed, which is just as important as availability when it comes to funding. European scaleups on average take 3.3 years to complete the Series A financing, and almost 9 years to go public. The ICO path is much faster.

“When it comes to the origins of the investments, in 2017 on average 43% of capital invested into scaleups come from domestic investors, plus another 11% from investors from other European countries, and approximately 40% from outside Europe – added Alberto Onetti – US investors play a leading role in this case with 26% of overall investments, followed by China (4%), Singapore (1%), and Israel (1%). One round out of ten is led by US investors, but they account for about one quarter of the capital raised by European scaleups.”

FINTECH DRIVES THE TECH INDUSTRY IN EUROPE

Out of the $22B invested in 2017, approximately $4.7B (about 20% of total) was invested with Fintech scaleups, a number that’s three times more than last year. 33 new Insurtech scaleups were tracked in 2017 and collectively they raised $210M. Agritech, Artificial Intelligence & Big Data, Autotech and Gaming are all present in a group that doubled investments in 2017 when compared to 2016.

A LAND OF SMALL SCALEUPS
In 2017, only 48 scaleups (2.4% of the total) crossed the $100M bar of capital raised and turned into “Scalers” for a total of 134 scalers nowadays in Europe (they were 86 in 2016). They cumulatively raised slightly close to $37B that is less than half of the total capital made available to European tech scaleups. 5 companies raised more than $1B in funding (or very close to it). These so-called “Super Scalers”, cumulatively managed to raise about $8B, 10% of the overall funding secured by the European scaleups.
That said, not counting the Scalers, Europe is land of “small” scaleups. 76% of scaleups (4,231 out of 5,596) raised between $1 and $10M attracting only $13.5B, the 16% of the total investments made available to European scaleups. 22% (1,228 scaleups) raised between 10 and 100M securing slightly less than $33B (the 39% of the total).

SEP ELITE TECH SCALEUP 100

The first 100 have been just unveiled: today, during the second SEP Scaleup Summit taking place at the London Stock Exchange in London, Mind the Bridge in collaboration with ELITE as part of Startup Europe Partnership (SEP), launched the “SEP ELITE Tech Scaleup 100” ranking, the index 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, 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 and increasing the accuracy and training of the AI models.

“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. Currently the ranking for 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 incoming months.” – commented Alberto Onetti.

Here the full dedicated press release.

MY-GATEWAY is selecting 9 startups to attend Web Summit!

admin June 15, 2018

MY-GATEWAY representatives are attending Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon this year (5-8th of November), and really want to bring top-notch startups with them! This is surely an opportunity you cannot miss.

By attending Web Summit, your possibilities to boost your growth potential will expand exponentially. As you may already know, our main focus are CEE startups from the ecosystems we work with (i.e. Czech Republic, Slovenia and Romania) but if you have some other connection with those ecosystems – maybe you run your business activities in the CEE region? – then you are most likely able to apply!

Make sure you apply through this F6s application: https://www.f6s.com/my-gatewaytowebsummit18

Deadline for application is on 20th July. Then you should be hearing from our evaluators by 1st August and by 8th August you should be able to confirm your availability to attend the Portuguese event. MY-GATEWAY will only provide you with the entry ticket, unfortunately no travel and accomodation costs will be covered.

The criteria we will followo to make the final decision is the following:

Startups at a more advanced phase of development of their idea, have an existing prototype and/or viable business plan. Applications from idea stage startups won’t be taken into consideration;
Startups that are running or interested in running their activities in the CEE region;
Startups that have a unique idea that stands out from the rest of the competitors.

What is Web Summit?

Web Summit is the largest tech conference in the world and is always a complete success. Like every year, we expect to gather in Lisbon over 70.000 attendees, 1.200 speakers and 170 countries for 3 full days of networking and doing business. Web Summit also gathers the entire investor ecosystem, from big fishes to the most relevant angels and venture investors, as well as over 2,500 international media outlets. Here, startups have lots of opportunities to gain exposure, such us networking, presenting their business and participating in panels, among others. MGW just cover the entry ticket, no the travel cost or any financial support.

TECHCHILL 2018

admin February 8, 2018

Startup season starts with TechChill,
the oldest, loudest and coolest annual startup and tech insider event in Latvia.

The leading tech event in the Baltics that brings together founders,
entrepreneurs, challengers and curious minds.

TechChill celebrates the best of the Baltic startup community by bringing together energetic founders, relentless entrepreneurs and passionate techies from across the region for a two-day tech chill.Literally.

Having grown from a small grassroots movement of like-minded tech enthusiasts, TechChill currently boosts 2000 attendees, including VC’s, investors, mentors and the region’s most up-and-coming startups.

This year’s agenda will focus on startup superheroes – breaking down the DNA of fearless game changers, innovators and frontier explorers who will share their ultimate behind the scenes takes on startup successes and failures.

The Heart of the Baltics

The Baltics are a great place to do business, full of talent and global ambition from within and beyond the region.

Every February, an energetic crowd of startups, entrepreneurs and investors brave the chill of winter and flock to Riga, an ever growing startup hub full of fresh ideas.

HISTORY

TechChill is the leading tech startup community event in the Baltics with a global outlook.

In a span of just 6 years, TechChill has grown from a small grassroots movement of a few hundred like-minded tech enthusiasts to a two-day community event of 2000 annual attendees, including VC’s, investors, mentors and the region’s most up-and-coming startups.

TechChill is the brain-child of Latvian startup community building pioneers TechHub Riga, who organised Latvia’s first startup event back in 2012, in partnership with TechCrunch – TechCrunch Baltics.

After the event evolved into what we now know as TechChill, it still maintained its signature elements of a comfortable size and an informal and relaxed atmosphere, which were the foundation of TechCrunch Baltic’s success.

Mobility Pioneers 2018

admin February 8, 2018

Breaking frontiers through open innovation in the automotive sector across Europe and beyond

Who Is It For

Startups

Apply as a startup and have the chance to attend, pitch, and exhibit at Mobility.Pioneers for free.

Investors

Discover 120 highly-promising startups advancing the automotive industry.

Corporates

Learn about technologies advancing the automotive industry and meet the innovators behind them.

The ultimate meeting point for tech innovators; where OEMs, manufacturers, mobility providers meet the 120 most promising seed and Series A Startups working on truly game changing technologies. Bringing together 500 decision makers under one roof to have the important conversations in an exclusive milieu and make the introductions that have the potential of driving the industry forward.

SEP 2.0: Facilitating Startup-Corporate Partnerships and Endorsing Exits

admin January 30, 2018

When compared to international heavyweights like Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, Europe’s scaleup scene falls short. Few of its startups are able to scale, and even fewer fit to acquire unicorn status. Startup Europe Partnership 2.0 finds its roots in the recognition of this gap.

Funded through the Commission’s Horizon 2020 project, SEP’s first iteration was established in January 2014 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, its objective to transform startups to scaleups by linking them with global corporations, investors, and stock exchanges.

In its second phase of funding, SEP 2.0 takes its initial aim to action.

The project is a partnership between 6 European organizations — Mind the Bridge (Italy), European Startup Network (Belgium), Nesta (UK), ELITE (Italy), Startup Olé (Spain), and Scaleup Institute (UK). Together, the members will organize four Scaleup Summits, all with the same intent: facilitating startup-corporate partnerships, increasing international visibility for European scaleups, and fostering exit opportunities (IPOs in particular).

After scouting upwards of 20,000 scaleups, Summits will host 75 each, totalling 300 participating scaleups. This is alongside an undetermined number of corporates and investors. Verticals are pre-determined, with the objective of increasing likelihood of successful business partnerships. For the first go-round, to be held in Milan on March 15 and 16, deep dives are Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and FoodTech.

Still, highly qualified scaleups might prove worthy; in this case, scaleups working in Digital Construction, InsurTech, Connected Cars, and additional alternative industries may be nominated.

On Summit days, corporates and scaleups will engage in qualified, face-to-face business meetings; have access to training activities concerning cultural disparities and how to produce productive partnerships; and generate procurement, development, proof of concept, and other collaborative exercises. Scaleups will connect with new customers, explore and penetrate alternative markets, and increase turnover.

The Summits should prove no less valuable for international investors and corporates, who can improve knowledge concerning investment in the digital sector and subsequently enlarge the investment pool itself. They will, too, obtain additional analysis and understanding of market trends and business models in digital sectors.

Finally, bi-annual meetings will facilitate financing and improve liquidity for European investments in fast-growing ICT startups and scaleups, and, as noted, stimulate financing through stock markets.

Over the two-year project period, expected impact is strong: 800+ scaleups matched with corporate investors, 600+ introduced to IPO opportunities, 250+ with increased international exposure, and 100+ obtaining dedicated IPO preparation via ELITE’s intensive accelerated exit program. SEP 2.0 anticipates €750M+ capital raised via Venture Capital follow-up rounds and IPOs, on top of €20M+ in new revenue via facilitated business deals.

In order to achieve such aims, SEP 2.0 will build on existing platforms with proven effectiveness and reach — e.g. Startup Europe Partnership and European Startup Network. With 24 member countries engaged in ESN’s ecosystem, the organization has access to over 25,000 startups and has built long-standing international relationships that will prove advantageous to the project’s ends.

SEP 2.0 provides these platforms with additional scale, integrating them with innovative activities in collaboration with international stock markets. In order to incorporate diverse and dynamic exercises, SEP 2.0 will blend physical activities with online services.

The project’s first major event kicks off this spring and will run until December 2020, with insights and improvements along the way.

Nominations will be accepted on a rolling basis — incubators, accelerators, and alternative organizations are welcome to provide qualified scaleup names to .

To stay informed about the project, subscribe to ESN’s newsletter at http://europeanstartupnetwork.eu.

About Startup Europe

Started in 2011, Startup Europe has become a reckoned reference in the European startup related field. Our mission is to build a Startup Continent by increasing the connectedness among all players of the European startup ecosystems.

Article written by Emily Bogen, a great intern at ESN.