EIT Digital supported all the winners with pre-acceleration and EUR 15,000 each
The EIT Digital Venture Program 2021 offers an eight-week pre-acceleration program executed by five regional partners: Found.ation in Greece, Startup Wise Guys in Latvia, KTP in Poland, JIC in Czech Republic and Slovakia, BGI in Portugal and University of Ljubljana (SEB) in Slovenia.
Entrepreneurs with deep tech business ideas learn how to develop and finalise their Minimum Viable Product (MVP), establish their start-up company, and raise funds with investors.
They validate their business solution at the final „Pitch Days“, where they showcase their solutions in front of early-stage investors, potential clients, and experts from the tech community.
At the 2021 pitch days, out of 27 startups created during the program, 23 were selected to receive a cash prize of EUR 10,000 each. An initial EUR 5,000 tranche of support had already been awarded in May 2021, bringing EIT Digital support to EUR 15,000 each.
The next step is for the ventures to attract investment from private investors: the first ten ventures that will get a commitment of at least EUR 50,000 before 21 November 2021, will be entitled to an additional prize of EUR 10,000 from EIT Digital.
In the last 4 years, the EIT Digital Venture Program has invested in the creation of 93 deep tech start-ups, supporting more than 200 entrepreneurs in their early stage of development. Many of these teams have attracted investors during or shortly after the pre-acceleration program.
Revolab, a winner of the 2020 edition of the Venture Program, went in a record time of one year, from inception to closing a pre-seed round with Kilo Health, signing six-digit pre-order deals, and now expanding to the US. Other start-ups from previous EIT Digital Venture Program editions that have raised follow-on investments from private investors include Restpay, Worig, Kiimo, Roster, Ruupi and Sensomatt.
EIT Digital will continue to step up its efforts to discover and support talented entrepreneurial teams to quickly develop digital deep-tech innovations.